wow, what a day we had.the lighter sky fooled Mom it's not better weather here it has been pouring all day. That didn't stop us, so on the bike and get going we will not melt.

The artist of this was seeing a flamingo instead of a heron 

Delft is a gorgeous city and we spent the entire day there and is known for its historic town centre with canals, Delft Blue pottery, the Delft University of Technology, painter Johannes Vermeer and scientist Antony van Leeuwenhoek

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.

all the canals are covered with a bright green goo, water is blooming

Not sure if this is something from a ceremony or if it's speed bumps, or just to look pretty , any ideas anyone ?

In an alley I found Betty Boop serving steak 

In 1618 the town hall burned down - only the tower and some bits of the wall remained standing.
Architect Hendrick de Keyser was commissioned to rebuild the town hall. By using the old tower and the wall remnants he managed to design a new town hall with a symmetrical design. In 1620, the reconstruction of the town hall was completed.

opposite to the City Hall is The Nieuwe Kerk ( New Church) is a Protestant church located on Delft Market Square

if you wanted to you could climb up the church tower, there's a balcony just above the clock...........we weren't even tempted

this market square is awesome with all the restaurants and shops. On Saturdays,we were told, there's always a green market in the square. Would be fun but not sure we stay here that long

Of course, there's also those souvenir rip-off shops, but not as many and gaudy as in some places.

Mom really wanted a few of those wooden tulips but at 10.00 Euro a piece ............forget it

Mom was in total awe at how the Dutch people parallel park ? I suppose they climb over to the passenger side to get in and out of the car ? No way no how will Mom park Lucy like this she says

here's a happy crowd  sharing war stories while having a shot or two at noon............

On the 3rd of May 1536 the great fire broke out. How it started exactly is not known, but it is likely that the wooden spire of the Nieuwe Kerk was hit by lightning and flying sparks set the surrounding houses on fire. Some 2,300 houses went up in flames. More than a hundred years later, in 1654, an explosion destroyed part of the city. The cellar of the former Poor Clares convent on Paardenmarkt was used to store gunpowder. This central warehouse for the region Holland contained some 80,000 pounds of gunpowder. The consequences of the explosion were enormous - two hundred houses were razed to the ground, and roofs fell in and windows were smashed in another three hundred houses. In 1660 a new gunpowder house was built about a mile outside the center.

so when rebuilt there was no wooden houses allowed.

we went for one of those tourist boats around the canal, it was ok, but would have been better if we knew Dutch. The guides English was limited, but he did his best.

There's really water under this green stuff

a diamond ?

This beautiful town had so much more to show us, but we were getting wet and cold, so we pedaled back to Lucy to dry, and now Mom spotted the birds on the field. They were too far away for any decent pictures, but now we see they are spoonbills and a stork and some kind of geese 

Time to sleep, tomorrow is another day

goodnight 

Leaving the last camp site in Germany Mom had to negotiate this road, a little scary but as long as she meets no one it'll be ok

There was a family of swans living there, and the Dad was a real mean guy, he hissed at me as soon as he saw me. I was doing nothing I swear,I don't understand but Mom tried to explain it was because he had babies and she would hiss too if she thought anyone would threaten me. Good to know. We do have each others backs.

Back on the road again Jaaaay, at a price of 474 Euro Naaaay. The reason it got so expensive is I had to change both pads and disk because it was nothing at all left of the pads and you could see the metal scraped up.
oh well, another lesson learned, which is don't break down in Germany it's impossible to get help there.
While we were waiting for Lucy we went to a type of a Diner and sat outside on a very nice patio. Mom decided to order lunch, but since she didn't understand one word of the menu she told the waitress "surprise me", and boy did she ever. Out came 3 balls and a fat sausage. The balls were brown and had some kind of brown sprinkles ? hard as a rock, but in the middle, there was a gray slimy stringy soft mush. The sausage was dark brown and had a very hard shell, the inside had the same gray slime but not quite as soft. Mom gave me some and I thought it was ok, but she was afraid I get sick if I get too much.The french fries with mayonnaise was ok. Well, Mom says if this is Dutch food, she'll be living on bread and cheese and sticky cookies.

Mom left the camera in Lucy ??? so there are no pictures from the town close to the German border named Landgraaf. It seemed so depressing, every single house was built of dark brown bricks, and their front doors are directly out in the street. Mom walked by and looked into people's homes, how they had decorated and that's rude I think.

The countryside looks just like Florida minus the palm trees. It is flat and a lot of swampy waters everywhere. I do think this must have been the week to fertilize the fields because it sure smelled yummy all the way, Mom said it smelled like shit. Again we're driving towards the brightest spot on the sky.

We passed Rotterdam not wishing to spend any time in a big city we continued on, and the sky looked a lot brighter out west.
All of a sudden Mom saw the sign for Antwerp, "it's only 30 miles, we can go to Belgium" I said NO and NO, stick with the plan for a change and she did.

We finally arrived in Delft the city Mom had in mind, and now Alice in the box had some fun with Mom. We saw a sign to a campsite, but then it was gone. Alice took over and lead us on a scenic tour, but we finally arrived. Mom made a note of a lake we passed that there was a lot of birds, and she saw several storks. Not the ugly wood stork we have, this was the pretty one with red legs.

We don't read Dutch but the picture says it all 

Early morning even before coffee we went for a bike ride to see if the storks are up yet, but they weren't. There was hundreds or thousands of Canada geese and lots of ducks but  not as exciting to see as a stork would have been.

this is one strange tent? camper? trailer ?

Now we're going to bike into town, looks very pretty here. No sun but at least it isn't raining

see you later ...............