The Netherlands got to see a bit of snow today, although it won’t last much longer. It started snowing around 16:00 here in The Hague, but the temperature is expected to increase overnight to 6C/42F. A very quick white world!
Marco took some lovely photos of the snow before it began to melt, though. Check it out.
And here is one of the bridge:
The crunchiest snow was actually on the bridge. So we got to hear the pleasant Crunch! Crunch! Crunch! under our feet when we crossed over it.
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.
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.
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.
Good news – the food truck festival Rrrollend is coming back for a special winter edition from March 1 to March 5 at the Lange Voorhout. Official website in Dutch. Indebuurt.nl (also in Dutch, it means “in the neighborhood” reports that the winter edition means they will be selling glühwein (mulled wine) and hot chocolate. Yum. Rrrollend will also be back in The Hague in Mid-May (at the Hofvijver) and in mid-August (at the Lange Voorhout).
Above is the shaved ice cream Marco and I enjoyed back in 2019.
In other news, The Hague’s public transportation company will stop selling HTM bicycles in The Hague on February 1 (official website in English) due to low demand. Most people use the NS train company’s bicycles instead. The bikes will be moved to Zoetermeer, a suburb of The Hague, where the demand for them is higher.
The cool event in Scheveningen is open for one more week (the last day is the 22nd). You can go ice skating or view ice sculptures. Official website in Dutch.
If you want to travel to Utrecht, you can also visit the I Light U light festival going on through January 29. The artwork is all in the neighborhood of the main train station. Official website in English.
And finally, we had some pretty strong winds last Thursday. Some planes were asked to use a runway at Schiphol airport that is not normally in use (the Oostbaan, or East runway) but one plane arriving from Detroit still managed to land the plane just short of the runway. Although to be honest I don’t know how much you would feel that as a passenger. See also dutchreview.com in English.
Quick update on where we stand with the curfew: it is still in place until a new court session this Friday. In the meantime the government is also working on an emergency law (done the proper way this time) which they hope to have passed on Friday. That way even if they lose the court case, which said the original curfew law was not legal, the curfew itself is still active. It was a crazy day yesterday, that’s for sure!
In happier news: I have a few remaining pictures from last week of a snowy Lange Voorhout. Taken by Marco, of course. He braves the snow and ice better than I do!
The Lange Voorhout is an L-shaped path in the city centre (article from denhaag.com in English).
Beautiful, isn’t it?
And a photo of the Escher museum, with snow. Of course, by now all the snow and ice has melted away. If you’re lucky you might find a pile here or there. But I am not complaining – I had my fun last Sunday (blog post). I am looking forward to the Spring-like temperatures this weekend as well. It should be nice!
Marco took some photos of the last few skaters on the Hofvijver this morning.
There weren’t that many skaters because the city had put up fencing around the entrance to the water:
The fun didn’t last long, however. More skaters found themselves in problems this morning and afternoon. After the fire department got everyone back to dry ground they started breaking up the ice along the walls to make it impossible to get back on. See also this article from district8.nl in Dutch: Politie haalt grote groep schaatsers van ijs Hofvijver Den Haag.
Marco took some photos yesterday of the Hofvijver (the pond outside the Dutch parliament) beginning to freeze over.
Cool photo, huh?
Here is a look at the Hofvijver from the side of parliament:
Technically you’re allowed to ice skate on the Hofvijver (and a lot of people do), but it does raise some security concerns.
To prevent people from getting too close to the parliament, the part of ice next to the buildings is always deliberately broken.
Of course, a lot of people went through the ice yesterday. Check out this article in Dutch from regio15.nl (including photos and a video): Meerdere mensen door ijs gezakt Den Haag. In the afternoon, someone went through the ice and was rescued. Shortly thereafter a few more people went through the ice, so the rest of the skaters were told to wait on the island in the middle. Eventually they were led away by the firemen, mostly using ladders. Today The Hague has put fencing around the Hofvijver to prevent people from ice skating, but that really hasn’t stopped most people.
