Late December in the Hague

We were antsy to get out of the house after a pretty long December hibernation, which was caused by a few things: all of our friends left for home, the university was closed, and it was Christmas!

So we decided to take an easy trip up to the Hague for a couple days.

We stayed very close to the city center, so our first evening there we took a walk around. It was still decorated for Christmas which was nice.

We decided to see the Binnenhof and Ridderzaal (the Inner Court and Knight's Hall) that night. The Ridderzaal is the large building here, and it's surrounded by buildings, forming a courtyard, that are all related to the political history of the Hague.

It was a very foggy night. The fog, combined with the Christmas lights, meant a fantastic night time walk!

The next day we took a walk to the gardens of the Palais Noordeinde (North Palace). It was cold and foggy but still a nice little garden. And there were still flowers in bloom at the end of December!

 

Then we went to see the Panorama Mesdag, which turned out to be our favourite thing in the Hague.

It's a huge panoramic painting from the 1800's, of the seaside neighbourhood called Scheveningen. It's lit from above with natural light coming in from the domed ceiling, and the sand and all of the things on the sand are real. And you view it from a wooden observation deck, so it really feels like you're at the beach. There are also seaside sound effects, which sounds like it would be very cheesy, but it wasn't!










It was so peaceful (and warm), I could have stayed all day. But, instead, we headed back out to the cold to see the Peace Palace.

It's the International Court of Justice. No tours on the weekdays, so we (and the travel buddies) just admired it from outside.

Then we took a walk through the nearby park, the Scheveningse Bosjes. It's huge and we only saw a little of it. But what we did see, even though it was grey and foggy and December, was pretty.

And then we took the tram to the actual seaside to see Scheveningen and the North Sea!

It was SO cold and windy on the beach, but I loved listening to the waves and watching them roll in. There is nothing like being at a beach, even on December 29th.

  

Unfortunately, a nerve in my foot acted up our whole trip, so walking around was painful. This meant that we did not venture out onto the pier, I prioritized walking on the beach :) But we had a good view of the pier.

We ended up skipping one of the museums we had wanted to see. The Mauritshaus Museum houses a large selection of Dutch Masters paintings, so if we're ever in the Hague again, we'll visit.



And this trip wrapped up 2016 for us. We started by arriving in the Netherlands, and ended exploring one of its cities.