36 hours in The Hague: a practical guide to Den Haag's museums, palaces, and coast

The Hague is the city most travelers to the Netherlands plan in 24 hours rather than 24 days, which is roughly the right ratio. It is the seat of the Dutch government, the home of the International Court of Justice, and the address of two world-class museums. It is also calmer, cheaper, and easier to walk than Amsterdam, with a real beach 15 minutes away by tram. Most Amsterdam-week itineraries skip it. The ones that do not usually end up wishing they had given it the longer half.

The bigger pitch: hotel rooms in The Hague run roughly 30 to 50 percent cheaper than comparable rooms in Amsterdam, and Amsterdam is 50 minutes away by train. If you are basing a Netherlands week somewhere, basing here and commuting in is the deal almost nobody takes.

This page is the version I would send a friend who asked how to spend 36 hours in The Hague, or who wanted to base outside Amsterdam without losing the Amsterdam side of the trip.

On this page

• When to go
• Festivals and big annual events
• Getting in and getting around
• Where to stay
• The Mauritshuis and the Vermeer
• The Binnenhof and the city center
• Escher in het Paleis
• The Peace Palace
• Madurodam: the Netherlands in miniature
• Scheveningen and the coast
• Day trip to Delft
• Where to eat

When to go

Window	Months	What to expect
Best	May to early September	Long days, warm evenings, the coast usable, café terraces full. Book hotels and the Mauritshuis early
Shoulder	April, late September, October	Cooler, fewer crowds at the museums, café energy holds up indoors. The Christmas lights along Lange Voorhout start in late November
Quiet and gray	November to March	Short days, frequent rain, but the museums and Sky Bar carry the trip. Hotel rates drop

The Hague rains often enough that an umbrella belongs in your bag any month of the year. A late-June visit can also catch the long-day Dutch summer light, with sunset after 22:00, that makes evening strolls along Lange Voorhout one of the underrated things to do in the city.

Festivals and big annual events

The Hague's calendar is anchored by Prinsjesdag, the annual State Opening of the Dutch Parliament, and a strong jazz and dance festival circuit. The city behaves differently on Prinsjesdag than any other day of the year.

Event	When	What it changes
Prinsjesdag (State Opening of Parliament)	The third Tuesday of September	The annual State Opening of the Dutch Parliament, with the King reading the Speech from the Throne at the Ridderzaal. Royal procession from Noordeinde Palace to the Ridderzaal in the Golden Coach (currently retired, replaced by the Glass Coach pending restoration). Free to watch along the route. The Hague is dressed for the occasion: hats, royal flags, military pomp. Hotels in the center fill
North Sea Jazz Festival (Rotterdam)	A weekend in mid-July	Not in The Hague itself but in Rotterdam (25 minutes by train). One of the biggest jazz festivals in the world. The Hague hotels fill with the spillover
Tong Tong Fair	Late May to early June, two weeks	The biggest Indonesian-Dutch cultural festival in the world, held at the Malieveld in central The Hague. Indonesian food stalls, music, dance, culture (the Hague has the largest Indonesian-Dutch diaspora in the Netherlands). Smaller hotel pressure than Prinsjesdag, real cultural reason to be in town
The Hague Jazz Day (Den Haag Jazz Festival)	Variable, usually summer	The city's jazz festival across multiple central venues
Veterans' Day (Veteranendag)	Last Saturday of June	Civic ceremonies, military parade through the center. Hotel impact mostly along the parade route
Liberation Day (Bevrijdingsdag)	May 5	National holiday. Free concerts and city-scale events
King's Day (Koningsdag)	April 27	The Dutch national holiday. The Hague version is more civic and less party-flooded than Amsterdam. The royal family traditionally visits a different Dutch city each year, occasionally The Hague
The Hague Marathon (NN CPC Loop)	Mid-March	One of the bigger half-marathons in the Netherlands, around 35,000 runners. Course winds through The Hague and Scheveningen
State Opening (Eurovision in May 2020/2021)	One-off, 2021	Eurovision was held in Rotterdam in 2021 but The Hague absorbed some of the visitor crowd. The Eurovision return to the Netherlands is not currently scheduled but verify if booking
Christmas Market at the Plein	Late November to late December	Smaller than the Germanic equivalents but a real reason to be in The Hague in December
Day of National Liberation (Scheveningen specific)	September 8	Annual commemoration of the 1945 liberation of Scheveningen. Smaller civic event

The trip-shaping window is Prinsjesdag in mid-September. If a royal procession and a State Opening of Parliament is the unusual interest, this is the day. The Tong Tong Fair in late May is the underrated Indonesian-Dutch cultural festival that connects The Hague to its colonial-era diaspora more directly than any other event.

