Netherlands Trip Day 3 - The Hague and Delft (Monday July 22nd, 2019)

September 15, 2019

Netherlands Trip Day 3 - The Hague and Delft (Monday July 22nd, 2019)

Netherlands Trip Day 3 - The Hague and Delft (Monday July 22nd, 2019)

Everyone got up and was ready for breakfast right before 8:00 am. We took our time to enjoy our breakfast because we have have a short drive to Mauritshuis at the Hague (den Haag). The plan is to visit the Mauritshuis and see several key Golden Age Dutch paintings with Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer being the highlight of the visit. After visiting the Hague, we will make the short drive to our hotel in Vermeer's home city of Delft. Both The Hague (den Haag) and Delft are located in the province of South Holland.

In good spirit for breakfast at the narrow stairway

Freshly baked bread, roll, and croissant

Hard boiled eggs and condiments

Cheese and cold cut, notice the young cheese on the right (Bart Simpson) and the old cheese on the left (Grandpa Simpson)

Enjoying the cold cut

Freshly squeezed orange juice and espresso coffee

Yogurt

Picture with Henk and Annemarie before we departed Malts Hotel

A monochromatic take of Haarlem from our room

The crumbled up street map of Haarlem

From Haarlem to The Hague is a short drive of less than one hour. We had thought about stopping by Leiden in between but decided not to due to being short on time. It would have made more sense to stop by Leiden or Keukenhof during tulip season which is March-April.

We arrived at The Hague before 11:00 because I thought the Mauritshuis opens at 10:00 am during the weekday. However, I was mistaken. Most commercial places in The Netherlands open much later on Monday. Mauritshuis does not open until 1:00 pm on Monday. So we had at least couple of hours to kill until opening time.

The Hague is the political center of Netherlands and Binnenhof is the center of politics at The Hague.
We were hoping to visit the Binnenhof. The Binnenhof is a 13th century castle compound used by the Dutch government event today. However, the guided tours of Binnenhof was already sold out. We decided to purchase a tour of Binnenhof for tomorrow which is an English speaking tour of the parliament as well as the main Gothic building of Ridderzaal. This would turn out be another mistake that I made during that day.

Statue of William the First, Prince of Orange (1533-1584) at the city center (Het Plein) above the parking garage that we used. William the First is considered the founding father of the modern Dutch Republic. He led the revolt against the Spanish rule of The Netherlands during the 16th century.

"To William the First, Prince of Orange, Father of Fatherlands, from the Grateful Folks, 1848"

At the Mauritshuis, a bit too early

Entrance to the Binnenhof compound

Restored Gothic style architecture of Binnenhof

Walking by the Hofvijver pond of Binnenhof

Ridderzaal, symbolic Gothic fort of Dutch monarch

Fountain at Binnenhof, a gift of citizen to the city commemorating the restoration of Binnenhof in 1885

Grab a quick bite at McDonald's before visiting the museum

A picture with the former Queen of Netherlands (current King's mother) by the throne

Herring shop outside of Binnenhof, we will return to this shop the following day for some tasting

Statue of Willem the II (1792-1849) outside of Binnenhof

The various colorful provincial flags of Netherlands outside Binnenhof, the yellow flag with the red lion is the flag of South Holland where The Hague is located

Right around the Binnenhof is a modern shopping center called "De Passage". The Hague is a much larger city compare to Haarlem. De Passage is a shopping mall with all the modern stores. We walked around De Passage for some window shopping and for a quick drink at Starbucks. De Passage is also next to China Town which we will return tomorrow for our dinner.

The modern architecture of "De Passage" shopping mall

De Passage

The modern style of De Passage

Advertisement of a chocolate shop at De Passage

Getting a specialty drink at Starbucks De Passage

Food Stall at De Passage

After walking around Binnenhof and De Passage, it was finally time to return to Mauritshuis to visit all the famous paintings. We returned to the Mauritshuis and followed the long line downstairs to purchase our tickets to enter the museum.

The Mauritshuis

The Mauritshuis was the former residence of John Maurice(1604-1679), the former colonial governor of modern day Brazil. John Maurice worked for the Dutch West India Company to expand the Dutch interest in the new world agains the Portugueese. His former residence now houses some of the most famous Dutch Golden Age paintings include works from Vermeer, Rembrandt, Jan Steen, and Frans Hals just to name a few. While the Rijksmuseum is the most famous museum in The Netherlands for Dutch Golden Age art, the Mauritshuis is much less crowded and provided a much more intimate experience than the Rijksmuseum. We spent a good couple of hours in the museum and took in what we could. One could easily spend a life time just studying the art and the stories behind all the paintings.

self portrait, Rembrandt van Rijn, 1669

Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of Rembrandt with a Gorget, 1629

The Laughing Man, Rembrandt van Rijn, 1629-1630

The man with a feather beret, Rembrandt van Rijn, 1635-1640

Rembrandt van Rijn, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, 1632

Painting of the painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, circa 19th century

A painting of the painting The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp

Rembrandt van Rijn, Two African Men, 1661

Rembrandt van Rijn, Saul and David, circa 1651-1658

The Girl with a Pearl Earring, Johannes Vermeer, 1665

The 2003 film "Girl with a Pearl Earring" starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth provided the historical context of Delft and the painting. We watched this film together as a family before we departed for the trip

