Steps today: 24 890… would have been a lot more if I had not been holding my phone in my left hand (The Fitbit Arm) to use the map as often as I did today.
The Hague was a beautiful city, we loved it! So picturesque and lively… in fact I warn you: This post is heavy on pictures!!
We took the train route from Haarlem that transfers in Leiden to see the fields of flowers in the country side; it’s just like the postcards. Strips of vibrant colours. I didn’t get any pictures because it was hard to do from where I was sitting, but I’ll have another chance next time I take the train.
We had a tricky time taking pictures of the sights in the morning because we were constantly shooting into the sun, it got better later in the day but it means I have pictures of everthing in triplicate if not more so I will have a lot of culling to do when I get home.
This is a Pinocchio drawn on the street with various foreign coins! So neat!
Some look like they have been pried off!
And of course… flowers!
This picture in particular has a bad memory attached to it: I was zooming in to try and get all the Dutch flags and crown signs when some asshole said to me “What if the people don’t want to be in the picture!”. OK, I get his point, but he was making a lot of assumptions AND being rude! … he is nowhere in this picture anyway and I was tempted to arrogantly tell him I was focusing way beyond him and why would I want a picture of his sourpuss face anyway??? Instead, I just smiled and he then said: “why are you laughing?”. He didn’t stop walking while he ranted at me, thank godness, that was really unpleasant.
I won’t tell you about breakfast, you already can conclude how that went, so you’ll know why we stopped for lunch around 11AM. It was so nice to eat outside!
Once we were done, we went to the Escher Museum which interestingly is in an Old Royal Palace (no longer lived it since I think 1945). Great venue, it was like a double museum.
It was not easy to take pictures because of the reflection on the glass, so some are not straight on, doesn’t matter, we know his classics well enough!
The whole place had really unsual chandeliers!
After that, it was off to the Mauritshuis Museum to see above all else: The Girl With The Pearl Earring. Terrific.
From there, we walked to the Peace Palace – and again the sun was in the wrong spot!!!
And we ended the day at the beach (on the North Sea).
We were too tired to walk back to the train station from the beach (about 6km), so we took the sardine can, I mean tram back. Many places including public transportation busses, cafes and shops don’t take cash – only cards, it's really moving towards a cashless society here! I don’t want to use my card unless I absolutely have to, so I was relieved to see they accepted cash on the tram.
They say: no cash, no robberies. My reply to that is: even the petty thieves are losing their jobs!
On the way back to Haarlem, again we took the route that changes in Leiden so we could see the flower fields, but again I had no luck with pictures.
That’s it for today, the weather was hot but not as much as the last 2 days – it was something like 20C feels like 23C. Tomorrow afternoon it might rain, and then the temps fall off a cliff! Today might have been our last blue-sky, eat-outside day… we’ll see!
Here’s a shot of our view walking back to the hotel from the train station.
And this is a blurry picture of the view from our hotel room of the ferris wheel at the fun fair in Haarlem’s main square
Good night!
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