Three days in The Hague: a seat of government with a beach on the tram line

Two nights in the government quarter, one tram out to the North Sea, and a last morning with Escher.

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Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
The Hague
Places
8 across 3 days
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The Hague is the seat of the Dutch government and not its capital, which is the sort of arrangement this country makes and then never explains. It is also the only big Dutch city with a beach inside its own boundaries, four kilometres from the parliament and reachable by tram.

For a visitor that combination works out well. The centre is compact, dignified and short on crowds: embassies, courts, tree-lined squares and one of the best small art museums in Europe, where Vermeer's most famous painting hangs in a room you can cross in six steps.

Three days covers the centre, the coast and the museums, at a pace that leaves afternoons open. Rotterdam is twenty five minutes away and Delft is fifteen, so a fourth day never goes to waste here.

Highlights

  • The Mauritshuis, small enough to see properly in one visit and holding Vermeer, Rembrandt and Fabritius
  • A cylindrical painting from 1881 that puts you on the beach at Scheveningen as it was
  • The real Scheveningen an hour later: the pier, the wind, and fried fish out of a paper cone
  • Sculpture in the dunes, in galleries dug in beneath the old royal beach pavilion
  • Escher's impossible buildings hung in a palace that used to belong to a queen

Where to stay

The Hague, two nights

Stay in the centre, around Lange Voorhout, the Grote Markt or the small canals north of it, and you can walk to everything except the coast. Rooms are cheaper than Amsterdam and fill up when a court case or a summit is in town rather than in the tourist season.

Scheveningen has the sea view hotels, but staying out there turns every evening into a tram ride. Two nights in the centre and one long day at the coast is the better trade.

Day by day

Day 1 in The Hague

The Mauritshuis, the Hofvijver and Lange Voorhout

Everything that matters on the first afternoon sits around one pond. The counts of Holland built a castle on it in the 13th century, parliament never left, and the small palace on the corner became the picture gallery.

Go into the Mauritshuis first while you still have energy for looking. Two hours does it properly, which is a relief after the scale of the Rijksmuseum, and then the rest of the day is walking under trees.

  1. 14:00

    Mauritshuis

    Culture

    A 17th century town palace on the water holding the stadtholder's collection: Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring, Rembrandt's anatomy lesson, Fabritius's Goldfinch. Under twenty rooms, and unusually well hung. Book a slot.

  2. 16:15

    Binnenhof

    Architecture

    The 13th century castle of the counts of Holland, in continuous government use ever since, and currently a building site behind hoardings. Walk the far side of the Hofvijver for the view that ends up on the postcards.

  3. 17:15

    Lange Voorhout

    Landmark

    A wide L of lime trees and 18th century townhouses, with the supreme court on one side and cafe tables under the branches. An outdoor sculpture show runs along it most summers.

  4. 19:00

    Dinner near the Plein

    Eat

    The square next to the parliament is ringed with terraces and fills with civil servants from six. The antique shop street five minutes north is better for an actual meal.

With more time: The Peace Palace is a twenty minute walk west, and although the courts inside are only open on rare guided days, the gates and the gardens are worth the detour on a light evening.

Day 2 in The Hague

Panorama Mesdag, then the real Scheveningen

The best way to arrive at this beach is to see it first as it was in 1881. Hendrik Mesdag painted the village, the dunes and the fishing fleet onto the inside of a cylinder 120 metres round, and you stand in the middle on a platform of real sand.

Then take the tram out and compare. The village is gone and the boulevard is loud, but the light over the water is exactly the light in the painting, and the dunes still run north for kilometres.

  1. 10:00

    Panorama Mesdag

    Culture

    A painting more than 14 metres high and 120 metres around, finished in 1881 and the oldest surviving panorama of its kind still in its own building. Give it half an hour; the trick takes a few minutes to work on you.

  2. 12:00

    Fish at the harbour

    Eat

    The working harbour at the south end of Scheveningen is where the fish stalls are: herring in season, kibbeling any time, eaten standing up out of paper.

  3. 13:30

    Museum Beelden aan Zee

    Culture

    Contemporary sculpture in galleries dug into the dunes under a royal bathing pavilion of 1826, with glass walls looking out at the sea. The fairytale figures scattered along the boulevard above belong to the same museum.

  4. 15:30

    Pier

    Other

    The pier the city rebuilt in the 1960s after the war took the Victorian one. There is a big wheel on the end, a zipline for the brave and a view back at the whole coast. Windy in every season.

