The Hague, Netherlands

Hi there! My short jaunt through The Netherlands is coming to an end but not before seeing the administrative (and gorgeous) centre of the country!

Date: Tuesday, September 19th, 2023

Good morning! Today I left Amsterdam, hopped on yet another train and headed for the coast of The Netherlands!

When talking to a friend from my class last week, she mentioned that she was going to spend a couple of days with her sister in The Hague so we planned to meet up when I arrived! Then she informed me that the day I would be there is Prince's/Budget Day!

Prince's Day occurs every third Tuesday of September and this marks the opening of the parliamentary year! It's a big deal and lots of people come from far & wide to watch the procession with carriages and horses and they listen to the Speech from the Throne. I was super excited that this was happening the day I would be there!

But back to my day! I took the train and this time it was a double-decker train! How cool! It was a short trip to The Hague and as soon as I arrived, you could tell something was happening in the city! There were tons of people on the streets, despite it being only 8:30 AM, police officers were setting up the parade route and lots of people making sure the city looked its best!

I had a couple of hours before meeting my friend Nunu & her little cousin Tian so I decided to walk as much of the city as I could without getting blocked by the parade barricades. I saw the Former Ministry of Justice, the gorgeous libraries, The Hague International Centre and the Mauritshuis (pictured here).

This city is filled with the most beautiful buildings. Here is their Parliment building (Binnenhof).

I would describe this part of the city as a way cooler and prettier Ottawa. The Hague is also home to most of the embassies and consulates for The Netherlands. Here is the Canadian one!

As I was walking around, the streets were getting busier and busier so Nunu & Tian decided to come to the city centre a little earlier than we originally planned. I took this photo at 9:30 AM (3.5 hours before the parade) and it was already getting busy in front of the palace!

As I waited for Nunu & Tian's tram to arrive, I got a yummy coffee and sandwich and watched the masses of people come to watch the parade. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get a really good view of the parade, but we did get to see some cool camera equipment that I'm sure got some really cool pictures.

Here was our view:

If you look closely you can see the King waving!!

After the parade, Nunu & I split ways and I decided to walk to the coastal part of The Hague. It was about a 5 km walk away but I heard that the pier is a must-see! So I walked through a couple of really nice parks and even got to see some unexpected residents! Apparently, rose-ring parakeets live in The Hague now! The story goes that they are originally from Asia & Africa and people in The Hague had them as pets and somehow they got out. Even more impressively, they did really well here! They survive the cold winters by eating food from bird feeders and they live in most of the parks in The Hague! Cool!

I finally arrived at the pier (only about 8,000 steps later) and at this point in the day, the wind and a little bit of rain had picked up:( So I didn't stay by the ocean for too long but nonetheless, it was still beautiful.

This part of the city was a bit like a coastal Californian city but in the 80s...

So The Hague in a very simplified way: A prettier Ottawa, then 5 KM of park/tropical rainforest followed by a 1980s version of Santa Cruz. Pretty cool!

After taking a tram to the train station, I headed back towards Belgium, only taking 4 separate trains to do so and I made it back to Ghent!

Netherlands By Numbers:

Total step count: 85,171 in less than 3 days (and not including the steps that weren't counted due to my watch dying!!!)

Hours on trains: 7.5

Relatives seen: 2!

Tours: 3

# of Bikes that fall into Amsterdam canals /year: 17,000 - this one has nothing to do with my trip but it's a crazy fact that I had to fit in somewhere

Times hit by crazy Dutch bike riders: 0 - almost 1

# of blog posts: 3 - sorry if this overwhelmed your inbox!