The walking tour of the Hague took us down streets and through neigborhoods full of history and stories. Holland still has a monarch, and the Queen Beatrix has a home in the Hague. We stood in front of it, and I had to compare it to Buckingham Palace in London. This one is on a much smaller scale, though elegant. The flag was flying, which meant she was in the city, but we never got to see her.
We saw many embassies on our walking tour; they fly their country's flag prominently. Spain had just been beaten by Switzerland in the first leg of the World Cup, and down the Langestraat, the two embassies were sitting next to each other!
Along the way there were many memorable sites and homes of important people who had lived in Holland during its heyday. Holland is another example of a country that was quite powerful in the 16th century, so many centuries ago.
We visited the small museum dedicated to Esscher - the artist who was fascinated with mathematical ideas and drew the salamander going in and out of the picture. He had castles with waterfalls that looked like they started on one level and then ended up on another level. I did not realize that he was from Holland. He lived most of his life in Italy; he loved the sun and the warm weather.
One Saturday it was going to be quite rainy so we decided to treat ourselves to a movie! Fortunately, the Dutch do not dub the movies, only subtitles. That is one of the reasons that the Dutch speak English with an American accent. They watch all of their movies and TV programs from America and hear our broad accent. Jack's cousin Bob had told us that Letters to Juliet was a good movie, so we treated ourselves to a relaxing afternoon. We especially liked the scenes of the Tuscany. We also learned another thing about the European football. Holland was playing that afternoon, and when we got out of the movie we went to the theater bar and asked if there was a score yet. He said yes; we said what is it? He said 0-0. We just looked at him and then realized that since so many soccer games end up with 0-0, that it is a perfectly good score...
The next day we went back to the Centrum for the antique market. This was not your usual flea market; the people showing their wares were professional. Jack found some beautiful Chinese worry bells; they were two silver bells about the size of golf balls in a beautiful box. The man said the Chinese would take the two bells in their hands and rub them together to make their troubles go away. They had a melodious sound to them. Jack was trying to find a present for Daniele, our little friend whom we baby sat in Dallas for almost a year - every Friday from August to April.
We were going to see our friend Teresa and her two little boys, Mahdi and Daniele. She was our Italian teacher of so many years ago, and we were also neighbors in Dallas. They were going to be in Lugano, Switzerland, visiting the grand parents, and Teresa wanted us to come see them. We were working on plans to get down there for a few days, so we needed some presents for the boys. Daniele, just two, loves to bang things together, loves to shake things and love boxes, so the box of the Chinese worry bells seemed the perfect gift for him.
Jack had already picked out a present for Mahdi - a model plane. I thought it was too old for him; Mahdi will be celebrating his 5th birthday in July - but Jack thought it would be perfect. We also needed a present for Marinella, the cousin who was just a year old, and a present for Lino, the grandfather, and then we would be set.
The tram that we rode back and forth from the centrum also went all the way to Delft, our next stop. One of the ladies who worked the desk at our hotel lives in Delft, and she told us the tram stop close to our new hotel. If we were going to drag our luggage on the tram and then get off in Delft and walk to our new hotel, I wanted to be sure it was possible, so I volunteered to ride the tram to Delft and check out the location of our hotel there.
It was a good thing that I did, because several things were going on in Delft. The first thing was, the stops had changed; they were actually shut down due to major construction in that area. When I realized our stop was no longer a possibility, I asked the tram driver and he told me another one would "be in the vicinity". I got off there, looked around and spotted the old church of Delft that was our landmark. I found Old Delft and followed the numbers until I came to our hotel: Bridges Hotel. It is in the old section of Delft in an old building with no elevator, but the lobby was really a charming sitting room. I liked it immediately. The ownere, Jan Wilhelm, was there to greet me. I told him my story, and we looked at the map to determine the best way to get to his hotel from the tram stop. He told me that the city was undergoing a major public work to move the train tracks from above to below the city. It would take about ten years! Sort of like Central Expressway redo in Dallas. Anyway, I retraced the steps Jack and I would have to take with our luggage on Thursday, waited for the next tram to take me back to the beach and report what I had found.
We were nearing the end of our stay in the Hague, so we assessed what we hadn't seen and what we wanted to see once again. Of course, the Maurithuis was on the repeat list, and one other, the municipal museum, is full of local artist's work: Piet Mondrian is the most famous, and the De Stijl group is the famous architectural group. The building itself is very interesting, designed to make the most of the natural light. We had a great time just walking around and discovering all the many displays. It was located in an interesting part of the Hague, where many international companies have their offices.
Our last day was a busy one, because we had made reservations for a guided tour through the Peace Palace. Andrew Carnegie had donated funds to house the international arbitration court, and the Netherlands donated the land. Each country has donated furnishings for the palace, and the Administrative Council meets there is an enormous table with seats decorated with the countries' coat of arms. Our guide, a law student, didn't tell us much about the workings of the Peace Palace; he more or less showed us around and commented on the building itself. I wanted to see an actual trial but nothing seemed to be happening at that time.
We went back to our hotel, gathered our belongings, hopped on the tram and made our way to Delft. We were looking forward to finding all about the place where the artist Vermeer spent his whole life.
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