Here’s a look at the holiday decorations around the Hoogstraat (=high street), also called the Noordeinde (=north end).
Schaap en Citroen, pictured on the right, is a jewelry store. The first store opened in Utrecht in 1888 and the location in The Hague opened in 1921.
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.
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.
Marco, Roger and I went to Five K Comfort Food in The Hague’s city centre on the Gedempte Gracht. Its speciality is Asian fusion. Roger also likes it because they have ice cream floats… a bit of a sweet tooth, that one!
Although my blog post title promises chicken, unfortunately I don’t have photos of that. My apologies. But I take a photo of the graffiti at the table next to us before another group sat there:
I had the orange popcorn chicken. It was really good, and it was a great portion size (bordering on too much for one person). If we hadn’t been going to a movie after, I definitely would have asked for a doggy bag and taken the rest home. Marco and Roger had a few different types of chicken wings plus they shared a platter of duck pancakes.
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.
Here’s a photo I took of the Hofvijver last weekend:
I suspect the area was crowded today. Our summer is apparently two days long: today and tomorrow the temperature is around 28C/82F, before the temperature drops back down to 21C/69F on Sunday.
Did you know there is a live webcam of the beach at Scheveningen available at strandweer.nu? (strandweer = beach weather). Of course the sea itself is still pretty cold, considering the summer hasn’t been overly warm, yet.
Life in the Hague 