Before heading off to the Netherlands we had one more day in Belgium. In Antwerp Specifically.

We stayed one night right across from the railway station which is particularly magnificent.

First stop, the Plantin Moretus Museum. This museum focuses on two 16th century printers - Christophe Plantin and Jan Moretus. The museum, which is based in their homes and printing business covers the history of the family, the evolution of their printing business and the industry in general as well as the development of technology. It also focused on some of their primary industries - religious texts, science, and maps. Really amazing place.

After lunch we visited the Red Star Line museum.

This was basically an immigrant experience museum. We've gone to tons of these in the states but it was pretty interesting to see learn about the story from the other side of the Atlantic where so many of the journeys originated.

The next morning we were off to Rotterdam.

We spent the morning at hte Boijmans art depot. They store thousands of works of art and many are on display but there are no descriptive plaques or anything, just the art.

In one room we saw master after master - Money, Van Gogh, Bosch, Rembrant and so many more one after another. Also, tons of more modern works.

A really amazing place.

Between the two we got lunch in their Markthal - a neat food hall set up with an archaeological exhibit. A couple of blocks away outside they also had an urban surfing pool.

Next was Leiden which was mostly a Devorah day.

We did hit the Windmill museum which was pretty cool. We got to climb up a working windmill, learn about it and also the local history.

We also hit a number of fabric and textile places starting with the Textile Research Center where they had an exhibit Shisha embroidery and also showed us a bit of their archives in the back

We also hit the Weaver House - a house from the 1500s still preserved. It housed poor families - mostly weavers throughout its history. The walls had a list of all the inhabitants.

We learned of the house's history and saw weaving demo. One of the docent's recommended we then visit the headquarters of the Leidse Deken - a group working on raising awareness of the history of Leiden's artisinal blanket making industry as well as bringing it back. We wandered in, went up the stairs, and introduced ourselves. We got the grand tour.

They told us about their mission, how they created the blankets from shorn sheep to end product and showed us around. Lots of cool looms, spinning wheels, and even a weaving machine that was pedal powered.

Our one additional stop was at the American Pilgrims Museum which was interesting. It was actually a split house museum a house that has been preserved through the ages. Half was as it was in the thirteen hundreds and the other half, in the sixteen and seventeen hundreds. There wasn't any evidence that any Pilgrims that would later sail to America actually lived there but the house was typical of the period when the Pilgrims were living in Leiden en route to America.

Overall a very interesting day.

We finished things off with an Indonesian meal. Tomorrow we're off to Amsterdam for the last leg of our trip.