Category: Netherlands

Our fall trip ended as they all do when we dropped François off at the storage. We had plenty of time in the morning to wrap up a few things to prepare François. The place we stayed in Stein was nice, a lot of farmers in the Netherlands seem to have set up side businesses as campgrounds. This one is nice and very new. It made for a good place to spend the last few days.

The one issue with the small campgrounds is that in all three we have stayed at the final kilometer or two to get there are on dike roads. Netherlands is rightfully famous for its systems of pumps and dikes that have allowed it to reclaim a lot of land. This land makes for great farm land. The dikes are pretty tall and narrow and usually there is water on one side. The single lane on top is two way and there are pull outs to allow vehicles to pass. People manage to get around each other using the pull outs and driveways of the farms and homes .

As we were leaving google routed us on a dike road for about 7 kilometers. We were doing fine until I came to a point where there were road signs saying restricted to vehicles less than 2.2 meters wide. François is about 2.4 meters wide. I sat there contemplating what to do. The narrow road did get a slight bit narrower but I thought we would make it. At that point luck intervened and a tractor pulling farm equipment went by me that was wider than François. I took off after him figuring if he could make it we certainly could and I had the added benefit of having him clear other traffic out of the way as long as I stayed close.

Things were going well until I saw a line of cars going the same direction as us stopped on the dike ahead. After a few minutes of idling I saw the farmer get out of the tractor and go ahead to see what was going on. He came back in a few minutes and asked me to follow him into a drive way to get out of the road. We both had to back across a narrow bridge into someones driveway.

He then set off to help direct traffic while Ton and I talked to the owner of the home whose driveway we had occupied. After 20 minutes or so the farmer came back and asked if I could move further down the road to another farm. When we got to the farm we had to get a couple of cars to move so we could go back by the barn and turn around. With the help of the owner of the farm we turned François around and when we were pointed in the right direction the semi-truck had gone by and it was smooth sailing. This whole event took about an hour, and I was impressed about how nonchalant everyone was about the whole thing, the homeowner and farmer were totally nonplussed to have us show up on their property. I guess it happens enough that they are used to it.

The rest of the day was uneventful.

This is always my least favorite day of the trip. Ton spends most of the day packing our bags. I try to help where I can but am mostly useless except to occasionally lift something heavy. Tonight we will be our last night in François for this trip.

One unexpected complication for this trip that I realized today is the fact that we left the Schengen zone when we were in Morocco. This means our 180 day clock restarted when we reentered Spain on October 20, not when we arrived in Amsterdam on September 7. This means our spring trip will have to start later or be shorter than normal. I will be spending more time than normal over the winter using Schengen travel calculators to decide on flight dates. That is a bit of a bummer.

Well after procrastinating as long as we could we finally turned north and are now near Amsterdam. The two places we normally stay at around Amsterdam have both shortened their season and are closed, so I picked a place open year round at random. It is a nice small campground on a farm-and it turns out a historical site.

At the site of the campground there used to be a monastery that for a few years was the home of the philosopher and scholar Erasmus. In the mid-1400’s he was a leading philosopher within the Catholic Church. Before he got to that point he spent several years in Stein as a poor monk in a monastery that used to occupy the site our campground is on. He is a big enough deal in Europe that the program within the EU that allows students to attend any University in the EU no matter their nationality is called the Erasmus project.

We arrived early and Ton spent a couple of hours sorting thru what is going to stay and what is going to get packed tomorrow. I contributed little except to explore the campground and the immediate surrounding areas where I learned about Erasmus.

After Ton had everything sorted we set off to find an ATM as we need some Euros to pay for François’ storage for next year. After accomplishing that we returned to François for a big supper. We have a lot of food to eat in the next day and a half before we head to the hotel at the airport.

