Scheveningen

As we prepare to leave Scheveningen in the morning, I realize that I haven’t done a blog entry since IJmuiden. We’ve done a lot here in Scheveningen, so I’d better capture some of it before we continue.

Marike and Shirlee in IJmuiden

Anouk and the remains of a Mexican feast in IJmuiden

Geography lesson: Scheveningen is the seafront of The Hague. It was once a separate municipality, but now the two run together. The yacht harbor here has no access to the canals in the interior of the country, but it’s a very popular stop along the North Sea coast. We’ve seen and been part of the biggest raft-ups of our cruising career here.

The instruments that we came here to have repaired are all fixed. It only took an afternoon (Friday), so we were pleased. The problem was with water collecting in the aft port lazarette where the GPS junction box was.

Thursday afternoon we enjoyed the Gemeentemuseum (municipal museum) of Den Haag (The Hague). It’s a huge museum, but we think we saw everything. They had lots of works by Modriaan (from Amersfoot). I had only known his geometrical works in primary colors, but his earlier work was more expressionist. I particularly enjoyed the way his windmills evolved over time.

Saturday we took the tram to see the Peace Palace and then on into the city center. The Peace Palace was as impressive as I had hoped. And I was more impressed with the Binnenhof, the Dutch parliamentary center, than I’d expected. All in all, The Hague is a lovely city. It’s newer, more spacious, and cleaner than Amsterdam, but it really isn’t fair to compare the two. My sense is that Amsterdam is the creative center of the country while The Hague is the governmental center.

Peace Palace

Tourists in The Hague

Finally, today Esmeralda and her parents came to visit us. It was such a treat to see them, and we were honored that they made the drive. As it turns out, Sjoerd (our harbormaster in Amsterdam) couldn’t make it to visit because he broke his ankle kite surfing.

Esmerald and her parents with Shirlee and Märzen