2009.10. - Den Hague, Holland

As I wrote in the blog entry before, the kids got into their Fall School Break after the first, "warming up" term of the new school year.

Talking about "warming up" - comparing our quick visit to Holland this year to last year rather suggest a "cooling down" tendency.

10-2009.

10-2008.

Nevertheless, we enjoyed our excursion very much.

This time our destination was Den Hague, the seat of the Dutch government and home of Queen Beatrix and all the foreign embassies
but NOT the capital of Holland (which is Amsterdam).

On the other hand The Hague is "the judicial capital of the United Nations" and the second most important UN city after New York.
More than 150 international organisations are located here, including the International Court of Justice and other International Criminal Tribunals, also the European Police Office (Europol).



We were welcomed by Anna who had to represent her whole family this weekend while Valer, Marci & Hanna took part on a family celebration in Hungary.



She didn't have to do the hosting completely alone though - Cindy took care of our kids most of the time ...

We decided to spend the first afternoon in the smallest "city" of Holland, at the Madurodam.



This miniature town was built in 1952 in Scheveningen and became one of the major tourist attractions of Holland.




It contains typical Dutch buildings and landmarks from various locations of the country and is expended with new additions every year.

There was a picture book with quiz questions for the children which made the whole visit even more interactive and fun.



Market place
&
the city of Gouda & of course Cheese





Highway
&
Canals






Admiring the details

Funpark
&
the Binnenhof with the Knights' Hall where the Dutch parliament is seated.

J at "Schipol" and a container ship harbour.

Although we had a tight schedule, we could not end the day without seeing, smelling and feeling the sea.


Therefore we paid a quick visit to the main beach resort of the North Sea at Scheveningen.

D like always, attracted a little four-legged fellow right away.


We only left when we couldn't see anything anymore.





Then we were taken out by Anna to the City's best Chinese Restaurant, the Kee Lun Palace.









Her recommendation was confirmed 100%, we loved all the food and stopped eating reluctantly when we could not anymore.



The weather did not improve much by the next day - still we decided to go back to the beach - this time to the less known dunes of Kijkduin.

























It felt good to go on to our next indoor and this time last program in The Hague - a visit in the Sea Life Center at Scheveningen. Altogether it turned out to be a little smaller in scale than we expected but again the interactive feature for the kids kept them running & reading long enough.


















We found The Hague very nice and worth visiting again.
Next time we make sure we also check out the Museon - the interactive science museum, and
the Omniversum - Europe's first 360° IMAX-cinema.
Hopefully, with the whole Merenyi family ...