Today was a busy day for us, but not a particularly compelling one. We have had a check engine light intermittently since we arrived. Our day started with an early appointment at a garage in Delft to get that taken care of. We did not know what the cause of the light was and the dealer had warned us it could take a while to troubleshoot the problem. Ton and I had packed to spend hours in the waiting area of the dealer. Fortunately the problem was obvious, a failed part in the diesel exhaust system, and the repair was done and we were on our way by 9 am.

With time on our hands for the rest of the day we decided to take on a couple of minor problems. So we spent the next several hours going to hardware stores and RV part supply stores. After about three hours of running around Delft and Rotterdam we had the parts we were looking for.

With more time on my hands I decided to try to repair our old power cord but I needed a better screw driver set. There is an Ikea walking distance from the campground so I headed over there, it took me 45 minutes to find the screw drivers they had, only to discover they would not work for what I had in mind.

It has been extremely windy and rainy the last two days so when we had a little break in the evening we went on a walk thru the woods only to find the trail we were on terminated at Ikea. Ton remembered she needed a soap dish so we went back in for another 45 minutes of searching only to leave Ikea empty handed again. We may be the only ones in history to make two forays into an Ikea in one day and leave without purchasing anything.

We shifted about an hour south today to Delft. Delft is a nice town that has become our unofficial hometown in the Netherlands. Tomorrow we have an appointment at the local Fiat repair garage to hopefully get our check engine light resolved.

In route we stopped at an Albert Hein to stock up on some food to get us thru the next few days until we get to France where food is cheaper. When we arrived at the campground we did some expensive laundry. It would have been €12.50 if the dryer was efficient, but because we had to run it twice it ended up costing €16.50. The building at the top is the laundry, dish washing, and shower building for the campground.

We hit another place on our to do list for the Netherlands. We had been told that Haarlem is a nice town and worth a visit so we decided to take advantage of the window of good weather we had today to visit it. Haarlem is about 20 minutes by train south of Amsterdam.

Haarlem is a mid-size city and like most Dutch cities easy to walk. Part of the reason it is so easy to walk in the Netherlands is because everything is so flat. Today my watch tells me we walked 6.6 miles and only climbed the equivalent of 5 flights of stairs. That is flat.

We made a quick pass thru town and hit some of the highlights. The town hall was open to visitors. The most interesting thing for me was the painting in the room that was used for jury deliberations. It contained a large picture of a judge having his eye gouged out for not being just in his verdicts. Quite a warning for potential jurists.

We visited the church in the town square. It began life as a Catholic Cathedral, but during the reformation had become a Protestant Church. While it is a working church it seems that it has also become something of a community concert hall. One of the side chapels inside the church had even been converted to a coffee shop-something I have never seen anywhere else in Europe. So I guess you can listen to Sunday service while sipping a latte in the coffee corner.

The church organ is well renown for its sound. Mozart is said to have played the organ on his travels. We were hoping to see a concert there, but unfortunately the timing didn’t allow for it.

We criss-crossed the town a couple of times to look at different interesting buildings. The town had a solid feel to it and the people were fun to watch as always. We have even gotten better about staying out of the way of the bicycles as they zoom past. I think we got thru the day without having a bell rung at us in annoyance by a bicyclist, (even though we did almost get run over by a city bus).

Our final stop in Haarlem was at another old church. This church had been converted to a brewery. Jopen brewery felt more like a brewery from Portland than the traditional places we usually go to. In fact their specialties seemed to tilt heavily towards IPA’s with Cascade hops that are grown in Washington and Oregon. The beer was good.

On the train back we discussed a stop in Amsterdam for another walk, but instead Ton remembered a good chicken joint one stop from the campground. So we had fried chicken to go in François to end our day.

Our first stop of the day was the Katten Kabinet museum. It is a museum dedicated to cat art and cats. We don’t own a cat and neither of us have ever had a cat as a pet, but we are now cat people because of Dylan our sons cat Dottie. We have the privilege of cat sitting for Dottie a few times a year and she has converted us to the kind of people who pay large sums to go to cat museums.

