The Hague

The Binnenhof has been the seat of the country’s government. It used to be a castle and is surrounded by the Court Pond in whose waters, the old buildings are mirrored. Entering the Binnenhof, you find yourself in a medieval enclosed courtyard, surrounded by architecture from the 13th to the 19th Centuries. In the middle stands the Knight's Hall, used for ceremonial purposes. The Lange Voorhout is a large tree-lined square, bordered on all sides by 18th Century townhouses. The large Baroque building on the west side is the home to the Dutch supreme court. The square is especially pretty in spring when its crocuses are in bloom. Every summer, the square hosts The Hague Sculpture, a free outdoor sculpture exhibition to be enjoyed on Netherlands vacations. 

Activity, night and day, centres on the two main squares of the city, the Plein which has several large sidewalk cafés, where often politicians may be spotted and the Grote Markt ("Great Market") which is always full of chairs and tables, summer or winter. The Denneweg is a street with antique and specialty shops. It also has a number of good pubs and restaurants. The Paleis Noordeinde is the royal palace that Queen Beatrix uses as her office. It is not open to the public. The gardens on the opposite side of the palace are accessible to the public for walking.  

There are a number of museums in The Hague. The most notable is the Mauritshuis which has an exceptional collection of paintings by Dutch masters such as Vermeer, Rembrandt and van Rijn. Housed in a 17th Century palace, it includes Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring and View of Delft. The Bredius Museum contains a private collection of 19th Century art as well as drawings, porcelain and crafted silver. The Museum de Gevangenpoort was converted from a prison into a museum with a collection of medieval torture instruments. The Escher Museum is dedicated to the famous Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher with displays of prints, sketches and archive material showing how he progressed from realistic pictures to his later works of optical illusion and geometrical patterns. The Panorama Mesdag is a cylindrical painting dating back to1881 painted by the artist Hendrick Mesdag. It is a panoramic painting of The Hague, the sea and the nearby resort of Scheveningen. It is 14 metres/45 feet high and 120 metres/390 feet in circumference.

The Gemeentemuseum has a small collection of modern art including works by Van Gogh, Kandinsky, Monet, Sisley, Degas and Bacon plus a large collection of works by Mondrian, a selection of paintings of The Hague School and a collection of fashion, musical instruments and decorative arts. Not really a museum, the open-air Madurodam is a miniature city with a selection of Dutch architecture, ranging from Amsterdam's canals and the church spires from Utrecht to modern architecture from Rotterdam. It also has an airport, a seaport, beaches, streetcars and trains running through the entire model town, so a wrap-up of Netherlands tours.