High Expectations of Low Countries

After leaving Alfie in Amsterdam we resolved to head straight down south to The Hague to continue the trip. However, we pulled over in a lovely looking lay-by on the motorway and ended up having lunch then a snooze there. This delayed us enough that we opted to write the day off and visit The Hague on the Sunday instead.

When I said a lovely lay-by I really meant it. Could you imagine something like this on the M1??

Not wanting to waste a good opportunity we played a couple of board games and did some life admin tasks in the fresh air.

Back on the road again on Sunday morning we headed to The Hague and were surprised to find a very different city to our other Dutch experiences. This particular view aside the city was largely devoid of the extensive canal networks we had come to expect. A fortunate difference was the lack of cyclists everywhere, I say as a cyclist. 

We first stopped off at the Binnenhof which is one of the oldest parliament buildings still in continuous use from the medieval period. The lack of museums under £15 in the Netherlands has really impacted our historical understanding of the low countries but a cool building nonetheless.

We then headed into the centre for some food and shopping before making our way to the Peace Palace home to The Hague's most famous institution: The International Court of Justice.

A bit more cycling later and we arrived at the second failed miniature world exhibition of the trip. While it did look super cool. With a closure time at 4.30 and a 25 euro entry feed we opted against it and headed back to Moira for an evening of sorting some bits ready to go back to the UK and our 2 hour drive to Waterloo.

Waking up on Monday we were super excited to go to both the Waterloo experience museum and Brussels in one day. This didn't exactly go to plan and the Waterloo experience occupied much of the day so instead we opted to have a more thorough day at Brussels on Tuesday, which meant we could also avoid all the closed museums which is usual on a Monday. 

Pictured above is the Lion on the Hill above the Waterloo battlefield. This massive man-made hill gave an excellent view of the battlefield and allowed for us to see all the hills, forests, and buildings from the museum in person.

Top Waterloo fact: the Prussian commander was 72 at the time and genuinely believed he was impregnated with an elephant by a French soldier...

One of the classic ways of showing the Battle of Waterloo is through these panoramas which was especially cool to see since this one was from 1912. Designed for the 100 year anniversary of the battle, it was obviously cancelled due to some unforeseen circumstances in Belgium in 1915.

The last super cool part of the Waterloo museum was in the entire Lego exhibit they had on Napoleon's life: eat your heart out Ridley Scott. One particularly cool scene is this imagining of the various methods Napoleon discussed with his commanders for an invasion of Britain. These included: a fleet of hot air balloons, a tunnel under the channel, massed small ships (they can't sink us all right?), a ferry system of submarines, and just a regular good old naval battle in the channel.

All this Waterloo excitement meant that we had to delay our Brussels visit until Tuesday and with a ferry back on Wednesday that sadly makes Brussels our last major stop of the trip!