Deli by the Euromast and The Day of Romantic Music at Het Park

Note to the reader:
I wrote this yesterday, on Sunday, but halfway through, I had to turn the computer off because Schrobbenmaster was fixing the kitchen light. And I decided not to switch it on again after.

So here's the post meant for Sunday...

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For the first time in a looooooong time, I actually got up at 1pm today.

On Friday night, I'd had a couple of friends over to see the new apartment - one of them actually lives a few floors below, and it's taken this long for him to come up. It's always like that, isn't it? The closer you are to something, the later you are.

Anyway, after some drinks, we headed out for some dancing and I slept only at 4.30am. I was hesitant about going out at first, because I had class at 9am on Saturday, but they seemed quite enthusiastic about it, and it's been a while, so I gave in to my naughty side.

Schrobbenmaster told me the next afternoon that he was impressed with my willpower at being able to stay awake all day, when I told him I wasn't going to take an afternoon nap. I guess if there's one thing I got, it's willpower *roaaarrr*.

Anyway, I woke up this afternoon and the sun was out and the day looked absolutely lovely! I wanted to do something different than going to the usual cafes, and remembered a cafe I'd seen in a magazine several weeks ago, by the Euromast. So we headed there.

It's called Deli, and it doesn't have a wide range of dishes, but what I tried was really delicious. The only resemblance to a main meal they have is their tarte flambée, which is made with around 10 different toppings. I chose the tomato, mozzarella and basil leaf. It was light and tasty! And I also had a butter and powdered sugar crêpe. Which was also delicious.

I really like their sugar packets! So perfect for the venue.

While we were there, we noticed many people heading to Het Park, which is the park below the Euromast. It's the main park in the centre of Rotterdam and it was apparently landscaped following the English style, and it's quite romantic in there with the water flowing through it and lots of lanes to walk along. The trees are bigger and wilder than the ones I walked through in the nature bit of Utrecht (where I canoed).

We went to check it out - Hanselem had joined us by now - and as we approached, we heard classical music being played. Calm, moody and expressive classical music, just the way I like it. It was the Troika Trio (I looked at the stage programme), which consists of the clarinet, the cello and a grand piano. It was so beautiful!

As we walked around the park, we noticed more stages with more small groups of classical musicians. I found out that I had stumbled, yet again, on another really cool festival, this time, The Day of Romantic Music (Dag van de romantische muziek). It's a free festival, held on the second Sunday of every August. They were really lucky that with all the rain and generally terrible weather this summer, this Sunday was nice.

Programme for the biggest stage at the main entrance.

Approaching another stage, this one next to the water. So beautiful :)

Didn't fancy this one so much though. They were playing really mainstream pieces that I can hear any time on Radio 4 being played much better.

Did I already mention that people dress up for this festival? There didn't seem to be a particular era in mind, but it was definitely of a more classy class than the Summer of Darkness. More lace, more white, more straw hats, more parasols. Very, very pretty! By the way, it's the two ladies way ahead with the parasols that I meant to take a photo of. This woman with a backache just happened to whiz past me at the wrong time. Tsk!

Distinctly not looking like they belong in the romantic era.

I really like the outfits of the group on the right. Classic and modern at the same time. Love the girl's boater hat and I love the guy's whole outfit.

I think it's kinda great how I also managed to get two men at the opposite extremes of height walking towards each other.

One of the last events was an opera masterclass. That dude on the stage in the diamond pattern jumper was the student - a very nice-sounding one, I might add - and the 'master' was a woman who spoke in half Dutch and English. I think she's American and she's his regular teacher. She was so expressive in the way she taught him and so typically dramatic. It was fun to watch!

Found a ladybug on my dynamo while cycling back.

Note my new sock obsession.

That's it for now, folks. I think with summer almost over, the chances of stumbling upon festivals like these will be few and far between :(