Mackenzie stole the window seat for the flight to the Netherlands.

We arrived in the Netherlands and picked up a rental car for our couple of weeks of exploration and family visits. Our first stop was less than an hour south of the airport in Leiden. Leiden is a university town where a friend of the family lives, and who invited us to stop in and visit for the day before we headed on to The Hague for a couple of days.

First Day in the Netherlands

After a miserable start to the trip, the flight over went fine - there’s not really much to say. I did manage to sleep a little bit, and Mom and Mackenzie both looked like they slept for part of the trip. We arrived into Amsterdam around lunch time, not as late as I expected given our delay in Toronto.

The arrivals area was busier than I expected given how quiet the airport seemed, but it all went fine. It took us about an hour to get through immigration and pick up our bags.

After that, we picked up our rental car (Mazda MX-5) and headed out towards our first visit for the trip in Leiden.

Before I get too deep into these posts, I should give a bit of background on the trip for those that might not be familiar. Mom was born in the Netherlands, and so we have a small amount of family that we keep in touch with that are still in the country. For me, there is really only one person that I have had a lot of direct interaction with, my Mom’s cousin Edwin. Edwin, his wife Carolien, and their (now adult) kids Anne and Redmar have stayed in close contact with Mom and Dad over the years. Redmar has been to Canada a few time, and Edwin and Redmar came at Christmas a couple of years back.

I also stayed with their family once when I was in the Netherlands a number of years back for a conference, and they were amazing hosts. We’ll be staying with them for the middle part of the trip and Edwin will be hosting one of the family get togethers during our stay. The rest of the families, from both sides of Mom’s immediate family I have not met before, so it should be great to meet everyone!

Leiden, like many cities in the Netherlands has a series of canals throughout the city center. Anee was kind enough to book us a canal tour for the afternoon, which gave us a great chance to see much more of the city than we would have on foot.

Onto our First Stop - Leiden

Leiden is a university town about 45 minutes from Amsterdam. Or it should have been, but traffic was bad for some reason so it took us a little longer. We were stopping in Leiden on our way to The Hague to meet up with Anne, as she offered to show us her town and wanted to see Mom. After navigating into the city center and getting parked we walked the short distance over to Anne’s apartment, where we met Anne and her partner Margot.

The last time I saw Anne was more than a decade ago, but she was immediately recognizable. They showed us their lovely little apartment overlooking the city centre. Anne had booked a canal tour of Leiden, suggesting that was the best way to see the city. It seemed like a great choice.

Mom, Mackenzie, Anne, Margot and I, on the boat as we headed out on our canal tour!

The weather had cleared and we were off on the water. The tour was about an hour long, weaving its way through the various canals. We got a pretty great tour through the town and saw some cool stuff. One of the last stretches was really nice, as it had lots of house boats along a very pretty stretch of the river. After the tour we needed some lunch, so we had Anne and Margot make a local recommendation. We grabbed a seat on a patio and had a nice late lunch outside, sitting along one of the canals. After lunch we walked back to where we had parked, said goodbye and headed out. It was time for the short drive to The Hague where we were spending the next couple of days.

Quite soon after starting the tour, we had our first real windmill!

It was hard to say if it was actually working, but it looked cool.

Many of the canals were barely wider than the boat! This was pretty typical, as we went under this great, iron bridge and through the narrow canal.

This building was across the canal from an old military school. The guide told a story about the fact that this house used to be a brothel, which apparently was very popular - not surprisingly!

Along many stretches there were these very nice looking house boats.

This was my favorite stretch - park on one side, house boats on the other and very peaceful and quiet.

An interesting church.

Throughout Leiden, they had expanded the restaurants by adding seating on a barge! We'd never allow that in Canada...

Den Hague

The drive took only about half and hour, but we had some trouble finding a place to park near the appartement. The apartment was in a great spot, but it was busy. We had to do a drive by, then ended up parking nearby and walking over to get checked in. The flat was pretty good - lots of beds, a good size and close to the old center of town.

