We haven't been to the Netherlands since 1993. Back then we spent a long weekend in Delft, and made very brief side trips to The Hague, Scheveningen, and Leiden. Twenty-five years...

So it was nice to renew the nodding acquaintance even if only with a bit more nodding.

The 35-minute railway journey from Schipol Airport offers you a stereotypical Holland-in-miniature: broad, flat land; big, open skies; windmills; a plethora of watercourses; and tulip fields.

The Hague itself is a very gracious and elegant city, with attractive, gabled buildings in various shades of brick, numerous open spaces, and regularly occurring bodies of water.

The stately image is somewhat counteracted by a range of wacky sculptures, and by the traffic of the city. Tall Dutch people fly around on the kind of big, beefy, sensibly handlebarred bicycles that you find as curios in Indonesian tempoe doeloe places. Modern trams racket along the dense network of lines.













I was here primarily for the courts. The International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), that is. There were no trials/hearings running (I'd originally planned on being able to attend a trial at the ICC, but the court schedule obviously shifted in the interim). However, both have visitor centres, and at the ICC, we were invited to attach ourselves to the presentation being given to a visiting group. It's always interesting to see how these institutions represent themselves.

And a bonus at the ICJ was hearing the really beautiful carillon.









Highlights from this brief time:

-- Having breakfast two days running at Palmette



-- Taking the bus to Kijkduin, having smoked salmon broodjes at La Fontaine right on the beach, then walking the dunes path to Zuiderstrand, and getting the tram home via Wateringen, a far-flung western suburb (well, why not...?)







-- Visiting the Haags Historisch Museum (my favourites: Lita de Ranitz's amazing dolls' house; and the extraordinarily realistic portraits of the civic guard, looking -- apart from their ruffs and lacy collars -- just like people on the streets today)

-- Having chocolate at Hop en Stork (we made our 80% chocolate drink even more decadent by ordering the whipped cream, and the whole caboodle came accompanied by a tiny mousse and a delicious little chocolate)

-- Trying out a variety of Dutch beers

-- Experiencing some of the celebrations for Koningsdag