[Categories: Travel, Photography, Travel Photography]
[This series of posts is about our recent 3-day sightseeing plus 7-day Bike & Barge, Holland:Tulip Tour in the North and South Holland Provinces of The Netherlands.]
[See a list of all posts currently in this series HERE.]
We stayed in Den Haag/The Hague to visit the area and adjust those body clocks prior to joining International Bicycle Tours in Amsterdam.
From our 9am arrival at Schiphol Airport near Amsterdam we took a train to Den Haag. We had pre-purchased tickets acquired through the Belgian SNCB rail website as the Dutch rail website NS.NL only honors certain Dutch banks for online purchase. Pre-purchase was a convenience but definitely not a necessity as rail travel is very easy in the Netherlands.
Our accommodations were at the Holiday Inn Express, Lange Houtstraat 5, just a few yards from The Plein, Mauritshuis, and The Binnenhof, and a 15-minute walk from Central Station. Our room was minimalist (no dresser and few shelves) but very clean, modern, and moderately priced. (Be sure to ask for an inside room as the dance club down the street woke us in the wee hours on a few nights.) See room photos HERE or browse my TripAdvisor reviews.
The cafes and bars in The Plein are busy at lunch time but this is nothing compared to 5pm when they are PACKED, presumably with workers from the government buildings nearby. You can hardly walk down the sidewalk early evening. Ahh young professionals.
As I’ve alluded HERE dining in The Hague and elsewhere was superb throughout the entire trip .
William of Orange stands the silent sentinel in The Plein:
The history of William I (Wiki) is intriguing. There are a LOT of Williams in Dutch royal history. The current King of the Netherlands is Willem Alexander. The William of Irish Orange Order and College of William and Mary fame is William III.
The old and the new in Dutch architecture:
Het Plein is often the site of anti-whatever protests. Sorry I missed the Occupy Wall Street camp. The Global Cyber Space Conference 2015 was occurring in a few days and I got a kick out of #TheElephantInTheRoom:
Up next, a day in Delft.
John's Space ..... 