View of Delft, Johannes Vermeer, 1660-1661

As the Old Sing, So Pipe the Young, Jan Steen, 1668-1670

The Life of Man, Jan Steen, 1668-1670

Old Woman and Boy with Candles, Peter Paul Rubens, 1616-1617

The Garden of Eden with the fall of man, Peter Paul Rubens, 1615

Still life with cheese, almonds, and pretzels, Clara Peeters, 1615

Appelles Painting Campaspe, Willem van Haecht, 1630

View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds, Jacob van Ruisdael, 1670-1675

The Goldfinch, Carel Fabrituis, 1654

Ice Scene, Hendrick Avercamp, 1610

Portrait of Robert Cheseman, Hans Holbein, 1533

Collage made by GG

The Mauritshuis also has a fun interactive part of the museum that we got to try on various costumes, learn about mixing color from natural ingredients, and seeing light in various angles. We tried a few interesting items at the interactive part of the museum and visited the nice museum gift shop. We completed our visit in just under two hours. We decided to visit the the Haagse Markt at this point to get a taste of the local market.

Exiting the Mauritshuis

Walking from Mauritshuis to the Centrum train station

Taking in den Haag along the walk

Intricate details on the building

The Centrum train station is located just south of Mauritshuis about 10 minutes walk. It is an underground station where many trains transfer here. We found the platform of #6 train to Haagse Markt without much issues. We did not know how to buy the tickets since this is our first time getting on the City Sprinter. There were no ticketing booth close to the platform. When the train arrived we just got onto the train. We asked around and it turned out that we buy the tickets on the train so we did.

Standing in the #6 "Sprinter" City Train - I was holding everyone's jackets and the train ticket

Welkom op de Haagse Markt! - Welcome to the Haagse Market!

In contrast to high end shopping at "De Passage" where we were at earlier in the day, de Haagse Markt is essentially a flea market with food stalls. It is located at an extremely ethnic neighborhood of den Haag. There were large number of middle eastern and African shoppers/dwellers browsing through the items and enjoying a sunny day out.

Getting some stroopwafels

...and then some French fries

trying some local produce

"aardbeien" - strawberries, smaller in size but taste great

Getting some Arabic bread

I sampled some cheese (kaas) at the cheese shop

Candy shop

After spending about an hour or so at the market, we started to head back to the Plein via the city sprinter where. Joanne had picked out a Vietnamese food restaurant in Chinatown close to our parking area. That was going to be our dinner destination, but that will turn out to be the third mistake that I made that day.

At the Haagse Market stop waiting for our city sprinter back to the Plein

City sprinter map at the Haagse Markt

Late afternoon sun in the bustling city

City sprinter tracks

A city sprinter arriving at the stop

After we got back to the Plein, we went to take a quick bathroom break at a high end department store called de Bijenkorf. We window shopped the nicely displayed delftware in the department store and took a rest at the book section of the department store. Afterwards, we walked through Chinatown to our dinner destination. Unfortunately, the restaurant that we tried to go was closed on Monday. We learned that many businesses are not open on Monday or has early closing and late opening hours on Monday. We decided to eat at a nearby ramen shop and headed to Delft to check in to our hotel for the evening.

At the Bijenkorf department store

Window shop on some delftware

Colorful plates and tea sets

Delftware tiles

Beautiful display with items from Royal Delft

At the gate of den Haag Chinatown

On "Wagenstraat" under the red lanterns

Chinatown storefront with classic Cantonese English translation

More French fries?

City park "Speeltuin Rabbijn Maarsenplein" next to the Vietnamese restaurant that we tried to go to called "Little V"

MM mixing in with the local kids at the park

"Nieuwe Kerk" by the park

Ordered the cheapest item on the menu at Momiji Sushi - yakisoba

Made it back to the Plein parking lot about 20 minutes before 7:00 pm

After leaving den Haag, Delft was only about a fifteen minute drive away. After getting into town, we parked at a nice and clean parking garage just north of the old town. We walked across the bridge over Delftse Vliet (Delft Canal) right to the town square. Our hotel - Hotel Emauspoort is located just at the edge of the town square across from the Nieuwe Kerk (new church).

Walking across the bridge over old canal in Delft

Beautiful view of the old canal, shortly pass 7:00 pm

At Vrouwenregt by Hotel Emauspoort

Hotel Emauspoort with view of Nieuwe Kerk

Trompetstraat, the little street by our hotel

Hotel Emauspoort is a small bed and breakfast hotel run by a local family. We checked into our rooms without any issue. Our rooms are by Trompetstraat. We could see the owner's family cleaning the trash can and eating dinner. Our rooms were on the second floor but the kids and mine's bedroom is actually located at the attic of this 400 year old building. There is no air conditioning just like Hotel Malts in Haarlem. However, we were being hit by an epic heat wave starting today. We went to our attic bedroom and opened up all the windows to allow air circulation. There was a fan and we ran the fan all night to cool the room down.

After everyone had settled in, Joanne and I went for our evening walk. We walked from our hotel through the town square and turned southeast towards the old city gate (Oostpoort). We continued walking along the canal north of Delft University of Technology and Technical University of Delft. We were looking for the view point where the painting View of Delft by Vermeer was painted. Joanne navigated we we managed to find the spot. At this point we were miles away from our hotel. After taking a few pictures at the "View of Delft" view point, we walked back to our hotel through the town and called it a night. I had walked over 9 miles and over 20,000 steps for today.

View of Nieuwe Kerk from our bedroom in the attic