The streets of Amsterdam were quiet as the city recovered from King's Day. I figured I wouldn't be back to this side of The Netherlands so I decided to check out The Hague which was about an hour by train. The Hague is where the Dutch Royal family resides and is known as the government city.
The main attraction in the Hague is Mauritshuis museum which currently houses the famous painting of the girl with the pearl earring. That was the first place I wanted to go. I have a Dutch museum card so most of the museums are free for me and I have just been doing walk-ins. To my annoyance when I arrived at Mauritshuis, it was all sold out for the day and I would have had to make a reservation. So, my plans were thwarted and I looked for other things to do. I saw a tour group walking by and wondered perhaps if it was a free walking tour. It was indeed, so I googled how to sign up for one and signed up for the 1:30pm tour.
In the meantime I wandered around to look at the royal Dutch palace and parliament buildings. On the top of the Royal Palace is a flag that was up denoting the King was in.
The free walking I signed up for lasted 2.5 hours which was longer than I expected but was very informative and interesting to hear about the history of the city. In the Hague, there are 9 different palaces of which the Mauritshuis was the first, parliament buildings were second, and the Royal Dutch palace third. Other palaces have been converted to museums and hotels. The guide also told us a little bit about the history of the Royal family. Although the Netherlands has a monarchy, they function as a republic. In contrast to the British, the king or queen does not stay in power until death and can choose when they step down. Another thing I found interesting was how the monarchy likes to interact with and be involved with the community. The King, Willelm-Alexander is a pilot and every two weeks to maintain his flight license he serves as a co-pilot for KLM airlines. Typically he flies to the UK.
In one of the large squares, there was a massive church. The church had been seized by the Protestants during the reformation and never been used for Catholic services since. The declining number of religious people in Europe has then led to the old church being converted to an event space for conferences and our guide told us he last attended a whiskey tasting event there.
Other interesting sites he pointed out was the indoor shopping mall that, similar to the one in Brussels, was made to replicate the glass ceiling of the shopping mall in Milan. The guide knew the city very well and also took us down an alley that was covered in murals of cats.
Overall I really enjoyed the walking tour of The Hague very much and highly recommend it! I should have done one in Amsterdam too but oh well! I popped into the Prince's Art Gallery since the guide told me it had a gallery of Golden Age art. The gallery was only one room but ideal since I wanted to return to Amsterdam and then hop on board the train back to Maastricht.
Comments