The Katten Kabinet was inspired by the property owners cat JP Morgan. The museum is in a large 18th century house overlooking one of Amsterdam’s canals and supposedly hosted John Adams when he was ambassador to the Netherlands..

The house itself is worth a visit, but it is also filled with art about cats by famous artists including Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Rembrandt. It is mostly a kitschy salute to cats that any cat lover will enjoy.

There was a nice corner where people could leave dedications to their cats.

After our time visiting the Katten Kabinet we headed towards the city center. Although we have purchased a three day transit pass we ended up walking everywhere today. Amsterdam is one of the great cities to walk in. The center is pretty compact, the canals make for a dynamic backdrop, and the architecture is interesting and mostly original as it was not heavily bombed in WWII.

Ton proposed we visit a shop that was supposed to have the best apple pie in Amsterdam so I of course agreed. When we arrived the threatening weather finally delivered on the threat. We were fortunate to find a table. The restaurant had been in business for over 100 years and the interior felt like it was little changed since they opened.

We nursed our shared slice of apple pie and coffees thru a big down pour. As soon as the rain ended we moved to our next stop which was even older than the Het Papenland.

The In’t Aepjen began operating in the 15th century and has been in business since then. It survived two major fires in 1450 and 1477 that burned down large parts of Amsterdam. It got its name the Monkey Bar because supposedly two sailors returning from a voyage to Sumatra in the 1500’s didn’t have money to pay their tab and instead traded the owners a monkey they had brought back.

The place was really cool. It is one of about 20 bars in Amsterdam that are collectively called brown bars because of the mahogany used in the interior. We discussed going on a bit of a brown bar crawl, but our better judgment got in the way of a good time.

Our last stop was Beurs passage a walkway between two roads that has been decorated as an aquarium. We had sprinted by it yesterday during a rainstorm and Ton wanted to go back and take a look at it.

While the walk way has been in place for centuries, the passage as you see it today is a recent development. After that we headed back to François just ahead of the next rain storm passing thru Amsterdam.

The Van Gogh museum has been on our to do list for Amsterdam since the first trip. Each time we have looked at going there were no spots available. We finally landed a spot today.

We got caught in one pretty good down pour on the way to the museum but otherwise enjoyed our walk. The city seemed a lot less crowded than our previous visits which was nice, we weren’t sure if this was a function of the weather (pretty wet) or the time of the year.

We arrived at the museum about noon, but our ticket was for 1:15. They had a couple of people in front of the museum so I asked one of the young ladies what time we should get in line for the 1:15 entrance-she said it is not too busy today so if you come back at 12:45 we will let you in. So we headed over to the museum of modern art next door to avoid another squall and hung out in the atrium until we could enter the museum.

The museum follows his career from his early days as an artist until his death by suicide. His career as an artist only lasted 10 years from roughly his 27th birthday until he died at age 37. While he was not commercially successful during his life time he was well known within art circles and admired. After his death a lot of his paintings went to his sister in law who eventually donated them to the museum.

Van Gogh had a contentious relationship with Gauguin. It was during the aftermath of a fight with Gauguin that Van Gogh famously amputated his own ear.

We were pleased with the museum. It was small enough to be easy to navigate, but had an extensive collection of his paintings representing his entire short (but prolific) career. It was not so crowded that you could not get a good look at all of the paintings, even the famous ones.

The Van Gogh museum is considered one of the must see places in Amsterdam. And now that we have visited it we are glad we did.

When we came out of the market the skies had opened up, and there was some blue between the big cumulus clouds. We headed down to the Albert Cuyp market which takes up several blocks of Albert Cuyp street. We were near the end of the day but still enjoyed the walk. We stopped in an old restaurant and got two famous Dutch foods. Bitterballen, and Apple pie. Apple Pie is self explanatory but Dutch apple pie is very good. Bitterballen is a fried ball of dough with a meat puree like filling. I think we liked the apple pie better but we can now say we have had bitterballen.

