The Hague’s Binnenhof (inner court) sits next to the Hofvijver (court pond), and began its life in the 1200s as a gothic palace for the counts of Holland – part of the holy roman empire at the time. These days it houses the Prime Minister’s office and the general meeting rooms of both houses of parliament. The new parliament is seated, but we’re still waiting for the government to be announced. It takes a while to reach agreement between the many parties with seats in parliament :-).
The tower is Delft’s Oude Kerk (old church, from the 13th & 14th centuries depending which part) as seen from the Prinsenhof, original location of the House of Orange which now bases itself in the Hague as the seat of NL’s heads of state. Below are various shots from Delft’s city center as well as the Royal Delft (porcelain) museum.
Delft Technical University’s Botanic Garden had a nature-themed sculpture exhibit placed in strategic locations along the paths and beds, when I visited Delft during the first week of my lovely stay-in-NL vacation last month.
I made it back down to Delft for a day trip last weekend. The Prinsenhof Museum is closed for long-term renovations, so I’ve got only external shots of this compound. Starting with the 80-years war, it housed the Orange-Nassau house, which later became NL’s royalty. Funny, since I’ve been living in a constitutional monarchy, how much harder it is to find legitimately royal-type shots than, say, France, which hasn’t been a monarchy since the 1800s. Or Thailand, where it’s fairly visible as we’ll demonstrate in some future posts.
Technically this probably isn’t urban, but it’s such a busy waterway near Europe’s largest port that it feels urban. This is the view looking downstream (towards Rotterdam and the North Sea), from the bridge I biked over as noted in the prior post.
(so much world, so little time....) 