Den Haag (The Hague) - Part 1

On the 13th Lars and I rode the subway to Den Haag - the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. It was around 45 minutes from Rotterdam - there were stops along the way for subway riders. The two things I was really excited about for this trip was seeing a palace and going to the beach.  Yes, the beach...in February...in Holland...you heard me right.
Actually it was a pretty nice day..the sun was out and was only windy near the water.  It really could not have been a better day for our visit....well during this time anyway.  I'm sure during the summer it is a real dream.
The image below was from inside the subway.  I was going to wait to post a windmill pic for later...but I couldn't resist this one :)

 

A vendor at the train/subway station selling out of an airstream :)

 

There are a lot of pigeons here :(.  These were sharing our breakfast with us...and these were not the only birds that shared my food that day...

 I don't know what this building is, but I loved the look of it against the blue sky.

 Definitely the fanciest Burger King I've ever seen.

 These are the trams that go around the city.  We rode the one that you see on the left.

We rode the tram for a while until Lars said we were close to the beach and it was time to get off.  We had just passed a beautiful building, which turned out to be a hotel...

What I wouldn't give to spend a night here with an sea view :)...isn't it beautiful? On either side of this walkway there are restaurants...Mexican, Italian...and no lack of places to eat behind it.
On the right we turned to head down an alley...where I got my first look at the North Sea...

and I giggled like a little girl.

Around the back is what we'd call a boardwalk I think...though it was concrete...so it may not be the same thing at all.  'Boardwalk' was the thing that came to mind for me though.

To the left you see the back of the hotel and some of the little places to eat near the beach.

This image was looking forward and to the right.  Its a long pier that stretches the length of beach and ends in that round thing that I would love to turn into a place to eat...might also make an awesome studio too :). Lars told me that once this place was for sale (as it is now) and that it sold for 1 guilder - which would be like .45 Euro cents. The pier was bankrupt and the bank was more interested in what they would get back when it was renovated and used....apparently that didn't work so well since it is for sale again. Its on my Christmas wish list :).

Next up we had some more birds.  There were little kids feeding the seagulls...which means there were many hanging around waiting for a bite to eat.  Lars had warned me earlier that if I had fries I should be careful as they were known to just take what they wanted.

 

Nearby there was a little stand selling fish - which I think is just cruel to those starving gulls. Lars got some cod...and I actually liked it.  I didn't get a basket for myself, but I did eat a bit or two of his.  Instead I got a basket of fries and decided to try out the Gull Theory...

 

 I made new friends...

 Please ignore my hair in this video...I'm ashamed I went out looking like that :p.

I will post more tomorrow...when I add a video sometimes this thing glitches :)