Delft canals, Gouda cheese, siroopwafels, and some very important Dutch folk

30 May 2022.

Today and tomorrow will be short road trips around southern Netherlands. First up is Delft. Famous for its porcelain, Delft has additional claims to fame and, no surprise here, they involve dead Dutch people.

We walked the 15 minutes or so to the Gouda train station where we caught the next train to Rotterdam Centraal where we connected to Delft. All of which took less than 50 minutes.

Delft station

From the Delft station it was a very easy (and short) walk into the historic center of the city. As we passed canal after canal, Susie and I both agreed that there was something inherently soothing about these watercourses. 

Our first goal was the oudekerk, the old church (don't worry, we'll get to the nieuwekerk soon enough). The goal here was a simple one: find the grave of Johannes Vermeer who is buried with his family beneath the church floor. And so we did.

yes, the church is leaning but stable

Quite a few of the ledger stones of other burials beneath the church stone were nothing short of massive with amazing reliefs still visible.

Next it was off the nieuwekerk. Located directly across the plaza from old city hall, this is the burial location for Dutch royalty, not to mention a few native sons who became quite famous in their own right (such as jurist Hugo Grotius).

old city hall

Grotius statue outside the church

While the royal crypt is not open to the public one of the most famous of all Dutchmen is of course William of Orange. His mausoleum is quite impressive.

After leaving the church we stopped at a nearby cheese shop to pick up a hunk for our Paris leg of the trip.

On the way back to the station we stopped at a cafe that Susie had read about somewhere recently. It was worth the stop: the food and service were wonderful. 

Back in Gouda we returned to the hotel in short order. Along the way we came across another stolperstein, this one dedicated to Nathan Jacob Cats (1895-1943), who perished at Auschwitz. His house was on the corner where there is now a bakery. He lived not far from Felix Wertheimer, the other stolperstein I mentioned a recent post.

Since we had picked up some Gouda cheese in Delft we thought the very least we could do was pick some up in Gouda too. We stopped at a shop near our hotel t'Kaaswinkeltje.

t'Kaaswinkeltje Gouda cheese shop (photo courtesy French Tarte)

I also found some delicious pâtes à fruit at a nearby pastry shop and we rounded out the food shopping afternoon with a package of siroopwafel from Kamphuisen, supposedly the inventor of this tasty treat.

the automat of stroopwafels or siroopwafels, we can't figure out the difference

And in the little park across from our hotel is this curious bit of stone. . . no signage, no name, nothing. 

Tomorrow it's off to Utrecht!