Getting in and getting around

The Hague has two stations. Den Haag Centraal (CS) is the larger and newer, with a glass roof and direct connections to everywhere. Den Haag Hollands Spoor (HS) is older, smaller, and convenient if your hotel sits on the south side near the World Forum.

Origin	Mode	Time	Notes
Amsterdam Centraal	NS Intercity	~50 min	Every 10–15 min, ~€14, tap a card at the gate
Schiphol Airport	NS Sprinter / Intercity	~30–40 min	Some Schiphol services stop at Den Haag HS first. Check the platform display
Rotterdam Centraal	NS Intercity	~25 min	Every 10 min, ~€6
Brussels	Eurostar / NS Intercity	~3 hours	Change at Rotterdam if needed
Inside the city	Tram and bus	5–25 min	HTM operates the tram and bus network. OVpay accepted

The Hague is small enough that most of the museum-and-palace circuit is walkable. The exceptions are Madurodam (tram 9) and Scheveningen (tram 1 or 9). For day trips, NS runs every 10 minutes to Delft, Leiden, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam.

A note on cards. All of NS, HTM, and the regional buses accept contactless bank cards or a phone wallet directly under OVpay. Tap in, tap out, charged per kilometer. There is no need to buy a paper ticket or carry an OV-chipkaart. You must have a valid fare to ride. The spot fine for getting caught without one is €50 in cash. Visa, Maestro, and Mastercard all work for the tap. Discover and AMEX are less reliably accepted.

Where to stay

The Hague city center is compact. Anywhere within a 10-minute walk of the Binnenhof puts the museums on foot and the trams at hand. Hotels are about a third cheaper than equivalent Amsterdam properties.

Hotel	Where	Why pick it	Trade-off
voco The Hague	City center, blocks from the Binnenhof	One of my favorite hotels in the country. Set in a restored former bank building. Light, airy rooms, great showers, very quiet. Rates often around €125/night	Books out on weekends
Hotel Indigo The Hague Palace Noordeinde	City center, opposite the royal palace	Set in another former bank building. Each room is individually decorated and the dinner-in-the-bank-vault is the kind of trip story that pays for itself	Boutique-property pricing
Staybridge Suites The Hague Parliament	Lange Houtstraat, two blocks from the Binnenhof	Apartment-style suites with kitchenettes, guest laundry, and a weekly happy hour. Best for longer stays. Rates run €100–€200 depending on dates	Has crept up in price. Flexible dates required for the lower end
Hotel Des Indes	Lange Voorhout	The historic grand hotel. Anna Pavlova lived (and died) here in 1931, Churchill stayed, Empress Sisi and Mata Hari are on the documented guest list	Top of the budget for the city

If you are basing outside Amsterdam to save money, this is the cleanest version of that play. From The Hague you reach Amsterdam in 50 minutes, Rotterdam in 25, and Schiphol in 30. A 4-night trip with the museums split across two cities works better here than in either Amsterdam or Rotterdam alone.

The Mauritshuis and the Vermeer

The Mauritshuis is the highlight of the city for almost every first-time visitor and rightly so. It is the royal collection housed in a 17th-century palace on the corner of the Binnenhof, and it holds Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring, Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, and Carel Fabritius's Goldfinch, plus a deep bench of other Dutch Golden Age work.

Field	Detail
Admission	€21 adult. €4 after 4pm daily (introduced 2026)
Hours	Tue–Sun 10:00–18:00, Mon 13:00–18:00, Thu late opening to 20:00
Booking	Online timed entry strongly recommended. Sells out by mid-afternoon in season
Time on site	1.5–2 hours
Closest station	Den Haag CS, 8-minute walk

The €4 after-4pm ticket is the move if your day is already packed. The collection is small enough to do in 90 minutes if you focus on the headline rooms. The new wing across the Hofvijver doubles the space and pairs with the older palace via an underground passage.