We spent the rainy day hanging around François getting over jet lag and planning for our unexpected extended stay in Amsterdam. We have been trying to go to the Van Gogh museum here, but were never able to get tickets. Today we were able to get tickets for tomorrow so we are off to Amsterdam to tick off one of our bucket list items for the Netherlands. Ton has come up with some other good ideas for the weekend so we will be busy being tourists the next few days.

Our optimism yesterday crashed this morning. When we started François the check engine light was on again, so we began our day by reaching out to the Fiat dealer nearby. During the drive over the light went out so some optimism returned, but in the end we decided we needed to be sure the engine is ok before we head to Morocco. The earliest appointment for a full appointment to do the diagnosis was Tuesday, that was a little later than we hoped, so we contacted the dealer in Delft that did the work on our airbag computer, but their earliest appointment was also Tuesday. So we are now here until Tuesday instead of Friday. Bummer.

Since we were already out and the weather was nice Ton suggested we go to Alsmeer for the day. It was reported as a pretty town on a large lake. Since it was pretty close I agreed. The drive over was easy and we parked up about a kilometer out of the main town.

We had driven along the lake and it was pretty, but as we headed into town the lake disappeared behind houses and never appeared again. The downtown was nice but not exciting. We saw signs for old town Alsmeer and headed towards it. The entrance was promising with a nice canal bridge and a couple of interesting buildings. As we got to the end of the walkway we came on a ticket office and had all but decided to turn around when a nice old gentleman came up to greet us. In the end neither of us could tell him we didn’t want to spend the entrance fee so we went in.

There were a couple of workshops and hot houses with flowers, But after the beginning it turned into a garden with different themes. The gardens were nice, and if you were really into gardening interesting because it included a lot of plants that are no longer in style, so rare. There was no sign of an old town, so we did a quick turn thru the gardens and headed back to François.

When we started François the check engine light was back. So our decision to stay seems like the right one.

Our neighbors are American. Nearly every trip we come across an American couple in one of the campgrounds. It’s funny how your ear is drawn to your own accent. When I went outside I heard them talking to each other inside their van. They are here on a trial run with a rental van to see if they want to buy one for future use. We had a nice chat and they asked some questions about our experience over here. It was fun to be able to share our experience with them.

As I said yesterday we have a check engine light that needs to be diagnosed. Luckily there is a Fiat dealer only 5 kilometers away, so once we got going we headed over there. Again luckily, they were able to squeeze us in to their schedule today. We had to wait a couple of hours in their nice customer waiting area. Ton used the time and their WiFi to download some shows onto her iPad.

Again luckily, the check engine light was caused by a one time event with our diesel exhaust system so all they had to do was reset the computer and we were on our way. The rest of the day was spent grocery shopping at the giant Asian grocery near by, and at a Lidl for meats and vegetables. All in all it was a productive day.

We are back in Europe for our next trip. The flight over was uneventful once we got out of Portland. There was a little misadventure at the beginning when one of us forgot their carry on bag at home which resulted in a mad dash back home from the airport. In the end we made the flight with minutes to spare and it all ended well. Thanks Rebecca for your help and patience.

After arriving we headed over to the storage we use, to pick up François the motorhome. He was sitting in his usual spot waiting for us, but we noticed that one of the storage buildings that they use had burned to the ground. The building was huge, nearly 100 yards long. The owner said the fire had happened about two weeks ago. Not only was the building destroyed but 180 travel trailers (caravans) had also been destroyed. He said that he has been spending a lot of time talking to insurance companies, but he thought everything would be ok in the end.

We had been hoping to move François to indoor storage when we returned, but now we are going to be happy with outside storage.

The only other issue was that we have a check engine light to deal with, so tomorrow in addition to going grocery shopping we are going to have to find a mechanic to see what is going on with our engine.

