On August 14 we took a bus up to The Hague, where Paulien has a home. We visited two interesting sites in the area. The first was Madurodam, a miniature park and tourist attraction in the Scheveningen district. It is home to a range of 1:25 scale model replicas of famous Dutch landmarks, historical cities and large developments.<\/p>\n
The second attraction was the Beach and Pier in the Dutch resort town of Scheveningen near The Hague. Opened in 1959, the Pier is on an expansive beach that is lined with a multitude of open air restaurants, bars, and snack stands. We couldn’t resist an “all you can eat” offer of spare ribs. As we walked along the beach at the end of the day toward our car, we stopped and asked a pair of young waitresses about how the many shops could survive the winters. We were told that ALL of the businesses are crated up and taken away to be stored for the winter, only to be re-erected the following Spring.<\/p>\n
The Pier itself hosts two features that persist year-round. A huge high tower topped by a crane from which deranged thrill-seekers bungee-jump, plunging to a point just a few meters above the cold sea, and then bouncing back almost to the starting platform. The tower is also the attachment point of two zip lines that run all the way back to the shore. The other feature is a gigantic Ferris wheel constructed in 2016 — Europe<\/span>‘s first Ferris wheel constructed over the sea. The Ferris wheel is over forty meters high and has 36 closed gondolas with air conditioning. Each gondola offers room for up to six people. Adults pay \u20ac9.00 and children under twelve pay \u20ac7.00 for a ride that lasts about 20 minutes.<\/p>\n On August 16 we used Paulien’s car and drove up to Delft and Gouda. I will cover that visit in the next edition of this blog.<\/p>\n On August 17, back in The Hague, Barb and Bill and Colleen ventured out to see a third site. They visited Binnenhof, a cluster of buildings that houses the meeting place of both houses of the States General of the Netherlands, as well as the Ministry of General Affairs and the office of the Prime Minister of the Netherlands. , and Mauritshuis, an art museum that houses the Royal Cabinet of Paintings which consists of 841 objects, mostly Dutch Golden Age paintings. Suffering from a severe cold, I stayed back at Paulien’s home.<\/p>\n\n\t\t