We ended up needing to move the car to a spot where we could park for free, which we did. After getting settled, we went for a bit of a walk, to check out the neighborhood. We found the local grocery store and picked up a few things, for us to have over the next couple of days. I love grocery stores in Europe! We had a pretty early first night - we were all pretty exhausted after a long day, but we made it until a reasonable time, then headed off to bed. It was a great start to our trip!

I managed to get a decent night’s sleep, sleeping in until about 7:30. I woke up to the sound of rain - heavy rain. Thankfully it started to let up as we made some breakfast and got organized. Mackenzie slept in a bit later and all of us were up and about by 9:00. We had breakfast in the apartment and got ourselves sorted for a big day of exploring. Thankfully the weather was starting to look a little better as we headed out.

I think the Tourist Tram would have been fun, but we didn't end up having time.

The huge church in the center of the old town.

It was grey and raining as we headed out, but the rain was not as hard as earlier - more a light drizzle. We started our day walking into the old centre of town. We wanted to explore for a bit, as there seemed to be lots to see.

As we were walking along, we passed the Royal Stables. We tried to find an entrance, without much success, instead finding a lovely little garden (the Palistuin - I think “Palace Garden”?). We wandered there a bit, exploring the paths and checking out the birds, flowers and trees.

From there we continued down the Prinsessewal, which was a nice shopping street, but we were early and most of the shops were still closed. We ended up walking up and down this street a few times over the course of the day.

Once in the center of town, one of the first cool buildings we found was the huge church, and the Old City Hall. It’s no longer fulfilling that function, but is still a very cool building.

Heading into the center of the old part of The Hague. The old city hall on the left, and the church just visible on the right.

There was also a craft store across the street, that drew in Mom and Mackenzie. It claimed to be the “Greatest Craft Store in The Hague”, but Mackenzie was unimpressed. It was the first of many craft stores that we ended up in over the trip. As we wandered around the downtown, we found a few cool places to come back and check out later.

This square looked interesting, but t was obviously more of a night spot as nothing was open. I was hoping that we'd get to go back and check it out, but that did not work out.

From there we wandered the downtown core. The weather was not great, and we had to hide from the rain inside a covered stretch of downtown, that was quite cool. It was called the “Passage”, and was aptly named. The Hague Passage ranks with the passages of Milan, Moscow and Brussels among the most beautiful shopping galleries still in existence in Europe. Built in 1882 for the dignitaries after Paris' example, the passage possesses a magnificent aura with its arcades, glass domes, walkways and carved facades. The glass-covered shopping street is home to several specialty shops that exude a contemporary allure.

We wanted to go into the Binnenhof, the centre of the Dutch government, and a spectacular set of buildings. It’s in the centre of town. Unfortunately it’s under a massive amount of construction right now, so we were not able to go in. Which was too bad, as it would have been cool to explore.

The Binnenhof (“niner court”) and Buitenhof ( "outer court") is a complex of buildings in the city centre of The Hague, Netherlands, next to the Hofvijver (Court Pond). It houses the meeting place of both houses of the States General of the Netherlands, as well as the Ministry of General Affairs and the office of the Prime Minister of the Netherlands. Built primarily in the 13th century, the Gothic castle originally functioned as residence of the counts of Holland and became the political centre of the Dutch Republic in 1584. It is counted among the Top 100 Dutch heritage sites. The Binnenhof is among the oldest Parliament buildings in the world still in use.

Another view of the Binnehof from across the lake.

This imposing statue was just outside the area under construction. I believe it's William I of the Netherlands.

One more view - the fountain is a nice touch.

You Knew There Would be Birds…

In the pond just outside the Binnehof, there were some interesting birds in the water. Of course I’m sharing these!

An Egyptian Goose - while common in Europe, they are quite colorful.

What was weird was that it's the end of August, and they had newly-hatched duckling.

The timing seems all wrong, but they are so cute!

I believe that this is a Great Crested Grebe - new life lister!

And this is the young grebe. It also seems very immature for being late in the season.

Nearly, we found a small market that was stood up along side the small lake that surrounds the Binnenhof. There were some interesting stalls, some of which had spectacular looking baked goods that I needed to avoid! But it was fun to look.

