Den Haag/The Hague on a cool day

After applying for my China visa I decided to see some of the Hague I have not seen. I started by going to Scheveningen which is a suburb of the Hague on the beach. I have heard that the town name was used during the 2nd World War to tell if someone was German because they could not pronounce the name correctly. Following is a picture of the Scheveningen Pier

I walked to the end of the pier but with it being so cold I felt a little out of place in shorts. Most people on the pier were wearing coats. I did see some people in the water and thought I may be crazy to be in shorts but they are completely nuts to be in the water. This was not really a good day to be at the beach but now I can say I have been to Scheveningen even though of course I will pronounc it incorrectly. Following is a picture of Scheveningen and the Kurhaus.

Since the weather was cold I went back into town and decided to visit one of the many museums in Den Haag. I went to the Mauritshuis or Royal Picture Gallary which I would say is part of the Binnenhof. The Binnenhof is the goverment office of the Netherlands. The Binnenhof is sort of the capitol building of the Netherlands even thought the capatiol city is considered to be Amsterdam. This is the Knight's Hall in Binnenhof

The Mauritshuis was impressive for the paintings and also the building itself. I think I was the most impressed with the Rubens painting "Old Woman and a Boy with candles" but the best known painting in the museum is the "Girl with a pearl earring" by Vermeer. This is a picutre of the Mauritshuis building.

When walking back to central station there was a remberence for Srebrenica taking place in the square in front of the Binnenhof. Srebrenica is a town in the former Yugoslavia where 8000 men where murdered on July 11, 1995. When back in Amsterdam I took a picture of the parking garague for bikes.