Definitely Den Haag

Today, I along with Emma, Laura and Rachel finally got around to visiting Den Haag, or as it's known in English, The Hague. It's in a strange position as it's home to the Dutch Government, Parliament and Royal House, but it's not the capital as that falls to Amsterdam, so I was curious as to what we'd fine. We had a small problem on the way with my Dutch translation skills only telling me that we were on a splitting train after said train had split and hence found ourselves instead heading to Rotterdam. But still, we regrouped and made it to Den Haag.

I had a feeling that I'd like it, and I did. Parts of it seemed a lot more developed than Amsterdam, there seems to be more money splashing around, but it didn't seem to stop the city from retaining some old charm. The shopping districts were much like any other city, but away from this there was some great architecture, especially the Parliament building which avoided the all-out grandeur of Westminster, but still felt suitably austere:


We bought a walking tour from the Tourist Information Office that took us to all sorts of places which I doubt can be considered 'essential viewing' but at least we got off the beaten track. We also got lost on the way back to the train station, managing to end up at the wrong train station, but it did give us an excuse to sample not one, but two, Dutch oliebollen. They're like doughnuts, but better. They aren't as sweet, the outside is faintly crunchy, they can have raisins in, and they're cheap. So that was a good find. On our meanders around the back streets we also came across the following rather picture-perfect scene:


Den Haag is host to the Escher art gallery, famous for all of the graphical, bind bending works involving staircases going everywhere, but nowhere etc. I hadn't realised how many pieces he'd done, so it was great to see them all under one roof, and it gave us occasion to have this photo (of a photo) taken:


I shall leave you all to work out how it works, and yes, it did hurt hoisting my leg up that high onto the sill.