Netherlands
The Hague
The Peace Palace, Vermeer's most famous face and a North Sea beach, all on one tram network.
The Dutch seat of government is a stately, low-key coastal city that has never been the country's capital and has never much minded. Parliament still meets in a medieval courtyard beside a pond, the Mauritshuis hangs Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring in a townhouse a few doors away, and the Peace Palace further up the road has made the city the world's address for international law. Tram lines run straight out to a working North Sea beach resort, and generations of Indonesian cooking give it the best rijsttafel in the Netherlands.
Suggested stay
2–3 days
Language
Dutch
Currency
EUR
Timezone
UTC+2
Why you'll love The Hague
Peace and justice the Peace Palace, the international courts and a hundred-odd embassies give a mid-sized Dutch city the diplomatic weight of a capital, and the stately streets to match
Mondrian and Escher the city holds the largest Mondrian collection anywhere, including his last unfinished canvas, plus a museum of Escher's impossible staircases inside a former royal palace
The beach at the end two tram lines drop you at a full North Sea resort with a pier, a long boulevard and the country's busiest kite and windsurf water
Indonesian food postwar arrivals from the Dutch East Indies left The Hague with the country's deepest rijsttafel tradition, from spice-shop toko counters to long formal spreads
Best time to visit
Apr-Sep
14-22° days
52.080° N, 4.311° E
UTC+2 · Europe/Amsterdam
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Weather & when to go to The Hague
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best Apr-Sep
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid The Hague
January and February are the hardest months: short grey days and a North Sea wind that makes the boulevard genuinely unpleasant, with Scheveningen shuttered down to its year-round places. The museums are indoors and quieter then, which is the consolation. Summer weekends swing the other way, when half the Randstad heads for the same beach.
Top things to do in The Hague
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Mauritshuis - Girl with a Pearl Earring at close range
culture arts history 👍 PopularA seventeenth-century townhouse on the Hofvijver holding one of the great small collections: Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring and View of Delft, Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, Fabritius's Goldfinch. Around forty rooms rather than forty galleries, so you leave having actually looked at things instead of walking past them.
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Binnenhof and the Ridderzaal - the courtyard parliament
history 👍 PopularThe oldest parliament complex still in use anywhere sits around a brick courtyard beside a pond, with the thirteenth-century Hall of Knights at its heart under a ship's-hull roof. A multi-year renovation has kept much of it closed, so check before counting on getting inside; the reflection across the Hofvijver is the postcard shot of Dutch government either way.
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Peace Palace - seat of the International Court of Justice
history culture arts 👍 PopularAndrew Carnegie paid for it and the participating nations each sent something: Danish fountains, Japanese silk, a Swiss clock in the tower. The court itself is rarely open to visitors, but the visitor centre by the gates explains the building and the law made inside it, and the wrought-iron fence is a sight in its own right.
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Kunstmuseum Den Haag - the largest Mondrian collection anywhere
culture arts ⭐ Highly recommendedBerlage's yellow-brick building is worth the tram ride on its own, all daylight, tile and calm proportion. Inside are several hundred Mondrians, including the unfinished Victory Boogie Woogie, plus strong Dutch modernism, a fashion wing and a decorative-arts collection heavy on Delftware.
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Panorama Mesdag - a full-circle painting of the old beach
culture arts history ⭐ Highly recommendedYou climb a dark stair onto a viewing platform ringed by a canvas over a hundred metres round, painted in 1881, showing Scheveningen when it was still a fishing village of dunes and boats. Real sand and debris at your feet blur the join. It is the largest painting in the country and has never moved.
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Escher in Het Paleis - impossible staircases in a royal palace
culture artsThe former winter palace of Queen Emma now holds a full run of Escher's woodcuts and lithographs, the tessellations and the staircases that go nowhere, hung in rooms with the royal chandeliers still up. The top floor turns the illusions into walk-in tricks, which is where children stop complaining about etchings.
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Scheveningen - the pier, the boulevard and the kite beach
scenic windsportsThe Netherlands' best-known seaside resort is a tram ride from the centre: sand behind a boulevard of terraces, a pier with a Ferris wheel over the water and a bungee tower on the end. The same North Sea wind makes it the country's busiest kitesurf and windsurf water, most reliable in the shoulder months and through winter, when it becomes a drysuit affair.
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Madurodam - the Netherlands at one twenty-fifth scale
culture artsA miniature park built as a memorial to a resistance fighter, with its proceeds still going to charity. Canal houses, the airport, the Delta Works and the bulb fields laid out in model form, working trains and ships included. Aimed at children and shamelessly enjoyable for adults who want the whole country in an hour.
