Amsterdam - The Hague, Delft and Rotterdam

Our next day in Amsterdam was a long one! We booked a day trip to visit 3 nearby cities by bus and were on the go from about 9am to 6:30pm! Our first stop was The Hague which is the third largest city in The Netherlands. We drove past the residence of the Dutch Monarch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima (who is from Argentina). We also stopped at the Peace Palace which houses the International Court of Justice, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, The Hague Academy of International Law and the Peace Palace Library. There is also an eternal flame outside the gates dedicated to the idea of international peace.

Residence of the monarch above (can barely see it through the trees).

Peace Palace.

Eternal flame.

We got a brief glimpse of Binnenhof which is the Parliament Building.

Then we walked through a fancy shopping mall, got some hot chocolate and got back on the bus to head to Delft. Here are some other buildings we saw along the way.

In Delft, we did a tour of their Delft pottery factory - they are known for their blue and white pottery although they make different colors as well. Delft was also home to the painter Jan Vermeer.

Giant Delft Pottery apple.

The Night's Watch made into a mural of Delft tiles. Two people worked on this for a year. It took that long to recreate the painting in tiles.

This is one of the artists at the factory. A lot of the pottery is hand painted. After the piece has been fired once, the artist paints the design on. You can see the paint looks grey or black. Once the design is done, the piece is fired again which makes the paint turn blue.

In these two pics you can see pieces in the different stages of the process. First piece after being fired, then painted before being fired, then after being fired with paint turning blue.

Various things on display or for sale in the gift shop. These items on the right are tulip vases.

Family pic in front of the factory!

Hugging the frites!

City Hall (Stahuis Delft) where they used to perform executions including the man who assassinated William of Orange in 1584. The market going on in the pic to the left is for fabrics.

New Church (Nieuwe Kerk) where William of Orange was buried. It is directly across the square from City Hall.

Another church nearby.

Interesting stamp to decorate my veggie burger at our lunch spot.

Blue heart of Delft above and Gavin in Delft blue pottery clogs.

Portrait made from Lego dots that decorated one of the shops. It was not a Lego store, much to Gavin's disappointment.

Microtheater

A drinking bike tour where everyone pedals to get around and you can drink at the same time.

This is the last part of the old city walls of Delft.

Our next stop was Rotterdam! It is the second largest city in The Netherlands. A lot of the city was bombed in WWII, so much of it has been rebuilt and looks more modern than Amsterdam.

This was an interesting statue we came across. It is the Toonder Monument - Toonder was a Rotterdam born comic book author and this shows four of his characters.

Modern looking buildings and bridges - taken from the bus so some are hard to see.

These are the famous Cube Houses of Rotterdam. Each house has three floors with the first floor as the living room and kitchen, the second floor has two bedrooms and a bathroom and the third floor is a flex space which sometimes is used as a garden. Total area of the apartment is 100 square meters (1,076 sq. ft.).

The walls and windows are angled at 54.7 degrees. About a quarter of the space is unusable because of the angled walls.

People do live in these and apparently they are expensive! The one we toured is owned by someone who decided to open it to the public for tours, for a price.

Living room area.

Master bedroom.

Top floor set up as a lounging space.

Kitchen and dining area. About 20 feet from one side to the other!

Monkeys!

Our last stop was Market Hall (Markthal) which is an enormous structure!! It 's a residential and office building with a market inside. 

There are 228 apartments and various offices. There is also an underground parking structure which can hold over 1200 cars.

Here is a view looking down to where there are more shops and escalators going down further into the parking structure.

We were on street level and the view above was amazing. All the squares are actual windows of offices or apartments.

This was opened in 2014 by Queen Maxima. We only had about 20 minutes before we had to get back on our bus but it looked like an amazing place to explore!! Next time!

One last pic of a cool looking bridge with a tram coming towards us.

Our next day in Amsterdam was a little more relaxing. We did a canal cruise and checked out a local playground. Stay tuned!