Man fined after breaking ice on Amsterdam canal. Don’t mess with the ice in canals when Dutchies are hoping to get some ice skating in. Officially he was fined for violating the sailing ban, not breaking the ice. (I read on NOS.nl that he was fined for sailing in the wrong direction.)
The Netherlands is wrapped in a cold spell, with temperatures set to get even colder over the next few days before gradually warming up from Monday.
Code Yellow: Roads still icy, trains still running on adjusted schedule from nltimes.nl. For the most part Sprinters (stop trains) are running to serve all stations, but there are not as many Intercity trains which run between cities. Although the NS promised to put in longer trains, people are still seeing packed trains:
Lekker bezig NS: overvolle sprinters. 1.5 m afstand zo goed als niet mogelijk. Als makke schapen in een hok, mijzelf incluis. Geen intercity’s dus i.p.v. 40 minuten nu een uur in deze volle trein én geen korting in de spits. Maar retail moet dicht blijven, wat een gekte. pic.twitter.com/q8NYXc2VC5
A tweet showing full trains without the ability to keep 1.5 meters distance, noting that shops are closed but this is allowed.
Speaking of shops, they are now allowed to be open for click & collect, but a lot of bigger stores are not offering this option, including H&M, Bijenkorf and Zara (article in Dutch at nos.nl). In some cases because they think the work involved won’t be worth the money gained.
Arnhem zoo brings penguins inside due to the cold from nltimes.nl. Considering these penguins occur naturally in South Africa and Namibia, this does make sense. It does say that the only the partner-less penguins and young penguins without a cave to keep them warm were brought inside (awww, they have their own caves?)
And, finally, while not related to the Netherlands at all, I must simply share this tweet:
The Dutch cabinet is consider extending the curfew to 2 March. The curfew runs from 21:00 to 04:30 every night. See also: Outgoing Dutch Cabinet says it will seek curfew extension through March 2 from nltimes.nl. That would be an extension of 3 weeks and bring the measure into line with other measures that are currently in place until (at least) 2 March.
I forgot to post this yesterday but here are some pictures from regio15.nl (in Dutch) of what The Hague looked like under a thin layer of fresh snow on late Saturday into early Sunday morning. We got some more after that, of course.
Van Ark [the minister of Sports] to consider allowing ‘corona safe’ competitions on natural ice from dutchnews.nl. The Dutch government is in a very difficult position at the moment. Dutchies are very fanatic about being able to hold an Elfstedentocht (11 city skating competition, English Wikipedia) at the first possibility of natural ice being thick enough. An Elfstedentocht had already been ruled out late last year due to corona, but now that we are in a situation where we will have at least a week of ice, everyone is thinking about it again. A majority of the Dutch cabinet is for it (article from ad.nl in Dutch), with limited or no public. However it does seem like a bit of a double standard when other things are being cancelled. On the other hand, the last Elfstedentocht was in 1997 due to climate change, so…
And finally, a bit of crazy news: Politie vindt onderkoelde man die in vrieskou van Gouda naar Weesp liep from omroepeest.nl in Dutch. In summary, the trains were not running this weekend so a man decided to walk from Gouda to Weesp (about 54 km or 33 miles) in the evening during the snowstorm. He actually almost made it to Weesp before he called his mom and said he was in trouble. The connection was then lost, so his mom called the police. They finally found him using a police helicopter. He was found not far outside of Weesp, laying on a bike path, suffering from hypothermia of course. But the story ends well: after some care he was reunited with his family. Sounds like he wasn’t fined for breaking curfew, either….
Here are a few more pictures that Marco and I took yesterday during our walk outside. I fear that everything is probably ice by now, since the Netherlands isn’t known for cleaning up well after snow storms. It is sort of logical, since we don’t get that much snow these days.
Above is a statue of Louis Couperus (English Wikipedia), a Dutch novelist and poet.
It wouldn’t be a proper Dutch blog post without some pictures of bikes.
One slightly evil looking snowman. We saw this one near the “Constitution Sofa”, which is the slightly weird translation I found on thehague.com. I’d probably translate it as “Constitution bench” instead.
And finally, a picture of the New Church. Marco and I haven’t been inside its gates in ages. But with the falling snow it was particularly pretty this time.
Life in the Hague 