May 15th - The Hague

It wasn’t a good day photo wise but otherwise it was a really good day. The weather was perfect. We found our way with ease. We got up and close with the organ in the Grote Kerk - “Grote of Sint-Jacobskerk is a landmark Protestant church in The Hague, Netherlands. The building is located on the Torenstraat, named for its high tower. Together with the Binnenhof, it is one of the oldest buildings in The Hague.” (Wikipedia). And we got to see the Dutch equivalent of question period.

Unfortunately, I was too busy biking and navigating to take many photos and we weren’t allowed photos in the parliament buildings. I was nervous about biking to The Hague, thinking it would be a big city with lots of traffic but I should have known that there would be plenty of bike lanes and infrastructure in place for the bikes. We were either biking down paths through parks or down quaint little streets – okay, so there were a few detours because of construction and sometimes I just had to step aside to watch the flow of bikes go by but I enjoyed every minute of it. Our first stop was my cousin’s place. He very kindly took us for a private tour of the Grote Kerk where we got to go up to the organ loft. Michael was very happy and my cousin very patiently answered all of his questions. We said our goodbyes and Michael, and I headed off to the Peace Palace. Photos were taken and on we went to find some lunch. Next up was a tour of the parliament. Unfortunately, it was us and 34 kids from France. Apparently there was another tour group in the same situation so near the end of the tour our tour guide took the kids from both groups and the other tour guide took us and the four from his group that were not from the school group and we finished the tour in a smaller group. The tour ended up being 2 hours long and included a stop in the visitor’s gallery where we caught the end of question period.  It took us an hour to bike back home (don’t judge! Remember we are riding big heavy Dutch bikes with three gears and no brakes.) We were using a bike app to find the route and it automatically saves your route at the end of the trip – it named ours “Snail-like Tuesday ride in The Hague”. Here’s a link to the map for the return route.