Today was about preparing to leave. Our airbag computer had failed while François was in storage over the winter. When we arrived in March we took him in to try to get it fixed but the parts took 4 to 6 weeks to arrive so instead we made an appointment for today to get it fixed. In addition we needed our regular maintenance including an oil change. Our morning was devoted to getting that taken care of. Everything was done efficiently and we were back at the campground by 1pm. Ton spent the rest of the day packing and I did a few minor things around the outside of François while she worked. We finished most of the food in the refrigerator for dinner.

We spent the morning starting to organize François for storage, that is, Ton organized François for storage and I stayed out of the way and helped a couple of times to lift things that needed lifting. We are pretty much surrounded by British so I spent most of the morning in conversation with our neighbors.

After lunch Ton was ready for a break so we walked into Delft. Delft is a lovely town, and could not be more Dutch. Clean sturdy looking homes, canals everywhere and lots of bikes. It is a nice city to walk in and has thoroughly charmed all of English neighbors in the campground as well as us.

After strolling around for a while we went to a pub that specialized in Belgian beers. Ton ordered a Leffe to make up for the one we didn’t get in Dinan the other day. When it came a Dutch gentleman next to us told her that if she liked dark beers she should order the one he was drinking. We struck up a nice conversation mostly centered around beer with him and his wife. They also gave us some tips on places to visit when we return in the fall. We really enjoyed the conversation and ended up spending about an hour there.

After a couple of beers we returned to François and continued to work on cleaning the last of the food out of the refrigerator. Not an exciting day, but in the end a satisfactory one.

A photo from yesterday as today we spent the whole day driving to our final stop on the trip. We started in Delft and are ending the trip in Delft. We have three nights here where we will clean up François and prepare him for storage.

We are in a corridor full of British so have heard a lot of English. The van across from us is an English/American couple so we are not the only Americans in the neighborhood.

There are two places we have been meaning to visit in the Netherlands but have not gotten to yet, one is the Van Gogh Museum, and the other is Keukenhof. When we first arrived we decided to go to Keukenhof. It is less expensive if you buy the parking and tickets in advance so we went on line, while there were tickets available on the weekend, the website said the place would be crowded. Since this is the second most visited site in the Netherlands we took that to mean very crowded. Today was not marked crowded and it was supposed to be sunny so we bought the tickets.

Keukenhof is a garden that displays all of the different flowers grown commercially in the Netherlands. The main reason most people come is to look at the Tulips, but there are many other types of flowers on display.

We set the alarm for 8 am because we have both been sleeping in, a combination of cold nights and jet lag. We packed François up and had him ready to go at 9:30, but when I turned the key the battery was dead. I headed up to the office to have them call for a jump start, but they volunteered to send one of their maintenance workers over to give us a jump, and we were on our way just before 10am.

We were in the park at 10:45 and the place was already jumping with people. We both looked at each other and wondered what it was like on a busy day. The place is beautiful, and the various gardens and indoor displays are very beautiful.

The only issue was that it was about a week to 10 days too early for Tulips. There were a few Tulips in bloom, but we mostly had to make due with other types of flowers that were also beautiful. The primary season for Tulips is April and May so we were just a bit too early.

The other issue was that while the day was beautiful the temperatures where in the low 50’s with a steady wind that made it feel much colder. Everyone was bundled up and the souvenir stores were doing brisk business selling stocking hats, and scarves.

We had bought a 45 minute canal tour, we enjoyed it but most of the fields were not in bloom. There were a lot of birds in the fields and some daffodils blooming so all was not lost.

We spent about 5 hours at Keukenhof and enjoyed ourselves despite the cold temperatures. Even without the Tulips in full bloom the grounds are beautiful and worth a visit as they plant other seasonal flowers during non-Tulip months.

