Delft

On our third day in the Netherlands we went to Delft, where Vermeer lived. They had a nice place there called the Vermeer Center. It talked a lot about Vermeer and Delft. One of the things that are troublesome is that we don't know much about Vermeer. He didn't leave much behind. Another thing is that none of his paintings remain in Delft. There are only a few at the Hague in the Mauritsheis, and maybe some in Amsterdam. Another place we went to was a windmill. It was National Windmill Day that day, so almost every windmill in the country was open. The windmill we went to was actually grinding flour! We could go very high up in there.

Keukenhof

The second day we were in Holland we went to the Keukenhof, a big flower garden with lots of tulips near the city of Lisse. Their flowers were in great arrangements. Besides flowers, there was a pen with farm animals in it and a windmill. It was great day!

Holland

Last Tuesday, we came back from the Netherlands. On the first day, we went to the Hague. We went to the Mauritshuis and Madurodam. The Mauritshaus has many paintings, including several Rembrandts and three Vermeers. Two of their most famous paintings are Girl with the Pearl Earring by Vermeer and The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp by Rembrandt. Their website is here.
Madurodam has models of famous buildings in Holland. As well as famous buildings, they also have a model highway with moving cars, an airport complete with moving planes and a monorail, trains on a miniature railway stopping at various stations, the Rotterdam seagate, ships of many different sizes, and an oil rig. My favorite part of Madurodam is a tanker that has a controlled fire and a fireboat "puts it out".