Photos from Tuesday

Rembrandt self-portrait (in sand sculpture)

Sand sculpture of Vermeer's painting of a woman pouring milk. This is all sand. Remarkable.

Sand sculpture of painting by Jan Steen (can't recall name of painting)

Museum in den Haag with Vermeer paintings (see banner of Girl with a Pearl Earring) The crown prince of the Netherlands and his wife were visiting the museum the day we were there.

Seat of the Dutch government.

Jannicka, our guide, explaining about governmental offices in den Haag.

Dresden plates at the factory. Once you see how many (wo)man hours are involved in making a single Delft object you can understand why it's so expensive. I bought a set of two cups and two saucers. If you're good you can come to my house and have tea with me sometime. We'll raise our pinky fingers and pretend to be grande dames...

City hall in Delft.

Businesses on the town square in Delft.

The "new" church in Delft -- from the 15th century. Burial place of the Dutch royal family, the house of Orange. 325 steps to the tower -- we didn't climb it because we figured that would be far more exercise than we wanted to have just before we went on a day-long bike ride.

Everywhere you look there are beautiful vistas with canals and old buildings.

The other thing that's going on is that the World Cup soccer matches are being played in South Africa. When the Netherlands team is playing, the streets are empty and you know when they score because pandemonium breaks out, with shouting, horns blaring and those funny long plastic horns blowing. Can't miss it!