The Magic of Delft

I was given a gift last week!  A present I have wanted for the past 16 years!  A trip to my favorite city in Holland, DELFT. This is the birthplace of my most favorite of the Master painters of the 17th century!  A wonderful site to visit if interested is Essential Vermeer and the city of Delft. 
It was my misfortune or possibly fortune to have my camera decide not to be of use anymore.  As it happens there along the city Square is a wonderful camera store/shop called Talens Foto.  At first we all assumed it was the SD Card and so I bought a new one, stepped outside to check it out and it still was not registering any photo images, so back inside I went and the wonderful man there named Rein helped me once again.  This time on going back into the shop with dismay written all over my face he quickly took over my camera to see if he could determine the problem, but alas, my camera was broken and couldn't be repaired at least not there and not quickly!  Rein credited me the money for the SD Card I had just then purchased and decided he would help out this Canadian woman, he turned around and opened a drawer and told me I could buy another camera, yes it was used, but had been traded in when the owner of the camera upgraded, so this camera would work and it was an upgraded model of Canon that I already and the price "just for this Canadian" was special, I didn't really give it a thought I bought it and danced away from the shop happy as could be knowing I could continue shooting whatever images I felt like rather than relying on Paul and the pictures he chose to take that afternoon.  Thank you Rein of Talens Foto for settling this problem for me.
Anneke and Paul walked on ahead of me most of the time because I continued to walk as if in a dream.  I found the city, while modernized and grown since my last visit, still had so much romance and I was completely taken in by its romance.  I need to return there another time and stay several days so that I might wander at will and take it all in.  See this little car parked at the edge of canal?  I watched as the woman in the picture below this one park that car - the car had two elders in the back seat and one even more senior in the front along with the driver.  She parked that car so neatly near the edge my heart was completely in my throat watching, I could not have done what she had just accomplished and on the edge of the canal too, no way and I took my hat off to her in ultimate driver to driver respect!

 Then after she neatly parked the car and her passengers got out she spied a quartet of policemen on those Segways and asked if her car was allowed to remain parked there for whatever number of hours. (The answer - Yes for as long a you need)!  Mt friend Mar asked me to bring her a pair of wooden shoes, do you think these will do for heer?  WOW three of my sized footwear would fit into these.  I won't be travelling home with any wooden shoes this time!

The picture below is the City Hall or Stathuize.  Up close and personal the colours are muh better, and since I am using this new to me camerea, it is the best picture I could get.

This is but one of the older homes along one of the many canal ways that bore lots of old family crests, from centuries ago and each crest has its own story and meaning. As I walked in my dreamy state I shot only pictures that jumped out at me to be taken and that means when I finally get home I will have to devote alot of time and energy in cataloguing them.  It was in Delft that I longed to spend days but unfortunately for me there were only a few available hours.  I finally found the house where Vermeer was born but not time was allotted for a tour inside, maybe next trip!

Look at this picture above the colors and the tall spires of the New Church Steeples behind it clammered for my cameras attention and so another photograph of shapes has been added for my memory book.

This terraced cafe and the atmosphere of people sitting, people walking along the street, bicycles and cars all use the same street which is so narrow I held my breath each and every time I encountered people, cars and bikes making for the corner on the right side of this photograph.  How these drivers have learned to maneuver around the tiniest of streets in The Netherlands makes me envious, I know I would never have the nerve to drive here I would surely end up in the Canal or into one of the shops along the street to be certain.!!!

Needless to say I took too many photographs of both the New Church (where all of those royals of Holland are buried) and of the Old Church where Johannes Vermeer and other less notables were buried, but, not so interesting as the pictures I have chosen to share with you.  Holland is so very adept at utilizing each and every cubic inch of space it has and makes good practical use of what it has reclaimed from the sea.  Because the land of my birth is small and compact and it has always captured my heart and my imagination.

I have taken sick since returning to Els and really am not up to going to any of the places I had hoped to see and of course that means no trips into the city of Amsterdam either, but I have made myself a promise that I will return again next year and fulfill some of the activities I was not able to get to this trip, if God spares me!

There are many stories I can still tell, but those will wait until I am home again and feeling myself again, hopefully I will discover what it is that is making me so ill and get some relief for it and then I may begin again to inundate you with more pictures and stories to accompany them.

Thanks for sticking with me and no matter where you are in this world you are so special, your worth every breath you take so take a deep cleansing one for me and enjoy this beautiful day.

Hopefully I will show up feeling a tad better.