Day 7 - Delft, Kinderdijk and Scheveningen

How time flies when you having fun ..... it's been a week since we started our adventure!  And there's lots more to come ... including Lisa and Tobi's wedding this coming Saturday.  Can't wait!

Today we had a local day.  We started with a tour of the Royal Delft factory in Delft which is about a 15 min drive from The Hague.  A beautiful quaint little town that is situated on a lot of canals.  But their canals are covered in green algae and water lillies. Not sure if that is good or bad but it doesn't look too good.

The Square of Delft

A beautiful home in Delft.

The factory tour of Royal Delft took about 45 mins and it was great to see how they paint all the ceramic pieces by hand.

1.  the mould is made  2.  it has its first fire  3.  then painted in black paint  4.  then glazed and fired and the black paint turns blue

This mural has been made from many small tiles.  Just amazing detail.

A dress made in ceramics.

I managed to get myself a small Royal Delft plate from a secondhand shop in the town centre of Delft.  It has a serial number on the back that said it was made in 1965 and it cost 30 euro about $45 AU.

We then had lunch near a bridge so that Tony could take photos of the bridge going up and down to let the boats through.

Our picnic spot - the things I do for my man.

The boom gates come down on the bridge.

The bridge goes up to let the boats through.

Then the bridge comes down to let the people cross again.

Now we are off to Kinderdijk (pronounced Kinderdyke) to see the famous windmills.  Warning! lots of windmill photos coming and a video about windmills.

But first a stop off for a beer.

Our lovely waitress - she said we were the second Aussies through today. 

And of course we had to do the obligatory tourist photo.

A very busy day with tourists.

Now off to a really pretty part of Holland.....the seaside resort town of Scheveningen (pronounced Skavingen but the K has a gutteral sound to it).  

It's a beautiful town to go to for summer holidays and it's about 15 mins drive from The Hague.  I noticed three things in Scheveningen:

• women wear bikinis and it doesn't matter what size or shape they are.  They embrace their curves.......how nice.
• they don't wear hats and they sit directly in the sun.  The kids don't wear hats either.  But I must say the sun here is a lot gentler on the skin than back home.  
• people get changed into their swimmers and also back into their clothes after a swim right on the beach.  I suppose it makes sense.

As the sun slowly sets over the ocean we head back to our hotel have a small rest then out again to see the rest of The Hague.  But I'll blog more about that tomorrow.

From now on in our holiday we will be seeing more of Tony's German friends.  So tomorrow after doing last minute sightseeing in The Hague we head back to Germany to a small town of Detmold which is about 1/2 hour from Hanover.  We will be staying with friends Helga and Ulrich overnight.  

After that we will be in Hanover for 5 days for Lisa and Tobi's wedding.  Exciting times!