Delft and Rotterdam Carnival

We left Maasluis and drove to Delft where they make the hand-painted white and Blue porcelain ware more famously known as delft blue. After finding a park in a residential street we walked to the oldest factory in Delft established in 1653. We didn’t take the factory tour but went into the gallery and shop. We were very vary not to touch or break anything. Dad felt very connected to the Delft Blue and wanted to buy something. We saw a vase for 3086 Euros ($6200NZD) and tile portraits for even more. We then walked around Delft and back to our camper. We then drove the massive Motorways up to Clara Maria Cheese and Clog farm near Amstelveen. We looked at there operation and watched a lady shaping cheeses off a press and the cows get milked. We then got lost in a massive flower distribution centre thanks to a road block. We drove out to a Camperplaats in Ijmuiden and watched the bigs ships, tugboats and a Rainbow Warrior going through the Noordzee canal to Amsterdam. We walked out along the dike and played in the sand at the beach. The next day we walked along the Dike again and Mum cut our hair. We stayed there again. On Friday we drove back to Masslius to Pj and Claudia and went to a canal and watched a boat parade. The parade was advertising and celebrating the local produce growing in all the huge glasshouses in the area. After the Boat parade we drove to PJ and Caudia’s friend’s garden house near Rotterdam. We had a BBQ and went into central Rotterdam for the ‘Battle of the Drums’-A battle of four dutch cultures playing African and Caribean music for the Zomer Carnival this weekend. We walked past the ‘TreeHouses’ and into the crowd. One of the Bands stopped next to us and we watched them practise up really close. We then folowed them to the stage and got really close because no one else was following the band. We danced along to the Rhythm of the drums and caught the hats and whistles that were being thrown into the crowd.


We slept in the Carpark of the Garden Houses. After a huge breakfast from Cadia and PJ’’s awesome friends we took our convoy of cars to the nearest Metro Station and took the Metro into Rotterdam because the parking at Claudia’s brother’s apartment was full because the Zomer Carnerval was expecting over a million people watching the parade today. We found a spot in the crowd and watched the parade. There we over 50 different groups all dressed up in sparkling, colourful outfits dancing behind trucks and on floats. After 2 hours we went back to the Garden House and drove on to a Camperplaats in Kinderdijk where we had a little problem with our sewage disposal but worked it out in the end.