MIKE AND JESS' TRAVEL DIARY
Netherlands and West Germany Trip
Day 3 - December 3 2023
Jet lag really affected us last night. Even though we were exhausted, we could not fall asleep until midnight and woke up a ton in the night. We got a later start to the day than planned, but continued on to The Hague, the Netherland’s 3rd largest city situated on the coast. After a tram and a train, we started our walk from the train station towards city center which was essentially a large outdoor mall. It was cold and quiet out, very few restaurants had anyone in them as they had just opened.
To get moving quickly, we skipped breakfast and were looking for some food before we started exploring. First, we happened upon a stall selling warm stroopwaffels! It was so freaking delicious. A super thin waffle cone-like cookie but softer. They cut them down the center and fill the center with a thin layer of caramel. Then, sandwich it back together. It was actual heaven.
For the early lunch, we landed on a casual restaurant called Ekmekci. They had Gozleme, which we had seen in one of the outdoor farmers markets we walked through yesterday. It is a savory puff pastry with whatever filling you want inside. Like a flat burrito. We ordered one of their fixed filling options and their breakfast plate with sausage and scrambled eggs. The Gozleme was weird and we chose poorly for sure. We didn’t understand what all the ingredients were when we ordered it. 3 cheeses, chorizo sausage, piri piri chicken, carmelized onions, and SWEET CORN. Seriously, canned corn. It was weird and not very good, to be honest, but we had fun with it. The breakfast was fine, too.
We started walking towards the Hofvijver, a small lake in the center of town that’s surrounded by a collection of brick buildings and palaces, originally owned by the Counts of Holland. Now, it serves as governmental buildings and museums. Across from the lake was a gorgeous courtyard and along the water was a weekend outdoor market! We had no idea this would be there. And guess what was the first stall there, with a line out of it? Fresh stroopwaffels! Obviously, we had to compare the two, so I ordered the second of the day. In the first one, the guy in the stall had them keeping warm. This one was being made to order. The ball of dough went on the waffle iron and was pressed down. 30 seconds later, the warm cookie was scraped off the iron and he used a metal spatula to separate the two sides. Then, ladled on the hot caramel, and smooshed them back together. Mike was laughing because the baker was wearing a golf glove on the hand we used to hold the hot cookie!
We walked the market, which was probably about 30 stalls, and took pictures of the lake and historic buildings.
It was the coldest it had been yet on the trip because the wind from the coast was blowing the freezing air around. I had wanted to surprise Mike by taking him to the MC Escher Museum because he has always liked his art. Since he was a Dutch artist, he had his own museum just a 5 minute walk away! It was also nice to have an opportunity to get out of the cold. The museum was beautiful and we got to see all of Escher’s artwork and learn about him. Mike really enjoyed it. There are so many famous museums in this country holding works from Vermeer, Rembrandt, Van Gogh and more. However, these have never been our style and the museums are super expensive, jam packed, and you have to purchase tickets weeks in advance for a timed-entry ticket. Also, not our style. Instead, this museum had very few visitors, we could take our time, and it was about an artist Mike actually knew about. So for us, it was perfect.
The last thing we wanted to do in The Hague was wander the hundreds of shops in the main square. They have everything from global chains to independent shops and restaurants. We did some shopping in a Dutch home goods store, a local handmade gifts shop, and a couple game stores. If we were serious shoppers, we could have spent days here. However, as the sun started dropping, and it began to snow, we decided to grab some fries and fried cheese at Bram Ladage for the walk back to the train station.
The original plan for the day was to also take a quick train to the small town of Delft, known for the white and blue Delftware China. We had read about how cute the town is, like a mini Amsterdam. However, we got too late of a start to the day and had to skip it. We needed to make sure we were back before it was too late to get a good night’s sleep in. (fingers crossed!) For dinner, Mike picked up some roasted chicken and rice from Franngo. It was snowing hard so we might wake up to a white Amsterdam tomorrow!