The Hague travel diary

Last weekend my family and I spent a few restful days in the Hague to escape from the everyday life. The Hague has a fascinating architecture, an amazing array of parks, museums, and even a beach in the northwestern part of the city, where you should definitely head for some great seafood restaurants! (An article about the best bites to grab in Scheveningen will be up soon!)

To put all my experiences and impressions of the Hague in a nutshell. I summed up my favorite restaurants and activities to try out in the area of the Hague for you:

Amaze Activity 

Since we weren’t so lucky with the weather we tried to make our daily program as waterproof as possible and ended up in an escape room! I always wanted to experience something like this and at our second day in den hague the time had come and we found our self locked in a medical room called “crazy doctor”. Let me anticipate it right away we didn’t made it out of the room. Honestly we were doing pretty bad! As soon as the door got locked my brother started to run around like a hamster in a hamster wheel desperately looking for hints to solve the puzzle, while my mum and I tried to stay calm and concentrated. We had a fun time though, but I’m sure the guy who was watching us over the camera system must have had the best time of his life seeing us doing everything wrong that could have been done incorrect! He still tried to help us out by giving us little hints over a display in the wall, well it didn’t really helped anyway.

Shopping

The Hague has a lot to offer in terms of shopping so the city center is the perfect place for an extensive shopping spree. Huge department stores like the Bijenkorf can be found within walking distance of trendy fashion boutiques, interesting concept stores and quaint cafes. The Haagsche Passage (de Passage) is the oldest shopping centre in Holland and has a beautiful interior architecture so make sure to stop by at least once during your trip.

Sissy-boy

If you are looking for a calm place to rest I would suggest to visit the concept store sissy-boy, which is located right in the city center in one of the Hague‘s shopping streets. Inside the store one can relax in the built in cafe. In case you pass by I would suggest to try out their banana brownies! They are super scrumptious!

Banana brownie at Sissy-boy

De Pasta Kantine

Craving Pasta? In this case de Pasta Kantine will be the right spot for you! The menu offers many extravagant pasta variations like Pappardelle with prawns, spinach and pistachios. Still I picked their homemade tomato soup and my mum ordered the stuffed pasta with arugula, ricotta cheese and walnuts. The interior is sleek and modern with high ceilings and wooden furniture. We visited de pasta Kantine around lunch time and were the only guests with an amorous couple sharing spaghettis in front of the huge windows as in Lady and the Tramp.

De Pasta Kantine

Akihito Sushi

For all the sushi addicts I can recommend the “all you can eat” restaurant Akihito. It is located a little bit outside of the city in Rijswijk, but it only took us 15 minutes to get there from the city center by the tram. From the outside the restaurant appears quite inconspicuous. But the furniture and atmosphere inside is very pleasant. Through an open hatch at the back of the restaurant one can even take a look into the kitchen, where all the magic happens. The menu is versatile and offers a balanced selection of sushi and grill dishes. My personal favorites were the mango makis as well as the banana roll.  The combination of rice with the fruity filling is simply heavenly. What I disliked about the restaurant was the use of wasabi on the inside out rolls, but maybe my taste nerves are just a little bit too sensitive, since I’m not used to spicy food. Otherwise I can say that the sushi is really fresh and you can definitely taste the high quality of it.

Akihito Sushi

To give you an even better insight on my trip to the Hague I recorded some of my favorite moments to create a little video for you! Unconsciously most footage shows food or food markets. But I promise I will try to create more versatile footage for my next video! 

W a t c h  m e  g o  t h e  H a g u e :

Fabienne