With more time: North of the pier the crowds thin out fast and the dunes take over, all the way to the next town. If you are travelling with children, the miniature Netherlands park is on the tram line back into the city.

Day 3 in The Hague

Escher, the Prison Gate and a last coffee

Two small museums a few streets apart make an easy last morning, and both are ten minutes from Centraal.

Escher gets the palace that Queen Emma used as her winter residence, which is a strange and rather good match: rooms of royal chandeliers, and on the walls, staircases that cannot exist.

  1. 10:00

    Escher in Het Paleis

    Culture

    The whole arc of M.C. Escher's work, from realistic Italian landscapes to the tessellations and impossible architecture, in a former royal palace converted in 2002. The top floor has the optical tricks the children came for.

  2. 12:00

    Gevangenpoort

    Historic

    A gate of 1370 into the old castle complex that became a prison fifty years later and a museum in 1853. The instruments of interrogation are all still here, and so is the spot outside where a mob tore apart the De Witt brothers in 1672.

  3. 13:15

    Coffee before the train

    Eat

    The grand cafes around the Hofvijver do a proper apple pie, and the station is a ten minute walk from any of them.

With more time: With a later train, Delft is fifteen minutes down the line and its old centre is twenty minutes on foot from the station, which makes a very comfortable half day on the way to Rotterdam.

Before you go

Getting there and getting around

The Hague has two main stations. Den Haag Centraal is the one you want for the centre; Hollands Spoor, ten minutes further south, catches some international and stopping trains. Amsterdam is about fifty minutes, Rotterdam twenty five, Delft fifteen, Schiphol thirty.

Trams 1 and 9 run from the centre out to Scheveningen in about twenty minutes and take a contactless bank card, tapping in and out. Inside the centre, everything below is a walk of ten minutes or less.

Museums and tickets

The Mauritshuis sells timed tickets and is small, so it fills up; book a morning slot in summer. Panorama Mesdag and Escher in Het Paleis rarely need booking at all.

The Binnenhof, the medieval parliament complex at the heart of the city, is closed and hidden behind hoardings for a rebuild that runs for years yet. The view across the Hofvijver pond still works, and that was always the good angle.

The Kunstmuseum, twenty minutes out by tram, holds the largest collection of Mondrian anywhere, including the unfinished Victory Boogie Woogie. It is the obvious addition if you have a fourth day or a wet afternoon.

Scheveningen, honestly

It is a real seaside resort, which means a boulevard of fast food, a pier with a big wheel, and thousands of people on the first warm Saturday of the year. It is also a genuine fishing harbour with excellent fish, and the dunes north of the pier are quiet within ten minutes of walking.

The North Sea is cold and the wind is constant. Bring a jacket in every month, and do not plan the beach day around sunshine you have not been promised.

The Hague is a quiet city that keeps very good things in small buildings: one Vermeer room, one painted horizon, one palace full of impossible staircases. None of it takes long, which is why the days here have room in them.

Finish at the coast if the weather allows. Standing on the boulevard at Scheveningen after seeing Mesdag's version of the same view is the trick this city plays better than anywhere else in the country.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

Is The Hague worth three days?
Yes, if you want art and coast rather than nightlife. Three days covers the Mauritshuis, the panorama, the beach and Escher without hurrying. If you only have one day, do the Mauritshuis and the Binnenhof view and treat Scheveningen as a separate trip.
Can I go inside the Binnenhof?
Not at the moment. The whole complex is closed for a rebuild that runs for several more years, with parliament sitting elsewhere in the city. You can still walk around the outside and look across the Hofvijver, which is the view everybody photographs anyway.
How do I get to Scheveningen?
Trams 1 and 9 from the centre, about twenty minutes, paid for by tapping a contactless card in and out. Cycling is easy too, along a dedicated path most of the way, and parking a car at the coast in summer is a bad idea.
Is the beach any good?
It is a wide North Sea beach with cold water, reliable wind and a very long boulevard. Good for a walk, a kite and fried fish in any month; good for swimming on perhaps twenty days a year. The dunes north of the pier are the quiet part.
The Hague or Rotterdam as a base?
They are twenty five minutes apart, so either works. The Hague is calmer, greener and closer to the sea; Rotterdam has the bigger skyline and the better nightlife. Splitting a week between them costs one short train ride.