The Binnenhof and the city center

The Binnenhof is one of the oldest parliament buildings still in active use anywhere. The complex dates from the 13th century and the central courtyard, the Hofvijver, sits as the postcard image of the city. The 13th-century Ridderzaal (Knights' Hall) holds the throne where King Willem-Alexander opens parliament every September.

The buildings are best admired from outside. Guided tours of the interior are organized by ProDemos and need advance booking. When the chambers are in session the tours are suspended.

A 5-minute walk from the Binnenhof takes you through the city center proper, including the 19th-century covered shopping arcade De Passage (UNESCO-listed since 2009 as part of the broader heritage inscription). The arcade still holds the original tile floor, decorated cast-iron columns, and a handful of independent shops, including the Hop & Stork chocolate counter where they hand-make the chocolates on site.

A short walk north of the Binnenhof, the Paleis Noordeinde is the working palace of King Willem-Alexander. It is not open to the public, but the exterior and the gardens are visible from the street and are worth a 10-minute stop.

Escher in het Paleis

The Escher in het Paleis museum is the second of the city's two top-tier museums. It sits inside the former winter palace of Queen Emma, the great-great-grandmother of the current king, on the elegant tree-lined Lange Voorhout.

Field	Detail
Admission	~€15 adult
Hours	Tue–Sun 11:00–17:00, closed Mon
Booking	Walk-up usually works on weekdays. Book online for weekends
Time on site	1 hour

The collection is the complete Escher: the impossible staircases, the metamorphoses, the tessellations, the printmaking that influenced two generations of graphic designers. The top floor is the trick of the place: interactive exhibits that let you experience the perspective tricks Escher drew on paper. The Hans Van Bentem chandeliers throughout the palace are themselves worth the visit.

The combination of the Mauritshuis and Escher in het Paleis is the natural museum half-day. They sit 5 minutes apart on foot.

The Peace Palace

The Peace Palace is one of the distinctive things about The Hague: the building of the International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, and the Permanent Court of Arbitration. It is the only court of the UN system located outside New York.

Field	Detail
Visitor Center	Free, open Tue–Sun 11:00–17:00
Interior guided tour	~€11, ~1 hour, advance booking required
Tours suspended	When the Court is in session
Bring	Passport or EU ID at the entry
Closest stop	Tram 1 to Vredespaleis

The Visitor Center is worth a short visit on its own, with exhibits on the history of the building, the international peace movement, and the cases that have shaped the modern court. The interior tour, when it runs, takes you through the great hall, the courtroom, and the library, with stained-glass windows, marble floors, and gifts from member states (a vase from Russia, a jade altar from China, a fence from Germany).

If the Court is sitting the tour is off, and there is no way to know weeks in advance. Booking is online and refundable. Treat it as a "see if it works" rather than a fixed plan.

Madurodam: the Netherlands in miniature

Madurodam is the trip's other most-quoted attraction: the entire country reproduced at 1:25 scale, with miniature canal houses, working Schiphol, tulip fields in season, a tiny Peace Palace, and live train movements at the model Centraal Station.

Field	Detail
Admission	€22.50 online, €24.50 at the gate
Hours	09:00–20:00 (reduced Sep–Mar)
Booking	Online timed entry required. Gate tickets only when capacity allows
Time on site	2 hours minimum, longer with kids
Closest stop	Tram 9 from Centraal

The park is best from late April through September when the model canals are filled with water and the tulip fields are real. Some exhibits go offline for renovation in winter. The website lists which.

Madurodam is the easy half-day with kids, and is a surprisingly engaging stop without them. It is also the only place in the Netherlands where you can see all of the Netherlands without renting a car.

Scheveningen and the coast

Scheveningen is the Hague's seaside neighborhood, 15 minutes by tram from the city center. The boardwalk runs about 4km along a wide sandy beach, and the Scheveningen Pier carries a small amusement complex over the water at the central point.