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Louwman Museum - the oldest private car collection in the world
culture artsTwo hundred-plus cars from an 1880s steam carriage through to Formula One, in a purpose-built hall on the wooded edge of town, along with the largest collection of automotive art anywhere. Presented as design history rather than a car park, and worth an afternoon even if cars leave you cold.
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Gevangenpoort - the medieval prison gate on the Buitenhof
historyThe last gate of the old count's castle became the state prison, and its cells, restraints and scratched graffiti are shown on a guided tour. Cornelis and Johan de Witt were held here in 1672 before a mob dragged them out and killed them on the square outside, which the museum does not soften.
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Rijsttafel in the Indische quarter - the long Indonesian spread
foodA dozen or more small dishes arriving at once, satay and rendang and sambals and pickles and fried banana, is the colonial-era Dutch invention that The Hague does better than anywhere else in the country. There are formal white-tablecloth versions and toko counters selling the same food by the tray to take away.
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Haring from a street cart - the new-season catch
foodRaw herring with chopped onion and pickle, eaten from a paper tray standing up, is a national ritual and a fishing town takes it seriously. The new-season catch lands in early summer and is treated as news here. The stalls near the Hofvijver and along the Scheveningen harbour are the reliable ones.
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Clingendael - the Japanese garden in the estate woods
nature wildlife scenicA country estate on the northern edge with formal Dutch gardens, an old rose garden and a small Japanese garden laid out before the First World War from plants shipped over by the owner. That garden is fragile enough that it opens only for a few weeks in late spring and a shorter run in autumn.
Best areas to stay in The Hague
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
Centrum
First-time visitors $$Government quarter and old lanes
Explore hotels in Centrum →
Statenkwartier
Quiet and stately $$$Leafy embassy villas near the dunes
Explore hotels in Statenkwartier →
Scheveningen
Beach stays $$Boulevard hotels above a working beach
Explore hotels in Scheveningen →
Zeeheldenkwartier
Local life $Nineteenth-century streets, independent bars
Explore hotels in Zeeheldenkwartier →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on The Hague
Getting to & around The Hague
Getting there
Fly into Amsterdam Schiphol, then a direct train to Den Haag Centraal in around half an hour
Flight
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (AMS)
Schiphol is about 40 km northeast, with direct intercity trains from under the terminal to Den Haag Centraal in roughly half an hour and to Den Haag HS a few minutes further. Rotterdam The Hague Airport is closer but small, and reaching the city from it means a bus and a train.
Train
Den Haag Centraal
Frequent intercity services from Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and Leiden; international arrivals from Brussels, Paris and London change at Rotterdam Centraal, twenty-odd minutes down the line
Ferry
Hoek van Holland
The overnight ferry from Harwich lands about 30 km southwest, with a metro line and a train connection onward to both city stations
Drive
Motorways run in from Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht, but the centre is dense and metered throughout, so most drivers use a park-and-ride on the ring and switch to a tram
Getting around
Tram
The backbone of the city, reaching almost everything worth seeing, including two lines that run right out to the Scheveningen seafront
TBC
Walking
The old centre, the Binnenhof, the main museums and the shopping streets all sit inside a flat twenty-minute walk
Free
Light rail
RandstadRail shares the tram tunnel under the centre and runs out to Zoetermeer and all the way into Rotterdam
TBC
Bike
Flat, fully cycle-laned and the quickest way to the beach; hire points cluster around both main stations
TBC
Bus
Fills the gaps the trams miss, including the run out to Kijkduin and the estate parks on the northern edge
TBC
Train
Two city stations, Centraal and Hollands Spoor, put Delft, Leiden and Rotterdam within a short hop
TBC
Day trips from The Hague
Delft
Half dayHistoric canal town
Vermeer's home town, and the one that still looks like his: a ring of canals, a leaning old church and the Nieuwe Kerk with the Orange-Nassau family vault beneath it. Royal Delft still hand-paints the blue-and-white pottery, and the whole place fits into an afternoon.
Getting there
train | car
About 12 min by train, or 20 min by car
Leiden
Half dayUniversity canal city
The oldest university in the country sits in a compact canal town with more than a hundred wall poems painted on its buildings, Rembrandt's birthplace, a botanic garden where Dutch tulips were first grown, and a national antiquities museum with a full Egyptian temple inside it.
Getting there
train
About 15 min by train
Rotterdam
Full dayModern port architecture
Bombed flat in 1940 and rebuilt as the country's architecture laboratory: the cube houses, the horseshoe Markthal, the Erasmus Bridge and a working port best seen from the water. The complete opposite of The Hague, half an hour away.
Getting there
train
About 25 min by train, or an hour by light rail
Keukenhof and the bulb fields
Full daySpring tulip gardens
The bulb country north of the city turns into blocks of solid colour for a few weeks each spring, and the show garden at Lisse is the set-piece, with millions of bulbs planted through woodland. It opens only for that window, so it is a spring trip or nothing.
