Cheese and pottery

We left a drizzly Germany for sunshine and fluffy blue clouds in Holland....only joking, it was pissing it down. Gouda was the destination, famous for its cheese and smoking pipes and its 15th century city hall.


We parked up canal side, Vanessa having kittens as her door was 1' away from the edge.

We had a coffee in the market square, it was Saturday and market day. Helpfully we missed the Tourist Information shop by minutes. In order to squeeze both Eastern and Western European maps onto the crap nav I had to delete the Western Europe points of interest; ok if you know the address of the campsite or hotel beforehand, not if you want to find something nearby. We managed to find a town map, but hotels were not marked and the camp site it was showing wasn't there when we got there. After an hour of searching and the best the locals could suggest was try the town centre, which we had, we decided to head for Delft instead and look for hotels on the way in. Having just entered the motorway we saw the Campanile Hotel as we left Gouda.

We found another Campanile hotel in Delft and settled in for the night. Delft is primarily known for its typically Dutch town centre and Delft Blue pottery. We explored in the morning.


The Oude Kerk (Old Church), nicknamed Oude Jan ("Old John"), is a Gothic church in the old city center. Its most recognizable feature is a 75-meter-high brick tower that leans about two meters from the vertical.


City Hall.

At 9.30 in the morning the place was almost deserted, but we found one cafe on the square open and settled in for coffe and toasted sandwiches. It wasn't until we had ordered that we realised it was called the Willem van Oranje, who was the great-great-grandfather of William III of Orange who ousted Charles I at the battle of the Boyne in 1690.

Deflt was a pretty place to wander around before it was time to head off.