South Holland, full day
Grand Holland: The Hague, Delft and Rotterdam in one day
Three cities, twenty minutes apart, and about four centuries between them. How the full day is actually built.
The Hague, Delft and Rotterdam sit within twenty minutes of each other, and they could not be less alike. One is a seat of government, one is a preserved seventeenth century town, and one was flattened in 1940 and rebuilt as an experiment. Putting the three together in a day is the tour we call Grand Holland, and it works because the contrast does the explaining.
The Hague: where the country is run
The Hague is not the capital and never has been, which confuses people before they arrive and interests them once they know it. Parliament sits at the Binnenhof, a courtyard of medieval buildings around a lake, and the Peace Palace a mile away houses the International Court of Justice. Between them is the embassy district and, at Madurodam, the entire country reproduced at one twenty fifth scale. Scheveningen beach is fifteen minutes from the government quarter.
Delft: the blue and the crypt
Delft is small and walkable and holds two things worth the stop. Royal Delft, founded in 1653, is the last survivor of the thirty two potteries that once worked in the town, and you can watch a painter lay down cobalt oxide freehand, knowing it will only turn blue in the kiln. Across the market square, the Nieuwe Kerk holds the crypt of the House of Orange, where Dutch monarchs have been buried since William of Orange in 1584. Vermeer painted his view of this town and never really left it.
Rotterdam: rebuilt on purpose
On 14 May 1940 the centre of Rotterdam was bombed flat. What went up afterwards was not a reconstruction but a decision to build something else entirely, and that decision is still running: the Cube Houses of 1984, the Erasmus Bridge of 1996, the Markthal of 2014. Zadkine’s statue The Destroyed City, a figure with a hole where its heart should be, was placed near the harbour in 1953 and remains the most direct thing in the city.
How the day is paced
A full day fits all three if the walking is concentrated and the driving is not padded. In practice that means one guided walk in each city with time to sit down in one of them, rather than three half walks and a lot of coach. Groups that want more time in Delft trade the Madurodam stop for it. Groups arriving by cruise ship at Rotterdam usually run the route in reverse.
