Delft Off The Beaten Path

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Delft's historical centre has canals (of course). The canals are lined with older buildings, with lovely and varying gables as well as frills and furbelows of all types which reflected both the status of the original owners and the fashion of the time.

It is well worth spending time wandering the side-street and canalsides. Whenever I visit the Netherlands I am always amazed at the variation in gable-style in the older buildings, especially those from the 1600s and 1700s but also those from later. Having exactly the 'right' gable when your house was built was clearly very important!

So..wander, look up and enjoy! :-)

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Delft is well known for the Delft pottery ceramic products which were styled on the imported Chinese porcelain of the 17th century. The city had an early start in this area since it was a home port of the Dutch East India Company.

I (and you) may refresh our memory about Delft even without leaving Moscow. We should go to the Main Building of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts and see enjoy Faience and underglazed painting

Baluster Vases (from garnitures) – End of the 17th – beginning of the 18th century
Beaker Vase (from the garnitures) - End of the 17th century
Vase with a cover depicting a Chinese scene (from a garniture) Workshop the Porcelain Lampetkan – Third quarter of the 17th century
Baluster Vase depicting Chinese scenes (no cover) from a garniture – 1670-1680
Vase with a polychromatic painting (from a garniture) Workshop the Greek A – End of the 17th – beginning of the 18th century
Vase depicting a gallant scene in the landscape (no cover) – beginning of the 18th century
Vases depicting genre scenes in landscape (no cover) - beginning of the 18th century

Hendrick van der Vliet (1611-1675) – Interior of the new church in Delft
Jan van der Heyden (1637-1712) – A garden in Holland

Every time I visited this museum since my childhood I admired by these masterpieces… Never knew that I would be able to watch them in original…

12 Volkhonka St., Moscow
(tel.: +7 495 609-95-20, +7 495 697-95-78, +7 495 697-74-12),
Metro station: "Kropotkinskaya".
Ticket price for foreign visitors 400 rubles (10 euro) for adults,
200 rubles for schoolchildren, students and pensioners.
Attention! Ticket prices for exhibitions might differ from those for permanent collections.
Visitors are offered audio guides in Russian, English, German, French and Italian.
Many exciting tours are on offer!

Open daily from 10 am to 7 pm
Thursdays from 10 am to 9 pm
Closed Monday

+7 (495) 609-95-20,
+7 (495) 697-95-78
http://www.arts-museum.ru/exposition/?lang=en

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We enjoyed just "wandering" the streets and canals of Delft, almost as much as we enjoyed the Poffertjes and beer. Wandering means just taking a direction, or even NO direction, just heading off to see what you happen to see. We have found that we often "discover" small undisclosed corners not usually seen by short term visitors.

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The current Oostpoort or East Gate was built around 1400. It is a lightly built gate with a high-ceilinged area on the ground floor. Shots could be fired from this room through loopholes. The stairs are in a separate stairs tower, from which the battlement parapets of the adjacent city walls could be reached. Above the tower there was a waiting room. The gate is connected with the water gate by a piece of city wall. The water gate has a passage that could be closed off with gates. On the field side, above middle, a machicolation has been preserved.

In 1514 the towers were raised with a hexagonal floor and given a steep spire. Between 1962 and 1964 the gate was restored and turned into a double studio house. Later the houses were joined into one house, because the living space was too small. Since 1988 the former battlement parapet has been open as an exhibition area.

An unknown museum within Delft can actually more be compared with a art gallery. this is the P.T. van Elven museum, that shows a collection of this man that left a wonderful decorated and furnished canal house to the people from today. There are also some artworks from various artists. For art lovers and historical intrested people, it is quite interest to stop here and find out about how they used to live about a century ago.

Address: Koornmarkt 67 2611 EC DELFT

A bit out of the route are also some monuments. They are clustered close to one another in the Norther section of the old town centre. It should be disrespectful to not mention them at least on these pages, so here I name them shortly.
Saint Huybregts tower: is one of the three remaining city wall towers and or gates. It's a simple round construction and dates back to 1500.
The old Artillery Depot: part of the Armamentarium, here some highly explosive stuff was stored well outside the main centre of town, besides some heavy canons that in case of a sudden attack were already available on the north side of town. Now, here too, is a small museum.
The old University Library: Delft is a university town and well known for it's TU (Technical University), that holds a high ranking position in the world of engineering. The old library is a beautiful building, holding a vast collecton of books and literature over many centuries. A treasure of knowledge.

Just outside the center at the other side of the highway you can visit a "kinderboerderij" (childrensfarm).
It a farm where you can pet animals like rabbits, goats, sheep, birds etc. An ideal place to learn you children about the animals that live on a farm.
At the entrance is a restaurant where you can have real Dutch pancakes.

Have a nice view at Den Haag and Rotterdam from the upper floor of the red/blue coloured multistory high TU Delft building south of the citycentre. Take the bus or simply walk to the south starting at the huge C1000 supermarket on the southside of the citycentre. The entrance is free and the view amazing.