A Half-Day Trip to Delft And The Hague

The Netherlands is not a very large country, and when you are in Amsterdam, it is easy to travel to multiple other places in the country for a day trip, or even just a half-day tour.

During my previous visit, I took a train to Rotterdam and the Hague and although initially, I could not believe my host that I can do both in one day, it appeared to be entirely possible.

This time I’ve opted for the organized tour. First, I was trying to book a tour to Delft, Rotterdam and the Hague, but unfortunately, it is only offered three times a week, and these specific days didn’t work for us.

A half-day tour to Delft and the Hague turned to be available every day, and I’ve booked it for the afternoon of our Day Two. This was the right decision because everything was organized just perfectly, and we didn’t need to find our ways and coordinate the tour time.

The buses depart from the Central Railway station from the upper level:

The bust brought us straight to the entrance of the famous Delft Porcelain Factory, and we got out and started the tour right away.

I like our tour guide a lot; she was very passionate about the history of the factory, and the porcelain in general; and was not a kind of tour guide who is bored to repeat the same text twenty times a day. She was really engaged.

The view from the factory window:

From the exhibit:

The warehouse:

We are being shown a process:

Can you tell which of those plates is hand-painted?

The folding ramp for the wheel-chairs – a very smart solution for an old building with limited space!

The souvenirs store:

After the porcelain factory, we had a quick tour of the city itself. The funny thing is that I always knew how Delft and porcelain are related, but that’s pretty much all I knew about Delft. So when I was telling one of my coworkers about my upcoming vacation, he was like – oh, that’s a city with one of the largest technical universities, and I was like – what???

The city is very beautiful, and in contrast to Amsterdam, it is not overcrowded by tourists. And the bikers let pedestrians pass!

Our tour guide told us about the Old and New Churches. We walked together to the central square, and pointed to the old church, and said that although there is one ticket for both churches, she doubts we can make both of them in one hour, and sure we did!

After that we’ve departed to the Hague!