Exploring the home of “the Earring Girl”

The doors slide shut and I turn around. Scarlet chairs slip into the earth as the floor rises higher and higher and the outdoor lights appear between the sheets of glass and concrete.

The sky is busy tonight. Bulbous, rucked up clouds and the fading remnants of sunset match those I’ve just seen in oil painted landscapes, centuries old and hanging in museums nearby. But now, in 21^st century Holland, tram lights, street lights, and office lights radiate through the glass and into the clouds.

One of the best things about this job of mine (and there are many things to choose from) is the chance to go back. To re-view, re-visit, re-see.

Returning to The Hague for the Earring Girl

I first came to The Hague in the winter of 2012. Like Nuremberg , I knew its name as a symbol: a marker of horrific deeds, not a place where people live. Like Nuremberg, I left inspired. Not only by clear evidence of the prospect of hope but also by the far less cerebral observation that they’re both pretty places worth visiting in their own right.

And so here I am, back in The Hague (or Den Haag or s’Gravenhage to give it its proper name.) I’m looking out across the trail of scattered lights that reach the sea at Scheveningen.

And I’m starting the 341 challenge: three cities in three days.

The Hague, Rotterdam and Utrecht, all reachable via a quick ’n’ smooth train journey from airport hub Schiphol at Amsterdam (at roughly 30 mins a pop.)

It’s an interesting exercise. A day feels at once too short and yet, they’re small cities and close together. It focuses the mind. Instead of drifting into the “I’ll do it tomorrow” mindset that often leaves things undone, I’m forced into a choice today.

With only 24 hours, obviously some things will have to go. With three days back to back, it’s also obvious that I’ll need to stop and rest and sleep from time to time (behold, dear readers, it is possible to finally learn a lesson or two about life!)

In short, I have to decide and I have to decide now.

So here I am, tapping away at the keyboard in the Netherland’s highest restaurant on the 42^nd floor. I’m tasting scallops with white chocolate sauce and bacon followed by venison, red cabbage and a gingerbread sauce. Life is good. Life is also very different to how I imagined life in The Hague would be.

First, I envisioned lawyers and diplomats, security guards and, well, genocidal maniacs awaiting trial for their crimes. The last time, I raced straight to the International Criminal Court, striding past the canals and slate-spiked spires I had no chance to stop and see.

Today, I put that right. I strolled through the Old Town, ate Dutch shrimp (cooked in whiskey, apparently,) shopped beneath Holland’s oldest arcade and unpacked my bags in a blue and white silk room.

I also found a new and old friend.

The Girl with a Pearl Earring – and Colin Firth

I’m not too proud to admit it (gulp) – I found out about this masterpiece through the work of Tracy Chevalier, Colin Firth and Scarlett Johannson. I also only discovered the word “tronie” on my visit to the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague where the painting now lives (it means “face” and applies to art works made from imagination rather than as direct portrait copies of a person sat in front of them.)

Created by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer in the 17^th century, The Girl captivates instantly. There’s no wondering what all the fuss is about as there is with the Mona Lisa. There’s instant, headstruck bedazzlement. There also isn’t much of a queue.

She looks real, she looks alive, she looks fascinating. Everything, from the glint in her eye to the shimmer of the pearl to the hint of moisture on her lip is in exactly the right place. The art world talks about perspective in terms of the position of oil on canvas; I can’t help but think about perspective in terms of what it means to travel and to experience something the way no-one else the world can – by putting yourself in the picture and seeing it with your own eyes.

She looks real, she looks alive, she looks fascinating

I’m drawn to that idea again at the next museum, the Panorama Mesdag , where an EU supported grant has brought 19th century Scheveningen back to life through a 360 degree panorama. A recorded soundtrack of seagulls and waves keeps me company, lobster pots and heaps of sand wait in the foreground. They give me tangible perspective – and they aim for the psychological, trying to transport me back to a world that has long since moved on.

But here I am in the 21^st century on the 42^nd floor, trying to put it all into…perspective?

I’m often asked “why I travel” or “what do I think about a place” and both questions are difficult to answer. How can I answer the second without climbing up on high, walking at street level and delving into history? How many times do you need to visit a place before you can claim it’s a place that you know? A place you can put into perspective?

And what of the places of your own?

What know they of England who only England know? Kipling.

For me, The Hague has gone from a name in a history book to a Pinterest scene to a Hollywood “tronie” to a living gourmet experience on the 42^nd floor.

The journey has taken place along the canals of Holland and skirted the maps inside my mind.

And can I claim to know it? No, not yet for sure. But each time I travel – and then return home – I am perhaps one step closer to answering that first question on travel.

To place other words in a new perspective:

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” T.S. Eliot.

I gather my coat and my scarf and the doors slide shut. The lights of the city rise into the sky as I fall back down to earth. In The Hague.

The 3-4-1 Challenge: The Hague, Rotterdam and Utrecht

For a more conventional guide to unusual things to do in Rotterdam, Utrecht and the Hague, head here.

Disclosure – this challenge comes via easyJet, as did my flights to Amsterdam. I had some assistance from Den Haag Marketing and Rotterdam Partners for this project. As ever, as always, I kept the right to write what I like here on Inside the Travel Lab. It’s always important to keep that perspective ;-)