Delft
Home to TU Delft, Delftware, and the Dutch royal family, Delft is one of the prettiest small cities in Holland. The narrow shopping streets around its 17th century Stadhuis (Town hall) give visitors a feeling of warmth and coziness. It was also the home of Johannes Vermeer—the dutch painter whose work of art, Girl with a Pearl Earring is a star attraction at the Mauritshuis in The Hague.
The medieval architecture is quite a theme in Delft. Lined with tiny canals criss-crossing the city, and with a number of tiny bridges built for cross-overs, this place is a stroller’s paradise. We experienced that yesterday as we went shopping for some Delftware to take back home.
When I look around here in Europe as they try to preserve—all that was destroyed—with a passion, I feel a sense of wishfulness and, guilt about all those beautiful but long lost places of heritage in India. I wrote about this during my visit to Mumbai last year.
You might still be able to see the historic grandeur, if you, sort of, shut yourself from the hustle and bustle of the city and look up from the corners of those ancient stone masonry buildings, that still stand, and do a “mind-re-rendering” of those lovely window arches, with keystones et al. Forget for a moment, the patch work, the unlawful extensions, the barely hanging balconies, the stink, the smell of shit and you’ll see it.
It’s fast fading though, thanks to human onslaught on the city, ripping its guts and stitching it back-on the other way, everyday.