Last night it rained steadily until early morning. We really have not had a good day since we arrived, but last night was probably the worst. The first thing I did when I got up was check the weather forecast, and the rain we had last night was forecast to continue for the next 48 hours except for a short 3 to 4 hour window today. We had originally planned to go to the Hague for the day, but I looked at a couple of options if the weather was really as bad as forecast
When Ton got up, she thought about the options for about one minute and said if it rains it rains, let’s go the Hague. So after confirming we could extend our stay another day we were off to the Tram for the Hague.
The Hague is most famous internationally for the Palace of Peace, which is the home of the International Court of Justice, and the International Court of Arbitration. They are both housed in the Palace of Peace which was built in the early 1900’s. I learned today that the Palace of Peace was largely funded by Andrew Carnegie. He put up the money for the design and the initial construction. Unfortunately, the Palace of Peace was finished in 1913, less than one year before the outbreak of WWI. The grounds can only be seen by organized tours, but we stopped into the visitors center and saw a nice presentation on the history of the Palace, and the role of the International Courts of Justice and Arbitration.
Ton wanted to check out an old bookstore in the center of the Hague, so we had a pleasant stroll thru a neighborhood of embassies, and stately old homes. As we were wandering we came across the official office of the Netherlands Royal Family. They don’t live in this particular building, but it is where they work. It was understated as palaces go but still fairly impressive.
Outside the Palace of Peace, the Hague or as the people who live here call it Den Haag is more of a working town without a lot of sights to see. So having taken in most of the sights we decided to head into the city center to see what we would see.
We had originally planned on having coffee in the book store Ton wanted to visit, but when we got there the only seats were outside, and today was not a sit outside kind of day. Since I’m complaining about things today, another pet peeve of mine is people using public spaces particularly coffee shops as offices. The only reason we could not enjoy the interior of this beautiful coffee shop is that almost all the tables were occupied by someone with their laptop opened up, working on something. Most of them did not even have a coffee on the table, and a couple were having video calls. I guess I’m feeling a little grumpy today.
But because of all of the people squatting at the tables in the coffee shop, we found a wonderful restaurant a few blocks down that served great Apple Pie, which we made into our lunch. Ton and I have been looking to try Dutch Apple Pie, and when we saw a lunch special of Apple Pie and a coffee we dived in. The only confusion for me is that this restaurant was a “Belgian” restaurant, down to having a menu with a Belgian flag on it. Whether it was Dutch Apple Pie, or Belgian Apple Pie, it was very good Apple Pie.
It was starting to rain, and as we were walking we came across the tram stop for Delft, so we jumped on and headed on back. It was raining hard when we got onto the train, but by the time we were back in Delft, it had stopped and the sun came out. Tons decision to stick with the original plan was a good one.
