Posts Tagged With: Centrum

Almost ready (Or: Leiden University’s Spui campus)

Posted on January 26, 2026 by Niki

Leiden University has facilities in both Leiden and The Hague, with approximately 25% of their students taking classes in The Hague. One of their newest locations, Spui campus, will open to students on 2 February.

The new location is in the building which used to house the V&D clothing store (1969-2015) and the Canadian store Hudson’s Bay (2017-2019). The main entrance on the side of the Grote Marktstraat is used by MediaMarkt (blog post), an electronics store similar to Best Buy in the US. But MediaMarkt only uses the lower two floors, so there is a lot of space left over in this six story building (20,000 square meters).

Here’s a look at the entrance for the Spui campus:

The entrance is across from the Centrum tram stop. (In fact, I stood on the platform while taking this picture.) The Queen’s Casino is to the left. Marco said this used to be the entrance for the V&D employees back in the day. The best part? Leiden University decided to keep the same font face that V&D used way back when, as you can see in the photo above.

Sneak preview: from department store to university building from universiteitleiden.nl.

To clarify, the new building will also house TU Delft, the Open Universiteit, Leiden University Medical Center and Universiteiten van Nederland, so there will be a lot of educational organizations under one roof. And then MediaMarkt, for all of your electronic needs…

Categories: The Hague | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Snowpocalypse (Or: An inch of snow in The Hague!)

Posted on January 12, 2026 by Niki

Here are some photos from the snow that covered The Hague last week Wednesday. The entire week was quite wintery. Yesterday the low (overnight) temperature was -5C/23F, but to be fair the northern and eastern sides of the Netherlands had it worse, with up to 6 inches of snow last week and -10C/14F elsewhere. But with The Hague being so close to the coast, we don’t see numbers like that.

‘Damage is piling up’: has the Netherlands forgotten how to cope with snow? from The Guardian

Wednesday was quite pretty to be out and about, though. If you went early enough, the snow was still fresh, with the gorgeous crunch under your boots. You also didn’t have to worry about ice, since the snow was still too fresh and not pressed down by everyone walking on it.

Here are some of the photos I took that day:

The red scooter reminds me of the photo I took of the red scooter at Haagse Bluf in 2017.

Above, by The Sting clothing store, not far from the Grote Kerk.

Looking left of the previous image, towards Venestraat, a shopping street (marked by the stork lights).

Cafe seats outside of ‘t Goude Hooft, a restaurant and hotel.

Looking towards the old city hall (the red door is part of it), where Marco and I got married back in September 2013.

By the restaurant By Ami, which coincidentally was advertising for their Burlesque night, which is probably much more mild than you might think, as this is a restaurant after all. But I thought it was a nice juxtaposition to have the snow-covered summery trees next to an advertisement with a woman dancing in what is basically a one piece swimsuit.

No blog post is complete or Dutch enough without a bicycle, and in this case a fully snow-covered one.

Since The Hague is so close to the sea the snow was gone by Thursday. Yesterday was the coldest day of the week, as I mentioned, but today is already back up to 6C/43F, a more normal temperature for a Dutch winter.

Categories: The Hague | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Toothpaste and tanks (Or: Unexpected art)

Posted on November 3, 2025 by Niki

Recently I was walking along Prinsestraat in The Hague and I noticed some eye-catching art in the window at the art gallery Chiefs and Spirits:

Pretty cool, huh? I also squeeze my toothpaste tube to get every last bit out, so I enjoy it even more because of that, I think.

The Hague’s official website has a list of art galleries in city. For instance, De Affiche Galerij, or loosely translated, the poster gallery – it’s found in tram tunnel at Grote Marktstraat. Most people walk right on past, myself included usually. I need to stop and check the posters out more often!

Categories: The Hague | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Surprise (Or: Giraffes walking through the Grote Marktstraat)

Posted on October 28, 2025 by Niki

Well, not real giraffes of course. But as part of De Betovering (an art festival for the youth), there were performers walking through the city centre a few weeks ago dressed up like giraffes:

And a close up:

Apparently there was also a hippo, although I didn’t see that one. You can read more about De Betovering on the official website, which translates to “The Enchantment” in English. The event was from 17 October to 25 October, during the autumn school holiday.

If you can, don’t forget to vote tomorrow! The vote is for the Dutch House of Representatives. In theory for the next four years, though the government seems to collapse faster than that lately. Of course, you need to have Dutch citizenship to vote, so I won’t be voting in this one. I do plan on getting it, but at this point it is easier to wait and do the option procedure, which I can do once I have lived here at least 15 consecutive years (and because I am married to a Dutch citizen for at least 3 of those years). So that would be after December 2027. Time flies…

Categories: Culture, The Hague | Tags: | Leave a comment

Sun and blue skies (Or: A look back at August)

Posted on October 7, 2025 by Niki

Here is a reminder of how blue and bright August looked…

On the plus side for October, the oliebollenkraam is back! An oliebol is like a doughnut (in fact, an oliebol was the inspiration for donuts – see also Wikipedia). I believe the stand opened on October 1, the first date it is legally allowed to open. Here is a photo from October 2:

And this year they have a large message on the back, visible from far away:

It is quite bright and draws you in. That’s a good thing, since the stand is at the end of the shopping street. Visibility is key.

