The Hague with Mauritshuis

Saturday 2022-09-24

We could not say that we really liked The Hague. The mixture of old and new is too big, somehow this city has not been able to decide in recent past whether to preserve the cozy smallness that other Dutch cities have maintained or whether to handle things like a big city. But there is incredible liveliness here, staying in The Hague must be incredibly exciting.

Since it's Saturday afternoon, the obligatory shopping frenzy in the city center quickly becomes too much for us. Since the Binnenhof cannot be visited at the moment due to renovation, we decide to let the old masterpieces from the golden age of Dutch painting in the Mauritshuis Museum - which is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year - have an effect on us. It's a very special feeling to stand face to face with unique originals by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Holbein, Rubens, Brueghel, and many other great Dutch painters (and female painters) from the 17th century.

We don't have enough time to visit the museum of modern art and the photo museum today. We decide to visit these two museums on a second attempt.