The Hague, a route through a surprisingly enjoyable city with an ending facing the sea

In the collective mind, The Hague, more than a city, is a circumstantial complement to a place, inextricably linked to a subject, the Court, that restricts and limits it.

The famous Tribunal of The Hague or International Court of Justice carries such great weight that its mere mention obscures the many virtues of a surprisingly enjoyable city, and totally removed from the stereotype.

In fact, this is one of those unexpected places that, when you get to know it, you come to wonder why not all cities are like that.

And it is that despite having more than half a million inhabitants - it is the third city in the Netherlands after Amsterdam and Rotterdam - it is a town fully formed on a human scale, which continues to retain an air of a small population, almost of a town ,

where nature is a daily presence —it is one of the greenest cities in Europe—, people are still friendly and distances are short and walkable.

And when your legs are heavy, there is always a bicycle or a tram close at hand.

The first evidence of this is confirmed upon arrival at Central Station (Den Haag Centraal) after the half-hour train journey directly from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport.

At the exit, suitcase in hand, in about 10 minutes on foot you will reach the Des Indes hotel, in the historic heart of the city.

Heart and history in this former palace built specifically to host the legendary parties of Baron Van Brienen and his aristocratic friends and transformed into the most luxurious accommodation in the Netherlands in 1880. In World War II it was first the headquarters of the Nazi occupation forces , then a refuge for Jews and later, after the war, the residence of statesmen such as Eisenhower and Churchill.

for their

Kings, emperors, Nobel Prize winners and all the great names of culture have paraded.

Josephine Baker reserved one room for herself and one for her pet;

the great ballerina Anna Pavlova died in one of her rooms;

and in the same room where a jazz quartet plays today, pianist Arthur Rubinstein displayed her magic on memorable nights.

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I leave the hotel still savoring in my brain stories that occurred in its corners when the stomach asks to also savor something more consistent.

The delicious hazelnut meringue freshly made in the workshop of the ChiqueoLatte cafeteria/patisserie is just that something.

One soon discovers that in The Hague one is never far from a delicious café to stop at.

Cafes where you can devour a good

like in Vascobelo;

places sheltered by hundreds of books like Bookstor, a beautiful bookstore-café —or is it a bookstore-café?— with a terrace and a wooded patio;

or places like Lola Bikes & Coffee, half cafe, half shop and bicycle workshop, where two of the passions of the inhabitants of this city are combined.

The coffee culture, present in every corner of the city.

RAFAEL STEPHANIA

If the number of cafes in a city is a good measure of its quality of life, another is the number of spaces dedicated to culture.

Again, here, The Hague passes with flying colors.

The class of honor goes to the charming Mauritshuis Museum, on the shores of Lake Hofvijver and attached to the spectacular complex of political buildings of Binnenhof, which at sunset draw the most romantic silhouette of the city reflected in the waters of the lake.

The idea of ​​the human scale comes back to me as I walk through the doors of this museum.

Small, almost intimate, the rooms of this mansion reveal their secrets almost whispering.

A mysterious Rubens

, Rembrandt's face in the most famous of his self-portraits and his iconic

and, upon entering a room, a surprise encounter with Vermeer's

.

In the same room, another of the jewels of the Dutch painter,

, his hometown portrayed in the most important urban landscape of the Golden Age of Dutch art.

Unlike the saturation that the immensity of large museums usually produces, one leaves here wanting more.

Interior of the charming Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague, with one of the best collections of works by Vermeer.

RAFAEL STEPHANIA

On the other side of the lake, another even smaller museum, the Bredius Museum, proudly displays its latest gem, a sketch of

which, after remaining forgotten in a corner of the museum for years, was attributed last November, after careful study, to Rembrandt.

And one more museum: the Escher in Het Paleis, on the Lange Voorhout square, immerses itself in the fascinating collection of works and installations by the pioneer of graphic art and master of surrealism MC Escher.

Hundreds of engravings that capture optical illusions and geometric universes that contrast with the sobriety of the columns and chandeliers of the Winter Palace of the Queen Mother where he is staying.

The collection is already looking out of the corner of its eye at the brutalist West Den Haag building —headquarters of the former American Embassy— by the iconic architect Marcel Breuer, where the museum will move in what will be a perfect union of two avant-garde geniuses.

