Last week the city added a Christmas tree to the Grote Markstraat, the main shopping street in The Hague’s city centre.
It’s nice, but the photo definitely shows the weather we have been experiencing the last few weeks. Cold, rain, you name it. The Netherlands even saw some snow in the north of the country last week (and when it melted, it weakened some train tracks, causing a bit of chaos up there). Bring on the winter?
Spotted at the local Lego store on the Spuistraat:
Storks, tulip fields, windmills… it sums up the touristy side of the Netherlands (and The Hague with the stork) nicely.
Earlier this month a very large and lit up teddy bear was added to The Hague Central train station for the holidays:
It’s also functional – it provides a few places to sit by its legs, although it is hard to tell from this angle.
The last week or so the crowds around the city centre have definitely picked up. But I was able to take a nice photo of the newest holiday decorations on the Spuistraat before the stores had opened:
I also took a photo of Spuistraat back in the summer of 2020, complete with street markings asking everyone to keep 1.5 meters distance from each other. In some places in the city you can still see the faint reminders of those markings, but they are almost (almost) gone.
Here is a random photo this week, of a store window in De Passage:
This is a store window at Hamilton tobacco & gifts, a souvenir store that I can still remember visiting back when I was actually a tourist around 2009-2011 sometime. As you can see from the photo, they have a nice collection of Dutch memorabilia, Delft blauw pottery, Nijntje (or Miffy if you’re not from the Netherlands), etc.
Random news:
Artwork stolen from Scheveningen hotel; Man walked out with 50 kg statue in suitcase
Dunkin’ to stay in the Netherlands but some stores will shut
Here are a few photos that I took around The Hague this month. First, a canal with some beautiful flowers and clouds:
Then, a set of apartments and a pond around the S100 road (a main artery), also known as the Burgemeester Patijnlaan. Apparently it is the Athena condominiums. Who knew?
And finally, a photo of a crazy looking tree along the Koninginnegracht, another main road where tram 9 runs. The trees stand on the edge of a canal. It’s most likely the same canal in the first photograph, just in a different part of the city. It’s all interconnected.
It’s definitely the type of tree which could feature in a Halloween story, if the lighting was a bit darker.
De Passage (the covered shopping area in The Hague’s city centre) has started getting ready for the coming holiday season. It’s a bit early, but in the Netherlands the first holiday is Sinterklaas. That holiday is on 5 December, a full three weeks before Christmas.
It’s not much yet (there’s no Christmas tree yet), but it’s a start.
And in other news: Jeers for beers: mechanic chucks out artwork at Lisse museum from dutchnews.nl. The artwork was two handprinted beer cans left on display in an elevator, so the mistake definitely makes sense. The museum has gotten a lot of publicity due to it, so I am sure they are happy. (The not-beer cans were later found in the trash, so there was no harm done.)
As mentioned in my last post, the oliebollen stand opened yesterday, 1 October. As you can see it was immediately swarmed.
Marco also made good on his promise to go take the picture above and buy oliebollen, so we already had our first ones of the season yesterday evening, with the obligatory coffee.
And yes, it is rainy in the Netherlands of late. I took a chance this morning by not bringing my umbrella on my walk to work. I regretted it around the halfway mark. Boo. It looks like there will be less rain the rest of the week, though.
A few weeks back Marco and I walked through the Paleistuin while waiting for a dinner reservation at Niko, a Japanese restaurant. I took a photo of some of the flowers at the Paleistuin (=Palace Garden).
It was a just a bit of colour to break through all of the green. I think it is a bit too late in the year to see lots of different colors at these gardens, unfortunately.
Here is a look at some of the food we had at Niko:
Above is a salmon dish – and my favorite photo.
Above is an eel dish. I am not the biggest fan of eel, but in small quantities it’s fine. The cucumber underneath was de-li-cious, though, after soaking in that awesome sauce.
Above is a beef tartare dish. I don’t like anything with egg that still looks like egg (cooked or uncooked), but once someone else stirs it in I’m fine with it. It was pretty tasty, actually.
Roger’s mochi dessert. If you have never had mochi, this might be an interesting article to read: Trying and failing to describe the texture of mochi.
Life in the Hague 