Our final stop in The Hague was a tour of the
Peace Palace this morning. While anyone can go into the visitor area and giftshop, tour tickets are few and far between and must be booked in advance (see links at bottom of post). However, in the visitor area, there is a small display which makes more sense once you obtain a free audio guide (available in multiple languages). The audio guide provides ~30 minutes of information. We were lucky enough to have booked reservations for a guided tour in the interior of the Peace Palace. It was amazing!
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| Peace Palace, Den Haag, the Netherlands |
The Peace Palace began as the initiative by Csar Nicholas II, in 1899, to have an international peace conference, which was first held in the Hague in the same year. A second conference was held in 1907, by which time Andrew Carnegie had donated the funding and work had started on this impressive building. Some of the forward thinking innovations in this 100+ year old building were central heating and an elevator. In addition, all of the countries outdid themselves with gifts and donations, whether it was beautiful blue tiles from nearby Delfft or a solid jasper vase from Csar Nicholas II that is so heavy (3000 kg or ~3 tons) that it required a reinforced floor. There are tapestries from Japan that took 48,000 weavers working for five years to complete and brilliant stained glass windows from Great Britain showing a timeline of man from being a war-some creature to hopefully an idyllic and peaceful one in the future. A porcelain fountain from Denmark sits in an outdoor courtyard while above a staircase stands a replica of the Jesus statue made from cannons that sits between Chile and Argentina. Our feet trod on carpets from Turkey. Unfortunately, we could not take photos of anything in the interior of the Peace Palace.
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| Rubber duck shop |
After lunch, we made the drive back to Amsterdam. It was our last day here; and, I tried to walk around to some sites that we hadn't had time for previously. Rick Steves "Pocket Amsterdam" has a couple of walking tours that I browsed for sites to see. Part of his Jordaan tour walked back past the Anne Frank House (where I finally saw the Anne Frank statuette) and then past all the tourists into the neighborhood. While I was sitting on a bench, reading from the guidebook, three kids road up on their bikes and knocked on the door next to me, leaving their bikes and going on in to play with the dog inside. Walking down a side street, entire families would go cycling by. Jordaan certainly had a much nicer family feel to it.
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| From the tower in Kalvertorn |
On Rick Steves Amsterdam City Walk, I breezed through the Amsterdam Museum's walkway filled with art (free and open to the public during museum hours) out to the pedestrian walkway on the other side leading to the Begijnhof (not as nice as the one in Brugges). Walking through the Begijnhof brought me to Spui Square, where a small art fair of paintings, prints and some jewelry were for sale. A little further on; and, I was in the Kalvertoren shopping mall, which has a glass enclosed "tower" up to a cafe with beautiful views overlooking the city.
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| Herring |
Coming out of the Kalvertoren mall, the guidebook recommended Frens Haringhandel herring shop. Google maps listed that it was closed today. Thankfully, Google maps was wrong. Finally ate herring in Amsterdam; and, it was delicious! Served with onions and sweet & sour pickles. After that and a large helping of apple pie this evening, I've covered all the Dutch food on my list to try this trip.
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| Dutch apple pie |
If you go....
- Peace Palace is very difficult to get tour reservations. Try both of these sites to try to make reservations (they have differing information):
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https://www.vredespaleis.nl/visit/guided-tours/?lang=en
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https://denhaag.com/en/event/45474/peace-palace-guided-tours
More photos here:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/NJiEuNUp4uDjKjmT6
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