Delft Suggestions

Delft itself is very small and only needs a day or two to see the sights but it’s a lovely base to stay for a longer break, and wander in the evenings. There are a couple of outstanding old churches and lots of lovely canals and old buildings to wander around. And there’s a big market place with loads of restaurants.

You can very easily get a tram to The Hague (for the Mauritshuis) and onward to Scheveningen for the beach, and also Rotterdam (seafaring heritage and modern architecture) is a short trip in the other direction.

We spent the equivalent of 3 days in Delft. We did a daytrip to The Hague. We used the RS guidebook for help with restaurants and our BnB. We visited a handful of churches, the Vermeer Museum, did the guidebook's walking tour and visited the Delft Blue Museum, which I highly recommend.

This past April we stayed in Delft for two nights as part of a Rick Steves tour. We happened to arrive on King's Day, so what a fun way to experience the city. it's quite small; and on one free afternoon we took the train to Rotterdam to visit the windmills at Kinderdijk. Others went to The Hague.

On our RS tour we visited De Candelaer (est 1975) one of two remaining authentic Delftware factories. (There were 3 until covid) It's a small family run business. From start to finish...making the clay and pottery to entirely painted by hand. Any other places you see are not really Delftware because it's manufactured elsewhere and then they paint a little something on it at the end and call it Delftware; so beware. Support local and authentic. Expensive pieces to charming inexpensive Christmas ornaments.

We were there in February and only had one day in Delft, but absolutely loved it. We walked to the Royal Delft Museum and factory, which I highly recommend. I thought we would check it out and just see it without spending much time there, but I was wrong. The main part of town was very interesting as well. If you are looking for a really good place for dinner, do not miss Monastere in the main square. The owner was incredibly welcoming, even opening the kitchen for us long before they were due to open. Excellent food and service.

Go out to the beach, by bus, if weather permits, nice area, lots to eat

I'm going to interrupt the Delftophiles here and say it's the one place in the Netherlands we didn't really enjoy. It felt to us as though it was one huge curio shop with canals and tourists rampant. We quickly tired of seeing blue ceramics in every window. But maybe we just woke up on the wrong side of the bed that day.

To JPHBucks

My favorite color is blue and my house is mainly blue. I will be happy in Delft.

JPHBucks, that was not our experience there. We found lots of wonderful regular little shops without the blue/white. The kitchen store was our favorite.

I'm not a shopper and I rarely buy nonfood/alcohol souvenirs. I did see a fair number of shops that I easily avoided. We did the walking tour in the RS guide which took us away from the souvenir shops. I do recall we enjoyed some cheese tasting at some point.

We went into the churches and walked on the outskirts some. Though the Vermeer museum does not have any originals, we felt it was well done and worthwhile.

Mikliz97
Where was the kitchen store and do you know the name of it? I love kitchen items.

Debbie

Debbie--Let me look for it and I'll get back. It was wonderful! We bought some aprons, oven mitts, chocolates, etc there and none of it was blue, lol.

Debbie--I found it, it its called Dille & Kamille and the address is Burgwal 5, 2611 GE Delft, Netherlands. Their website is https://www.dille-kamille.nl/winkels/delft/?utm_source=googlemybusiness&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=delft