Our last stop for the day was a mechanics shop near the campground. I had emailed them to see if I could get some things taken care of. Francois is approaching his 10th birthday and there are a few minor things that need maintenance, and one more major thing that needs taking care of. I had reached out to a place with a good reputation and they had asked us to swing thru to take a look at our issues. They closed at 5 and it looked like we were going to arrive at 4, when just 1.5 kilometers from our exit the freeway came to a complete halt, and the 1.5 kilometers took 45 minutes to negotiate. We arrived at 4:45 but they were kind enough to take a look at our problems. One they offered to work on when we return to the Netherlands, but unfortunately our bigger problem is going to require a trip to a Fiat dealer. So we have to work that into this trip.

We choose to have a lazy day today. The spring and fall time changes do not line up between the US and Europe so we ended up sleeping an hour later this morning as today was the day for Europeans to spring forward. It didn’t make a lot of difference for us as we had very little planned intentionally.

It was a very blue day, but very windy. François had been rocking all night in the wind and when we finally decided to head into town it was still blowing quite hard. We bundled up and joined the crowds in downtown Delft.

Our agenda was very simple, go have a couple of beers at interesting bars. Delft has been a major producer of beer in the Netherlands since the middle ages so we wanted to get a feel for the beer history of the region. Ton had picked out a couple of places that specialized in Dutch and Belgian beers. Our first stop was at a small pub near the church. They had over 30 beers on tap, and after consulting with the owner I choose a Dutch Blond, and Ton choose a “Belgian” dubbel.

The Belgian is in quotes because the bartender explained that the brewer of the beer was a Dutch guy who lived near the Belgian border. He initially brewed his beer in his hometown, but he learned that while Belgian beer was in vogue nobody was interested in Dutch beer. So after a couple of years he bought a place a couple of kilometers away on the Belgian side of the border and sales soared for his “Belgian” beers.

Ton had picked out another place that had a large selection of Belgian beers, but when we got there all of the inside seating was taken and the substantial outside beer garden was also full. We may return later if the wind is not blowing.

Our final stop was a small brewery which is the newest in Delft. While the building was being converted to a brewery a stray swing of a sledge hammer uncovered a forgotten cellar under the main floor. This happens quite frequently so the local town archaeologist was brought in and after some investigation he determined that the cellar had been used in the past as a brewery so the building has returned to its original roots.

We sat in the cellar that was the old brewery for our beers. The newest brewery in town has good beers that hopefully make the ghosts of the old brewers proud. We were debating whether to have one more beer when I spotted a place on the man square offering Affogato which is ice cream topped with espresso. Ton loves Affogato so we skipped the beer in favor of dessert. It was a good choice.

Last night Ton proposed a trip to Rotterdam to get us into the swing of things. So we forced ourselves up a little earlier. Ton prepared a nice hearty breakfast. It was our first big meal of the trip. We then set off for the train station for the 15 minute train ride to Rotterdam. In what was going to be a trend for the day, we showed up at the platform just as the doors closed on the train and it began rolling. Fortunately, the next train was in 15 minutes.

Rotterdam’s city center is very different than any other we have visited in Europe. In May of 1940 as the Germans were invading the Netherlands they sent one of the first mass air raids to Rotterdam, in 45 minutes the downtown core of the city was leveled with hundreds of deaths.

After the war most cities tried to reconstruct the buildings that were lost to bombings or battle, but in Rotterdam they decided to start form scratch rather than rebuild the old buildings. The result is a city of very modern and vibrant architecture. It has the feel of an American city, but with European walk ability. We really enjoyed it.

Our first stop was the Market Hall. It is supposed to be the largest covered market in Europe but I think it depends on how you define big, it certainly is the tallest. It is a giant food court with foods from all over the Netherlands and the world represented in different small restaurants. The interior is a gain arch covered in murals of food, plants, and animals. In addition to all of the restaurants the building also incorporates over 200 apartments. One of these apartments would be perfect for someone who didn’t like to cook!

Our next stop was the flamboyant yellow cube houses. These were built in the 1990’s as a civil development project. The architect promised something unique and he certainly delivered.

