Rotterdam

Escher Museum in Den Haag

We visited a friend in Rotterdam the other weekend, I'd never even thought of visiting this place, it's not really on a tourist's radar. But it was actually a pretty cool city, it has some super impressive architecture, some of the buildings were worth a visit just for them. Good coffee and food as well. There are perhaps not heaps of touristy things to do in the town itself, but it is only half an hour to Den Haag, which is full of stuff.

I really love how small the Netherlands are. I really like these northern European countries; Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, I'm not sure what it is, people seem healthy, the cities are clean, everyone is polite. It's all very pleasant.

The visit to Den Haag was pretty cool, we visited the Escher museum, that was awesome. It's in a former palace of the Queen of Netherlands, so is a cool building in it's own right. I have always liked Escher, and this place is over-flowing with his works. It's really worth a visit. You really feel that the world somehow lost out with him becoming an artist rather than a mathematician though, his work is full of mathematical ideas, and he seemed to have such an intuitive grasp, that it seemed a shame he couldn't do that more. He didn't go to a great school and I'm not sure he even passed.

One of my favourite Escher pieces

We also visited the Mauritshuis, this is another must-see if you are going to Den Haag. The Netherlands really did produce some good artists and they are all represented here; Vermeer, Holbein, Rembrant, Fabritius, it was really awesome. And not that busy, so you could really appreciate the pictures. They have the Goldfinch by Fabritius, which is even more famous thanks to Donna Tartt, and I was just about to start reading the book. So that was really well timed.

So if you are sick of Amsterdam and want to experience the Netherlands without the hordes of tourists I would definitely consider Rotterdam and Den Haag.

Pigeon with Mauritshuis and the Parliament