Getting there
bus | car | tour
About 1 hr by bus or car
Kinderdijk
Half dayWindmill polder landscape
Nineteen eighteenth-century windmills lined along the polder canals southeast of Rotterdam, still the classic image of Dutch water management. Two are open as museums showing how a miller's family lived inside the working machinery. Best walked or cycled along the dyke path.
Getting there
car | train | ferry
About 1 hr by car, or train and waterbus via Rotterdam
A little history of The Hague
The Hague began as a hunting lodge. In the thirteenth century the counts of Holland built a residence beside a pond in the dunes, and Count Willem II, elected King of the Romans, started the great hall that still stands as the Ridderzaal. The settlement that grew around the court was administrative from the start, and because the chartered cities of Holland refused to admit a rival, it went for centuries without city rights: a village, on paper, with a parliament in it. From 1585 the States General of the Dutch Republic sat here, and the Binnenhof saw the executions and lynchings that punctuated the Republic's politics.
City rights finally came in 1806, from Louis Bonaparte, who promptly moved his capital to Amsterdam. The government returned in 1815 and never left, which is why the Netherlands has one capital and a different seat of government. The second identity arrived at the end of that century, when the international peace conferences of 1899 and 1907 met here and Andrew Carnegie funded a Peace Palace to house their court. The International Court of Justice followed in 1946, and the tribunals that gathered around it through the 1990s and 2000s made The Hague the working capital of international law.
Willem II begins the great hall on the Binnenhof that becomes the Ridderzaal
The States General of the Dutch Republic settle permanently at the Binnenhof
Johan van Oldenbarnevelt is executed on the Binnenhof after a political trial
The De Witt brothers are lynched by a mob outside the Gevangenpoort in the disaster year
Louis Bonaparte grants The Hague city rights, then moves his capital to Amsterdam
The first international peace conference meets in the city
The Peace Palace opens, paid for by Andrew Carnegie
A misdirected Allied bombing raid destroys much of the Bezuidenhout district
The International Criminal Court begins work in The Hague
Know before you go
Payment
Cards everywhere
English
Everywhere
Wifi
Reliable
Power
Type C / F
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+31
The months our climate read flags to avoid: the wettest, lowest-rated weather of the year.
Mobile network & SIM card
Get an eSIM before you fly
A Netherlands eSIM installs in minutes and works the moment you switch off flight mode. No SIM swap, no roaming bill.
FAQs about The Hague
▸ When is the best time to visit The Hague?
April through September is when the city works best: long days, the beach open and the estate gardens at their peak. January and February are the ones to avoid, cold and grey with a hard wind off the sea. The museums are indoor and open year round, so a winter trip still works if art is the point.
▸ How many days do you need in The Hague?
Two full days covers the Binnenhof, the Mauritshuis, the Peace Palace and an afternoon at Scheveningen. A third lets you add the Kunstmuseum, Panorama Mesdag or the estate gardens without rushing. Plenty of people use it as a base for the whole western Netherlands instead, since Delft, Leiden and Rotterdam are all short train rides.
▸ Is The Hague the capital of the Netherlands?
No, and it is a genuine oddity. Amsterdam is the constitutional capital, but parliament, the government, the supreme court, the royal working palaces and every embassy are here. The Hague has been the seat of government since the sixteenth century and was only granted city rights in 1806.
▸ How do you get to Scheveningen from the centre?
Two tram lines run from the city centre to the seafront in about twenty minutes, one ending near the pier and the other at the harbour side. Cycling takes roughly the same time on a flat separated path. On hot summer weekends the trams are packed, so go early.
▸ Is The Hague worth visiting if I am already going to Amsterdam?
Yes, and it is under an hour away by train. It is quieter and greener, it holds Girl with a Pearl Earring and the largest Mondrian collection anywhere, and it is the only Dutch city with a full beach resort on its tram map. A day trip works; two nights works better.
▸ What should I eat in The Hague?
Raw herring from a street cart with onion and pickle is the ritual, best in early summer when the new-season catch lands. The real speciality is Indonesian, though: a rijsttafel of a dozen small dishes, or the same food bought by the tray from a toko. There is a strong Surinamese roti scene too.
More in Netherlands
Amsterdam
A Golden Age port preserved almost whole - canal houses, bikes and world-class museums packed into a city you can walk across in an afternoon.
✓ best Apr-OctDelft
Vermeer's home town and the source of Delft blue, in a canal centre small enough to walk across in an afternoon.
✓ best Apr-OctHaarlem
The Dutch Golden Age at walking pace: Frans Hals, hidden hofjes and a cathedral organ, twenty minutes from Amsterdam and a train ride from the sea.
✓ best Apr-Oct