There were originally going to be 70 of these built, but in the end only 38 were completed. While people were interested in looking at them, they are not the most practical places to live so demand was not that high.

After the food hall, the yellow cubes and the longish walk to get to them our next stop was food. In the Netherlands we have been trying a lot of Surinamese food. It is an interesting blend of Chinese, Indian, and Caribbean food. We were excited to find what was touted as the best Surinamese restaurant in Rotterdam and it looked promising. It was full and informal which is always a good sign that it is the food not the ambiance that is driving business. I liked the food, but Ton was a little disappointed.

We had been reading about what the Lonely Planet called the best bar in the world so we decided to check it out. Unfortunately it was not open when we went by so Ton’s culinary experience in Rotterdam was disappointing.

Luckily we saw a nice bar on our way to the train station so Ton was able to enjoy a nice Dutch beer while I settled on a Czech Pilsner. We arrived on the platform for what was to be a quick ride back to Delft only to see our train pulling out. Luckily there was another in about 20 minutes so we moved over. When we arrived in Delft we found that we had missed our bus to the campground by 3 minutes, the next one was in 27 minutes but it did not turn up. We finally got a bus 57 minutes after arriving. So while the trains and busses run frequently we did not have very good luck with them today.

We had another late start to the day as a combination of jet lag, and iffy weather kept us in bed until late. We lounged around all of the morning until about 1pm when Ton suggested a walk to town.

We had visited Delft last year and spent a couple of nights. We spent one day checking out the town, and used it as a base to explore the Hague for another couple of days. Ton wanted to go back to a couple of the sites and check them out again.

After a short 25 minute walk we were in the main square of the town. As we expected it had not changed. The square is nice, and Delft is on the tourism trail as it is famous for its blue pottery, and as the home of the girl with the pearl earring. Scarlett Johansen starred in this movie a few years ago and it still drives visitors to Delft.

As we were walking thru the square a wedding party emerged from the town hall. The friends and family formed two lines and the newly weds walked thru it, while everyone blue bubbles. We guessed the bubbles replaced the throwing of rice, but maybe the Dutch never threw rice, and always blew bubbles at newly weds.

We had a nice walk thru town, but we had a deadline as it was supposed to rain about 4pm. Ton wanted to make one more run thru the supermarket before heading back to François. After 45 minutes we emerged from the Jumbo supermarket with a pack full of miscellaneous food and hustled back to François just before the rain started.

We settled in for the night, but after the rain it was a bit damp and chilly so I wimped out and turned on the heater to warm François up before we went to bed. We are planning to head out tomorrow for a proper day of exploring in South Holland.

We both slept in. I was up around 10 am and Ton took a little longer to get going. It was chilly overnight, and while I thought about turning on the heat we managed to make it through the night

To allow Ton a chance to sleep in peace I decided to head into town to see if I could find a charger for my Fitbit to replace the one which is probably sitting on the table next to where I packed my carry on bag at home. After walking to a couple of stores I was told it was unlikely I would find one and would have to order it on line. I wasn’t sure if that would work here, but telling Ton of my dilemma she said she thought we could order it from Amazon. After adding the campgrounds address to my account I was able to order one for delivery (hopefully) tomorrow.

We had our first and last meal of the day around 4 pm as jet lag is also messing with our meal schedule. To prevent us from falling to sleep too early we had a nice evening stroll taking in the children park next store, and heading to one of the main shopping areas in town.

Delft is a very prosperous looking town, almost stereo typically Dutch. It is full of solid looking well maintained Brick buildings, tall and good looking people, and of course canals. It is the kind of town I could envision living a good life in. The evening crowd was very young as Delft is a famous university town.

We finished the day off with a little recreational shopping in two grocery stores. After about 45 minutes of wandering aisles looking at various foods we walked out with a single bottle of salad dressing, and made our way back to François for the day.