The Hague
The seat of government that is not the capital, with a beach at the end of a tram line
- When to go
- October 13° · 17 rainy days
- Per day
- €€€€price 4 of 5
- How many days
- 2days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 16 km Rotterdam · 41 km Amsterdam
- Right now
The Hague comes in two halves: the government quarter around the Binnenhof, with the Mauritshuis a hundred metres away, and Scheveningen, a beach four kilometres north-west in a straight line, reached by tram. Two days here means one for each.
The Mauritshuis is a city palace of 1636–1641 holding Dutch Golden Age painting, eleven Rembrandts among it. Four pictures are why people come: Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring and View of Delft, Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp and Fabritius's Goldfinch.
The Binnenhof, the complex on the Hofvijver that is the seat of parliament, has been under restoration since October 2021, and completion is not expected before the summer of 2031. Until then the House of Representatives sits in the former Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Bezuidenhoutseweg, so the Binnenhof is for now something you look at from outside.
Scheveningen is a district of The Hague rather than a separate town, and from here the beach runs eighteen kilometres south-west to Hoek van Holland, with dunes behind the sand. Nothing here needs planning — you take the tram, eat fish and come back in the evening.
What to see in The Hague
The Mauritshuis
Admission €21, free under 19; book a time slot online. EU residents pay €4 from 16:00 to 18:00, but that ticket is sold only at the desk, between 16:00 and 17:30.
The Binnenhof and Hofvijver
While the restoration lasts, the complex is best seen from the far side of the Hofvijver, across the water.
The Peace Palace
Seat of the International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of Arbitration. The visitor centre is free, Wednesday to Sunday 12:00–17:00; inside you go only on a tour, at weekends from May to October and when the court schedule allows (€17.50, an hour).
The Scheveningen pier
Today's dates from 1959 and runs 382 metres, on the site of the first of 1901, which the Germans pulled down in the war.
Escher in Het Paleis
A whole museum of Escher in Queen Emma's former winter palace on the Lange Voorhout. Tuesday to Sunday 11:00–17:00.
Madurodam
The Netherlands at 1:25, open since 1952, halfway to the beach. It is named after George Maduro, a Curaçao-born student in the resistance who died in a German camp in 1945.
Two things you probably did not know
The Hague is the seat of government and of the king, but it is not the capital of the Netherlands; by the constitution that is Amsterdam. The split has existed since 1814 and is unique in Europe.
The Panorama Mesdag of 1881 is a painting in the round, a hundred and twenty metres long and fourteen high, viewed from a platform in the middle. Real sand is spread in front of it, so you cannot see where the painting begins.
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