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Den Haag, Netherlands Part 1 - A day of disappointments

We arrived in Den Haag at dinnertime so we dropped off our bags and headed to Veggies on Fire for food. It was super tasty! This was a starter they brought us - veggies and hummus

Then we had the croquettes au Meer - delicious!

For our mains we had seitan with white asparagus, potatoes, and salad

And the tofu over rice with cabbage slaw and salad. 

And the strawberry pannacotta

And raw ice cream sundae for dessert. Everything was amazing! Plus it was a beautiful evening to sit outside and enjoy our meal





The roof of the intercity trains at the main train station


And from the outside. Our first full day in Den Haag was spent exploring. 


First a trip to the Japanese Gardens


The Japanese Garden is in a much larger park and we walked through a Rhododendron garden to get there


The Japanese garden was very disappointing...it was super tiny and more like a moss garden









But the main park was nice to walk through

After the disappointing gardens, we wandered around downtown



The Great Church (St James Church)










This church was also pretty disappointing. It is big and open and alright, but I expected more. You have to pay a few euro to go inside and at first I was just like this is it??





2017 is 100 years since the Dutch art movement De Stijl so they went all out with Mondrian stuff all over the city. Like every shop had Mondrian stuff, the buildings all had these colored box scheme on them, it was everywhere. 




A stop by the Vegetarian Butcher for some treats...this was also disappointing! Really our first day in Den Haag was full of disappointment! We still had fun of course, but nothing was as I thought it would be. I thought this would be more interesting, but instead, it was a store with stuff you can buy in the grocery stores there so...not that fun.

 We tried one of the No Cheese Souffle

And the Smoked Chicken Wrap

Both were tasty, but it is only a takeout place so we headed back to our room to eat (it was pretty warm out so a break from the heat was nice)

More exploring - this time headed for late lunch after our late morning snack. This is the Wilemspark area and was really nice



Late lunch at Foam - Tofu Tostado

And the Pancakes

Flower at the table

With some banana bread for dessert. This was all super tasty, but tiny portions. 


After our late lunch we decided to ride the tram around and see what there was to see. We rode it to the one end, then back to town and to the beach. Now I thought this would be fun and why not? Well....it was so not a good idea. Our dissapointing day culminated with the worst tram ride ever! When we got back to town a billion people got on and it was soooooo hot! We were sitting with the sun beating down on us and no air and it took forever to get to the beach. I was dying the whole time and thought this was a huge mistake!! 

When we finally made it to the beach we saw all the Tom Otterness scultpures (he also had some sculptures on our college campus)




Now I was soooo hot I needed some shade and a cold beverage to cool off. I was seriously overheated from the tram ride. Now it doesn't look like the beach is that crowded, which it wasn't

But anywhere that had beverages and shade was so packed with people! We wandered around a bit trying to find somewhere to sit and have a drink, but finally, we were just like let's head back to the city as I am hating every moment of this as I am way too hot! So that is what we did. 

The ride back to downtown was nice - the tram actually had air conditioning! 


The main train station Mondrian



Construction walls also have it

Our hotel even had it on the windows! It was really everywhere

We were tired from wandering around all day so we didn't want to go far for dinner so we just ate at the main train station - falafel and french fries

Piano in the train station. 

Overall our first day in Den Haag was very dissapointing, but we still had fun. As always. 

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