Flitting around: Delft, Breda and 's-Hertogenbosch

I've seen quite a bit of the Netherlands in the past week, visiting cities on various adventures!
On Saturday a bunch of girls and I decided to have a whimsical day out in celebration of the almost warm weather. We included bubbles and flower markets and picnics. On Tuesday I had to go and pick up my residency card from 's-Hertogenbosch, and so used that as an excuse to be a tourist there too!

Delft isn't on the map, but it's between Rotterdam and the coast.

Delft and Breda
Delft is pretty town, well-known for being superduper picturesque, and for being where the famous Dutch blue and white pottery came from. It was also home to the painter Vermeer and the lawyer Grotius. :)

When we arrived after a cruisy train ride, the weather wasn't quite the spring sunshine we were hoping for. But we wandered around quite happily looking at stuff. We hit up all the cool buildings, cooed over the flowers at the market and ate a lot of free cheese samples. Then it was picnic time!

The City Hall- used to be the Netherland's seat of government.

The statue at the back is Hugo Grotius, a bigwig in
the history of international law. Nicole and I had
an excited law nerd moment at this point. 

Picnic lunch! It was a nice spot, we waved to
rowers going past and I chased away the ducks. 

After a chilly lunch, we escaped to a cafe for hot chocolate to warm up. Afterwards, magically, the sun came out! We were so excited by this that we spent a lot of time standing still, face upturned, soaking it up. Passers by gave us weird looks.

The mother of all hot chocolates! The cream came
on a little plate so you could add it to the top
yourself. 

The New Church. This is where
the Royal family's burial vault is. 

The Old Church! You can't really tell by the pitcure,
but the tower leans two metres because of dodgy
foundations. More weird looks as we did leaning too.

Spring flowers

The cute canal streets of Delft

After the walking, we sat down next to a canal in the SUN
and blew bubbles. BUBBLES!

Once we'd had our fill of Delft, we popped back on the train home. On the way we stopped off in Breda, a cute town not far from Tilburg. We hung out in the nice park there and finished off our picnic. Nicole and I got photographed by an art student because we were wearing sunglasses aaha. There was a hen's party going on, with the bride-to-be dressed in a wedding gown and accosting guys who went past to make them dress up like a groom and take pictures with her. We also saw a cat dressed in a hoodie, and some guy in a weird go-cart. It was entertaining stuff. 

We added to the randomness by busting out the bubbles again. 

Then we carried on wandering, and stumbled across a big square with tables everywhere. So we stopped for a drink in the sun! After a leisurely lounge we trooped back to the station and headed home, quite happy with the day :)

This was a rather magical berry flavoured beer

's-Hertogenbosch on Tuesday

Possibly the most awesome name in the Netherlands, 's-Hertogenbosch is about 20mins from Tilburg. Its nickname is Den Bosch, which is what everyone tends to call it! 's-Hertogenbosch means 'the Duke's forest' and Den Bosch just means 'the forest'. 

So I got my residency card hip hip horray! Then it was off to explore. The streets of the Old Town were really lovely- cobbled and lined with old brick houses. 

St John's Cathedral
This was stunning, a classified Kanjermonument ('whopper monument')
so gets financial support from the government. 

This angel was added during a restoration. It's holding
a cellphone and wearing jeans. Apparently the phone only
has one button- it dials directly to God! 

de Moriaan, the oldest brick building in the Netherlands,
built in the 13th century

The Town Hall- 14th Century gothic architecture

Den Bosch is surrounded by almost continuous rampants. This
was a pretty cool info centre about it all, built around an old tower.

After all the walking, I stopped at a cafe by St John's for
a local specialty- the Bossche Bol. It's a big profiterole
covered in chocolate. Yum!

So that was Den Bosche. I was feeling pretty happy with my wee adventure. But I congratulated myself too early, because then it was time to head back to Tilburg...

First, my sense of direction, horrendous at best, decided to abandon me completely. So when I went to go back to the train station, I walked in completely the opposite direction! When I'd walked around in circles for an hour or so, I eventually asked someone and disorientatedly meandered in the right direction. I found it eventually, and being lost did meant I got to explore more of the city.

I was super happy to be on the train, but possibly too happy. Genius I am, I accidentally slept through my stop, and ended up in Breda! Whhoppps. Because I had zero money on me, I had to stow away without a ticket to get home. Naturally, this was also the one time I got checked. After hearing my sob story, the conductor just made me get off at the next stop. Where I waited half an hour to stow away on the next train.

It's safe to say I was really happy by the time I made it home. Who would've thought a trip so close to home would be such a mission!?