Today we took a train from Rotterdam to The Hague. Upon entering The Hague I realized that it too is a very walkable place. All three cities we’ve been to in the Netherlands so far have been very walkable and the public transit has been simple and easy. This fact definitely contributes to the sustainability of the city. All of this public transport reduces the CO2 emissions that there would be if everyone drove cars.

The first thing we did in The Hague was go to the Mauritshuis, which is a famous museum there. The building of the museum used to be a palace made for Johan Maurits, the Prince of Nassau-Siegen. It has famous paintings like the Girl with a Pearl Earring by Vermeer, and The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp by Rembrandt. I saw both of these and more. The interior of the museum is very cool because it is like the palace that Maurits would have lived in, but it is full of incredible art and gold accented decorations. Masterpieces lined every wall. I made sure to see the most famous paintings like the ones I listed before, but I also was introduced to new paintings and artists that I have never seen. For example, I saw one painting that I loved of some turtles by Albert Eckhout. I would never have known about this painting and several others if I didn’t go to this museum. One cool thing about being in the Netherlands and Europe in general is that there is so much history here. I get to see these famous paintings in the country that they were originally painted in, which I can’t say about many of the most famous paintings that I have seen in America.

The next thing we did was go to the Peace Palace. The Peace Palace is a building that houses the International Court of Justice, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, The Hague Academy of International Law and the Peace Palace Library. It deals with international law. We took a self-guided audio tour of a small museum outside of the palace itself, and it was fascinating to learn about the history of the building and what kind of things go on there now.