Delft and Keukenhof

It was another beautiful day here.  We started the day visiting Delft, which is just south of The Hague.  We took a tram from the stop around the corner from our hotel to the central station.  From there it was a short train ride to Delft.  Being it was Sunday morning, many businesses were closed.  Regardless, we had fun walking around town.  The downtown seems to be similar to much of what we have seen in The Netherlands.  

Yes, the "old church" is leaning  into the canal.	A typical house.
A view along the canal.	The "new church".
Delft town hall.

Yes, that is pickled herring in a hot dog bun.  Amy said we needed to have something else for lunch.

Escher spent some time in Delft as a young man and he did a series of prints of the town in 1939.  One interesting work he did in Delft was a view of the main square sketched from the New Church steeple.  Escher was interested in exploring the perspective that vantage point provided. The hills in Italy provided multiple viewpoints of the towns, providing many themes in Escher's prints. The steeple is still accessible by climbing about 390 steps.  We took in the "frog's eye" view of the steeple instead.  It was interesting to see this area.  Most of the buildings in this area are now cafes and gift shops, most certainly different than 90 years ago.  However, the architecture has not changed that much.

My view from town square  looking up.

Escher's view looking down from the steeple.

Despite some work on landscapes, Escher continued to work on his regular divisions of the plane.  The pattern shown below (original design from July 1942) was similar to, but different from, the pattern used as a theme in Reptiles.   It is characterized by a gyration points of order 6, a gyration point of order 3, and a gyration point of order 2. This is a sixth type of symmetry pattern possible in the plane, having orbifold notation 632.  Dave leaves finding the gyration points as an exercise to the inquisitive reader.  Hint: The points of 6 fold symmetry form an equilateral triangle and the 3 fold gyration point is at the center of the triangle.  The points of 2 fold symmetry are at the midpoints of the triangle.

A design by Escher originally made in 1939.

We have been very pleased with the transportation here.  The trains are fast, clean, and plentiful.  We have only had to wait a few minutes for trains.  Most people here ride bikes.  We have seen more bikes than cars.  I have decided that any style of bike ro bike accessory one could possibly want is available here.  Want a bike with three wheels with a cargo hold the size of a large wheelbarrow?  No problem.  Want a fancy bike seat for you child?  No problem.  Want panniers?  No problem.  The major streets all seem to have a bike lane along each direction of traffic.  The lanes are easily wide enough for two riders side by side, but can handle three in a pinch.

	Yes, these are all bicycles!  This is version of the park and ride.  Most train stations have a bike parking structure that is full of bikes.
This is the tram we take  here in The Hague.	This is the train we take between towns.  We took this one from Delft to Leiden.

We left Delft and headed for Keukenhof, near Lisse.  We took the train to Leiden and the bus from there.  This sounds crazy in the US, but here it was no problem.  The buses run from the train station directly to Keukenhof.  We bought combo Keukenhof and bus tickets at the train station and off we went.  No waiting to get there, 5 minutes waiting for the bus coming back.  The rides between cities are interesting.  The area is very flat, similar to SE Michigan and NW Ohio.  There woodlots, grazing fields, and plenty of canals.  Everywhere there are fields of flowers.  Bulbs are grown here like corn at home.  The fields have huge swatches of color from the blooming tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, and other flowers.  Keukenhof itself was an amazing display of every possible spring flower in every color imaginable.  It seemed like have the country was there today, and why not?  Is was simply beautiful.  We strolled around and took in the lovely scenery.  Dave took lots of pictures and the highlights are below.  If you like flowers, this is definitely the place to visit!

After our visit to Keukenhof, we took the train back to The Hague, had a bite to eat and headed to our hotel. We are watching the Master's on TV and relaxing.  Tomorrow we have a crazy day filled with errands and travel.