The camperstop in Schiedam is free on Sundays but charges again from 09:00 Monday morning so we and most of the other vans are leaving before the deadline. In the rain, and out onto the motorway in Rotterdam’s rush hour.

We only have 10 miles to travel today but as we are going to a campsite we cannot arrive too early so at the first rest area we pull in and indulge in cooked breakfast of duck eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes and bubble and squeak with lardons.

The rain stops as we complete the journey into Delft, check in to the city centre campsite, service the vans and pitch up.

After coffee Grete gets tickets at reception for her and Ali to visit the Delft pottery works and we all set off on the 15 minute walk to town. We cross a couple of canals and a few busy roads before turning in to the pedestrian area and up to the main square. It’s a long and wide space perhaps the size of a football pitch. At one end is the church built of brick with a very tall and slender steeple, at the top of which we count over 30 bells. At the opposite end is the town hall, typically Dutch style with red shutters and gilded clock face. It also has two impressive gilded shell motifs highlited in white paint or enamel.

Stretching down the sides of the square are cafes with terraces and shops selling the town’s famous blue and white porcelain.

Ali and Grete leave the two Nicks and head for the pottery where they get an audio guide. Delft style originated during the Dutch East India Company’s vessel captured a Chinese ship carrying fine porcelain and the Dutch potters began to copy the style. Royal Delft, established in 1653, is the last factory still producing Delftware in the traditional hand painted way. They saw women engaged in the painting process, learning that the decoration appears black, only changing to the famous blue when fired.

Meanwhile the Nicks wander around some of the canals, looking in shop windows and watching people from a cafe terrace. A carriage drawn by two shire horses is driven around by two characters who both look like Fagin.

A metal railing around a grand house has a cameo of Anthony Leeuwnhoek, scientist, micro biologist and inventor of the microscope. Also associated with Delft is the artist Vermeer, whose ‘Girl with Pearl Earing’ is depicted in many places, including a bespectacled version ‘Girl with Pearl Spectacles’ in a Specsavers window. But the missed the ‘Girl with Pearl earing-aid’

opportunity!

Later we all meet and return to the site.

Ali cooks salmon with pesto, couscous and green beans and we make use of the mains electricity to play a DVD.