We eventually made our way back towards the apartment, and had lunch at one of the restaurants nearby. The food was quite good, and our legs needed a break.

The view up the street from where we had lunch. It was less than a block from our apartment, and you could see the Peace Palace in the distance.

Our lunch spot. There were a whole series of good looking restaurants in this circle on the street.

The map of our walk, up to lunch time. I didn't bother with a map of after lunch, as it was not as interesting.

After lunch we walked a few more blocks over to the Peace Palace. OUr apartment was perfectly located, so close by! This was one that all of us wanted to see, but sadly they run only 2 tours on each day of the weekend, and both were sold out for today and tomorrow. We should have looked into that one… So we had to live with viewing from outside the gates. It’s an impressive building, and it would have been nice to see inside. Another time.

The Peace Palace is an international law administrative building. It houses the International Court of Justice (which is the principal judicial body of the United Nations), the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), The Hague Academy of International Law and the Peace Palace Library.

The palace officially opened on 28 August 1913; it was originally built to provide a home for the PCA, a court created to end war by the Hague Convention of 1899. Andrew Dickson White, whose efforts were instrumental in creating the court, secured from Scottish-American steel magnate Andrew Carnegie US$1.5 million ($50,000,000, adjusted for inflation) to build the Peace Palace.

The Peace Palace is quite a spectacular building. There were even special garden tours that would have been nice, but were also sold out.

The full view, from a little further back.

The gates were amazing, so ornate and the gold on top was shining in the sun.

One of many selfies to come...

After getting shut out at the Peace Palace, we walked back to the old town centre, to go to the Escher Museum. I had to convince Mackenzie and Mom to go to an art gallery, but I thought this one might be different enough that they would not find it too boring. Along the way, we passed the Canadian Embassy, which was also closed. We were not having a lot of luck! But it was a Saturday after all.

This huge monument was near the Canadian Embassy, and I caught Mom off taking some photos.

On the way to the museum, we noticed an interesting looking church - Grote of Sint Jacobskerk (from the map). While it was imposing from the outside, inside looked quite nice too. It was quite, and we had a chance to explore a little bit.

The outside was quite imposing, except for the damn hydro wires wrecking my photos.

The inside was spectacular, with the high vaulted ceilings and elaborate decorations.

But the altarpiece was the main attraction!

The Escher Museum (“Escher in the Palace”) was a little further along, and Mom and Mackenzie humoured my desire to go look at art. Escher is a little different, and the museum is housed in a former palace, so it worked out. Or at least so they told me. The collection was quite impressive, and I think both of them actually enjoyed it. It wasn’t a huge museum either, which helped.

Escher in Het Paleis (Escher in The Palace) is a museum featuring the works of the Dutch graphical artist M. C. Escher. It is housed in the Lange Voorhout Palace, a former royal residence dating back to the eighteenth century. Queen Emma bought the stately house in 1896. She used it as a winter palace from March 1901 until her death in March 1934. It was used by four subsequent Dutch queens for their business offices, until Queen Beatrix moved the office to Paleis Noordeinde. The first and second floors have exhibitions showing the royal period of the palace, highlighting Queen Emma's residence. So it wasn’t all about art.

I didn't take many photos of the art inside the museum, but the building itself was pretty amazing, especially the main stairway.

From there, we wandered back into the center of town. We wanted to take a break, and I had noticed a local brewery quite close to where we were, across the street from the huge church. They had a big patio, so we started outside. I got a flight from their in house brewery, and it was a big one - 6 different ones to try. The beer were ok - none of them knocked my socks off - but they were fine.

About half way through our drinks, the weather took a turn for the worse and we had to run inside, looking for cover! The wind was gale force, and the rain came down on buckets. So we stayed for another drink. Not long after the weather got a bit better, letting us walk home. We didn’t really need much for dinner, so we had some meats and cheese and bread from the grocery store. It was all we needed. It had been a very long day, and all three of us were ready to call it a night. It was a great first full day exploring!