The pier has a Ferris wheel (~€11 per person, 36-car loop, ~20 minutes), a bungee tower (60m drop, €70), and a zip line that runs 350m over the sea (€35. The longest zip line in the Netherlands). The amusements all run year-round in some form. Check before driving up in winter.

The Strandhuisjes at Kijkduin are the most photogenic stop on the coast: bright white wooden beach houses set up every spring and removed for winter at the south end of the boardwalk. They are rentable as accommodation (~€300+ a night) but worth walking past either way. The seasonal install means the photo dates the trip.

For lunch on the coast, Habana Beach in Kijkduin is a relaxed bar/restaurant on the sand with a generous breakfast platter and a strong hot chocolate. The Buddha-head terrace decor is its own thing.

A note on Panorama Mesdag. A 10-minute walk from the Peace Palace, this small museum holds the largest cylindrical painting in the world: a 360-degree, 14-meter-tall view of the Scheveningen beach as it looked in 1881. It is a 30-minute stop that surprises almost everyone who walks in.

Day trip to Delft

Delft is the easiest day trip from The Hague. 20 minutes by tram 1 or a 12-minute train from Den Haag CS. The town is a smaller, quieter Amsterdam: canals, cycling, cobbled streets, and a Saturday market.

Three things worth a visit:

Stop	Why	Notes
Royal Delft (Koninklijke Porceleyne Fles)	The factory still producing Delft Blue pottery since 1653	Tours include the painting studio. Pottery for sale on site
Nieuwe Kerk and Markt	The 14th-century church on the main square with the royal crypts	Climb the tower for the city panorama
Vermeer Center	A small museum dedicated to the Delft master	The actual paintings are at the Mauritshuis. The center gives the context

A half-day in Delft works as a morning out of The Hague before an afternoon at the Mauritshuis, or as a full day if you slow it down with lunch on the canal.

Where to eat

The Hague has a deeper international food scene than its size suggests, anchored by a large embassy population and a strong Indonesian heritage that dates to the colonial period.

Spot	Best for	Notes
De Basiliek	The nicer dinner	Michelin Guide-listed. Lunch is the move if you want the price down: a Michelin-quality lunch can run around €30
Little V	Vietnamese	Authentic, fresh, and one of the best meals in the city. The tropical drinks are worth ordering
Baladi Manouche	Lebanese street food	Cheap, fast, central. Good lunch on a museum day
De Bakkerswinkel	Breakfast and brunch	Yoghurt + granola, decent coffee, friendly room. Multiple locations
Bouzy	Wine bar	By-the-glass wines and champagnes with bitterballen and bar snacks
Ciao Ciao	Italian	Solid wine list, opposite the Binnenhof, reliable
Boterwaag	Traditional Dutch	17th-century weighhouse building on Markt. Touristy but the room is worth it
Lola Bikes & Coffee	Coffee	Vintage bikes on the wall, very good coffee, bike-themed bookshop in the back

The rijsttafel ("rice table") is the regional thing to eat in The Hague: a Dutch-Indonesian set of small dishes shared at the table, descended from the colonial era and still better here than anywhere else in the country. Make a reservation. The better rijsttafel restaurants book out on weekends.

Free things worth a half-day

Three things in The Hague cost nothing once you have a tram ticket.

• The Tweede Kamer (House of Representatives). Open to the public on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays during session days. Access includes the Statenpassage, the Plenary Hall public gallery, and the Statenlokaal cafe. Pre-register at bezoekers.tweedekamer.nl. Each visitor gets an individual emailed ticket.
• Scheveningen beach. A tram ticket is the whole cost. Long sandy beach, esplanade, pier, lighthouse, year-round.
• Haagse Bos. One of the oldest remaining forests in the country, stretching from the city center to the Wassenaar border. Historically a hunting ground for Dutch counts. During WWII it served as a launch site for German V-1 and V-2 rockets. Now a calm walk that almost no visitor bothers with.

What to skip

• The Hague Tower observation deck is fine but not a real attraction. The bar at the top is the better use of the trip.
• The "Hague city tour" hop-on-hop-off bus is not a useful way to see a city this walkable. Walk it.
• Anything called "Holland Experience" with red and yellow paint outside. Save the budget for the actual museums.