The website of the stand is available at https://www.dehaagscheoliebollenbakkerij.nl, although it doesn’t seem to be completely loading for me at the moment. But still – oliebollen!

Categories: The Hague | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Rainbows in The Hague (Or: Gone as fast as it arrived)

Posted on October 1, 2025 by Niki

A few weeks ago I noticed a rather well-formed rainbow in The Hague’s city centre. It was quite prominent and colorful.

Here it is on the Prinsestraat, near the Chinese restaurant Zheng (on the right side, just past Prinsestaete).

Here was the rainbow in the city centre, near Sting, a clothing store. Sting is the building in the middle with the colorful bricks. The building itself received the nickname De Snoeptrommel (or candy jar) years ago. I’m sure you can see why.

It was a good photo, although the tram lines got in the way of the rainbow a bit.

Shortly thereafter, the rainbow was gone. It lasted somewhere around 5 to 10 minutes in total. But it was nice to see!

Categories: The Hague | Tags: | Leave a comment

From above (Or: View of the Grote Marktstraat)

Posted on August 12, 2025 by Niki

Here’s a view of the Grote Marktstraat from the second floor of Uniqlo:

Interestingly, if I held my camera just a bit higher, everything got a brownish tint to it. It looks cool, even if it wasn’t the true colors at the time.

The building on the right side of the photo is Bijenkorf (literally: Beehive). If you’re ever there, take the stairs! That way you can see the impressive stained glass windows – see also this Reddit post.

It’s hard to imagine this street used to be a normal street with buses and trams running down it! See also this post in Dutch from indebuurt.nl.

Categories: The Hague | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

Construction in the city centre (Or: Different road signs)

Posted on June 25, 2025 by Niki

You know you are in The Hague’s Chinatown when even the road signs are translated into Chinese:

I’m assuming it says what the sign in Dutch says – that the street is closed off. Technically The Hague’s Chinatown is the biggest in the country but it is still effectively one long street, or maybe two at most. Nothing like the Chinatowns in other countries.

In other news, the two day NATO summit has just ended in The Hague. The most important thing I have learned while being required to work from home is that eventually, the sounds of the helicopters flying overhead start to sound like background noise. Mostly…

But it was a much larger event than the 2014 nuclear summit (when we also had to work from home). This time there were a lot more road closures, including of highways between Schiphol Airport and The Hague. The main road next to the World Forum, where the event took place, has been closed for more than two months because they needed to build temporary buildings on top of the road to house all of the delegations and journalists. The government recommended that anyone in the Randstad area (The Hague, Amsterdam, Utrecht and Rotterdam) work from home this entire week. Extinction Rebellion took advantage and decided to demonstrate again. You get the idea…

But somehow, nothing crazy happened and everyone is on the way back home. So that’s good.

Hopefully tomorrow is a return to normalcy! (Mostly.)

Categories: The Hague | Tags: | Leave a comment

Another round of Takumi Ramen (Or: A leisurely lunch)

Posted on June 9, 2025 by Niki

Marco and I were out shopping in the city centre when we decided to completely upend our dinner plan and go back to Takumi Ramen on the Gedempte Gracht. Silly Niki and Marco…

Even though we went around 14:00 it was still quite full. Luckily the location is pretty big. They even have an outdoor terrace on the Rabbijn Maarsenplein.

This time I went for the Japanese curry meal with karaage (Japanese fried chicken), miso soup and a seaweed & lettuce salad.

And here is a look at a cool poster behind Marco. I thought the purple color went well with the blue wall.

(This is fairly typical. Here’s a look at some wall decorations at the other location in The Hague.)

The lowkey highlight of the weekend was a storm that passed through late last night. We got treated to some thunder and lightning for about 10-15 minutes, which is fairly rare around here. Summer weather is on its way, with temperatures around 80-85F expected this Thursday, with a chance of rain here and there due to that. Bring on the sun!

Categories: Food | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Pink (Or: A different tree in De Passage)

Posted on February 17, 2025 by Niki

De Passage (a covered shopping area) has a tree in the center, where the Christmas tree usually stands. A few weeks ago a tree with pink leaves appeared.

It is fake, of course, but still pretty. Since it is in the center, you can see it from far away no matter how you enter De Passage.

In other news… today it was -3C (about 27F). That is actually pretty cold for the Netherlands these days. 

Ice rinks open in multiple places in Netherlands after freezing night from nltimes.nl. It is an artificial ice rink, created by spraying many layers of water and letting them freeze overnight.

Dutch skaters out in force to enjoy the ice – before it melts from dutchnews.nl

We will have another day or two of cold before the weather freakishly jumps up to a high of 15C (60F) on Friday. I am sure all of the terraces will be overflowing with sun-starved Dutchies then.

Now that’s a mental image for you!

Categories: The Hague | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Blog at WordPress.com.