With the spirit well nourished by a feast of art, it's time to feed the body.

Here, too, The Hague has all fronts covered.

In Prinsestraat there is a succession of oriental restaurants with sushi bars, small Indonesian bars and even Chinese haute cuisine at the Zheng restaurant.

The typical fish and seafood places here have their natural space in the Scheveningen area, closer to the sea, while charming French bistros and Italian

colonize the downtown streets.

The Walter Benedict Brasserie, on Denneweg Street, is a brick-faced establishment that enters first through the eyes, and then through the stomach.

Very fresh oysters, a

Spectacular and the best Benedict eggs in The Hague (the name of the place already puts you on that clue).

With the afternoon light, it is a good time to walk up to the Peace Palace and observe its neo-Renaissance outlines while walking through the leafy avenues where luxurious embassies from around the world are located.

Extending the 20-minute walk through the forests and lakes of the Scheveningse Bosjes you will reach Madurodam, the miniature city with the models of the most famous buildings in the Netherlands, built in 1952, where the already evocative Dutch houses and neighborhoods they definitely become fairytale places.

The 'skyline' of The Hague reflected on the Hofvijver lake.

RAFAEL STEPHANIA

Back in the city, the streets of the center invite you to lose yourself among them, aimlessly or in a hurry, enjoying the bookstores, the shops and the appearance, almost by surprise, of noble buildings such as the Noordeinde palace, one of the official residences of the Dutch royal family.

The streets around Oude Molstraat come alive with people pouring into the typical

, cozy, dimly lit bars where they can enjoy a beer in the late afternoon.

In the most bohemian of all, De Oude Mol, beer and cocktails flow between conversations and laughter in a packed bar.

, hipsters and intellectuals fresh from work or from a contemporary dance show at the neighboring Korzo theater, toast a night that promises to be long.

The evening can continue at Dekxels, one of The Hague's most innovative restaurants.

Young and casual atmosphere and a tasting menu that covers continents and cuisines of the world.

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On the way to the hotel, a stop at another, the Hotel Indigo —opened in the building that was the Dutch national bank— to have a martini in the

in its basement, in the security vault where the country's gold was stored.

aesthetics

and an impressive circular armored door more than a meter thick that guarded the ingots, to make you feel like James Bond himself.

to the sea

Dawn breaks in The Hague and after breakfasting on a piece of homemade cake and a cured Dutch cheese sandwich in the charming Dolly's café, the day invites you to explore that other The Hague that lives in front of the sea.

Before that, a stop at the curious Panorama Mesdag museum to discover what the city was like in 1881, when the painter Hendrik Willem Mesdag stopped time in this spectacular cyclorama, 14 meters high and 120 meters in circumference.

The real beach sand, netting and vegetation in the space between the painting and the viewers reinforces the sensation of three-dimensionality, enhanced by the changing natural light that enters through a skylight.

The sound of the sea and the seagulls complete an immersive experience created more than a century before that term came into vogue.

The extensive beach of Scheveningen with its famous Pier and its great Ferris wheel.

RAFAEL STEPHANIA

To get, now, to the real sea, the shortest way is the straight line drawn by tram in the direction of the Scheveningen coast.

Here, facing the beach, I recognize one of the buildings that already appeared in the Panorama painting, the Grand Hotel Amrath Kurhaus, built in 1818. Its impressive ballroom is worth visiting, large enough to host a concert by the Rolling Stones in August 1964, and go inside its immense dome to appreciate the structure built entirely of wood.

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Beyond the hotel, the rest of the buildings recall all the horrors of the architecture of the sixties and seventies on any coast in the world.

Despite not being the most evocative of landscapes, the kilometer-long Scheveningen beach with its Pier and its immense Ferris wheel becomes, during the summer months, a place of recreation for the inhabitants of The Hague, attracted here by the restaurants fish, sporting events, concerts, surf lessons and beach bars.

For those in search of something closer to that evocative painting in Panorama, it can still be found in the deserted sandbanks and wild dunes around Westduinpark.

Just 20 minutes by bus from the city center, a lush forest, crisscrossed by paths, ends in a terrain of low dunes that overlook the beach.

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