Delft in January

I used to live in Delft.  It is such a long time ago now and as Delft is less than half an hour away on the train I decided to visit it and find out what it is like nowadays.  It was not a good day unfortunately as the moment I got off the train it started to drizzle and it never stopped, rather the rain became more persistent making it difficult to juggle umbrella, rug sack and camera.

Coming off the train at what I remember was a rather nice if quaint station I was horrified to look at a kind of wasteland all around the station with heavy machinery and a minefield as far as finding your way through the cordoned off pathways to the main road is concerned.  On each side of this path there were some twenty if not more bicycle racks with hundreds of bikes and I wondered how anyone could find back their property at all.

 

Construction was in full flow and I momentarily considered to simply turn back as this was not what I wanted to look at.

 

I got out my umbrella however and persevered.  I was not sure which tram to take so I walked the familiar route to the main square in town and slowly the surroundings changed back to what I remembered of Delft as the picture postcard town:

The lovely canals with their picturesque architecture, the large but for today deserted square in the centre of town with the New Church.  Today is blue Monday, the worst day of the year apparently, yes, of the whole year, in terms of depressions and feeling miserable.  Even the tourists kept well away on this dripping wet and cold January day.  But the church looked magnificent against the grey sky and at the end of a wet and deserted square, and so did the municipality for that matter.

The Coffee Shop that I passed on my way (one of those coffee shops not selling coffee) also looked deserted.

 

 

After a look inside the splendid New Church which has the famous tomb for William of Orange,

I carried on to the Old Church (where he, William, allegedly was killed) and which has some splendid stained glass windows

and which is situated at the side of a  very pretty canal even on this very miserable Monday.

However, I’d had enough of the rain and the cold and decided to catch a train back to Rotterdam.  It was good to see it again though but I don’t recommend a visit on a cold midwinter’s day in January.

I’ll get back to some writing and posting some book reviews shortly but for the time being I’m enjoying the pulling together of a photo account of my visit to The Netherlands. In particular as this helps to coordinate my thinking about the novel that I’m writing.

 

 

 

 

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