Dutch Provinces - South Holland

There are 12 provinces in The Netherlands: North Holland, South Holland, Zeeland, Gronigen, Friesland, Utrecht, Flavoland, Drenthe, Overijssel, Gelderland, North Brabant and Limburg. While living in NL hubs and I are on a mission to find something to visit in each province.

My first entry in this series is South Holland (Zuid-Holland). I am starting with South Holland because it is the province in which hubs and I live.

The 2 largest (population-wise) cities in South Holland are Den Haag and Rotterdam which also happen to be 2nd and 3rd largest cities in the entire country respectively. (Amsterdam is #1 and is located in North Holland)

Location of South Holland

Flag of South Holland

There is very little in Den Haag that hubs and I have not seen either by tram, bus, train, bike or foot. We live in Scheveningen which is where the beach is located and which is about 5km from city center.

Flag of Scheveningen

Den Haag is also where the Dutch government is seated (although Amsterdam is the country's capital city).

Binnenhof - seat of Dutch parliament

Flag of Den Haag

There are many interesting museums to see as well, and I think I've seen all but a handful thanks to my Museumkaart!  A couple museums of note are Mauritshuis which is where "Girl with the Pearl Earring" is located (this museum is situated just to the left of the building in the above photo), and Escher in Het Paleis, a whole museum dedicated to Escher (🎵my fav-or-ite MC!🎵 - lol)

If you want to get a glimpse at all The Netherlands has to offer I recommend a visit to Madurodam, located about 1/2 way between city center and the beach. The 9 tram stop at Madurodam used to add "Miniature City" in a very posh British accent as part of the automated stop announcement but the powers that be have removed that from it sometime after April 2019.

Hubs and I took a self-guided walking tour of Rotterdam a while back which was focused on the "fire boundary" of the city - the periphery of the May 14, 1940 bombing of Rotterdam. Because much of Rotterdam was destroyed during the war there is a lot of modern architecture. The most famous of the modern architecture in Rotterdam are the "Cube Houses". They are actual houses in which people reside. One house is not occupied and is available for viewing. As you can guess from their shape, the interiors are small with odd angles making for quite a bit of unusable space.

Cube Houses

For a quaint visit I highly recommend the town of Delft which can be easily reached from Den Haag via the 1 tram. It is the home of Royal Delft, the famous pottery company and the town is quaint and picturesque  -  make sure your camera batteries are full and your memory card is empty. (It's also where our closest Ikea can be found!!)