Here’s a look a photo I took earlier this week:
Don’t you just wonder how it looks around the corner?
Please note that I took this photo from the public sidewalk. The gate is usually open but it is still private property after all!
Interestingly enough I first thought it was a hofje until I did a bit of research. Marco joked that I thought that because there really are so many of them in The Hague (see also Dutch Wikipedia). A hofje is a small, enclosed courtyard surrounded by houses. These areas were originally built to provide housing for elderly women and often funded by wealthy benefactors as a charitable act. They date back to the Middle Ages and can still be found in many Dutch cities, especially Haarlem and Leiden.
The Gilde Den Haag offers tours of hofjes every Tuesday and Thursday morning, although those are in Dutch. You can also see some hofjes on Open Monument day in September (also known as Heritage Days in English). In fact, there’s a lot of places that open their doors to visitors on that day.
Life in the Hague 