We got up at around 08:00 and took turns taking a shower. Once we were ready, we headed downstairs for breakfast. It was not as busy as we expected. We both had some coffee. Graham had orange juice, fruit and yoghurt and some bread with cold cuts and cheese. I had some tropical juice. They had the kind of bread rolls that I grew up with in Germany. I had those with cold cuts and cheese.
After breakfast, we briefly headed back to the room. Then we went out exploring. When we got to the end of the road, it started to rain. Graham asked if I wanted to see where the trams would take us. I was up for this. The direction we were going in initially mainly went alongside parkland once we were clear of the city centre. If the weather had been nicer, this would have been very tempting. However, it was still raining heavily.
When we got to the terminus, we got off, crossed the road, and took the next tram back. The terminus in the other direction was the beach town of Scheveningen. There were some very pretty town houses in the other direction. We also came past the Madurodam miniature park. This is home to a range of 1:25 scale model replicas of famous Dutch landmarks, and historical cities. I had heard of this previously, but I had no idea how close this was to The Hague. Scheveningen looked like a town that would be worth a closer look, too. Graham figured I should at least see the beach. The rain had eased a little and we walked the short distance to the beach. This looked nice, too. We then headed back to the tram. The next tram due was the tram that ultimately headed to Delft. We spotted that this would take us close to the royal palace, and we decided to take this back into the city.
Plans do not always work out how you anticipated. We knew that some of the tram routes would be rerouted up to 13:00 as rehearsals for Prinsjesdag were taking place that morning. Prinsjesdag is the annual state opening of parliament and this was due to take place the following Tuesday. There was no indication what these changes in route would actually entail and I did not think we were getting anywhere near where the rehearsals would take place. However, shortly after we left Scheveningen, the tram turned off from its normal route. Fortunately, Graham had been to The Hague before and at some stage, he spotted the palace in the distance. We got off at the next stop and headed in that general direction. It was still raining. Fortunately, the park around the palace was fairly sheltered and we had a walk around there. We also saw the back of the palace. We were contemplating walking around to the front of the balance, but we would have had to give up the shelter of the trees. This did not sound like a smart idea. In the end, we completed the loop round the park and then headed in the general direction of the hotel. We wandered through the old town, which is stunning. The rain had slowed to a trickle.
We had originally intended to check out Mauritshuis, which is an art museum. The most famous piece of art there is Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer. However, time was marching on, and we figured it would be a shame to rush this. It turned out afterwards that the museum was closed anyway. This is part of the parliament complex, which has been under refurbishment since 2021. As part of this, Mauritshuis was closed until the end of September. Even if the museum had been open, it turned out that Girl with a Pearl Earring was on loan in Japan while we were there and it was only due to return to The Hague in October.
There was one more stop I wanted to make on the way to the hotel. I had spotted an ice cream parlour near the hotel that offered Spaghetti Eis which is a sundae that is made to look like spaghetti with tomato sauce and grated cheese. The spaghetti is made from vanilla ice cream that is pressed through a potato ricer and arranged over some whipped cream to add some bulk. The sauce is strawberry sauce and the “parmesan cheese” is made from coconut flakes, grated almonds, or white chocolate shavings. It is such a simple dessert, but one that I have loved since I was a child. I did not really expect to find this in the Netherlands, but I was delighted when I did. We both had some. Graham pointed out that it was nice to be able to enjoy this without being bothered by wasps. This had been the case when we had this in Mainz in August.
Then we headed back to the hotel. As we had late check out at 14:00, we could enjoy a little bit of downtime before we had to check out. Graham took a nap. I set an alarm just in case, but I stayed awake and read. We had another drink voucher for two people that was pushed underneath our door the evening before. We went downstairs a little earlier and had a craft beer each. Once we had finished this, we checked out and headed back to the tram stop that we had used the day before. The rain had stopped and it was a glorious afternoon. The trams on that line had been due to start at 13:00. There were trams listed going in the opposite direction, but nothing was listed going in the direction we needed to go. We were just about to head to the tram stop around the corner where we had caught a tram in the morning when a tram approached the stop where we were. We got on and took it to the next stop which was in front of the main railway station.
Getting back to Rotterdam was smooth. The lift to the metro platform in The Hague was still broken, but the escalator going up worked and we had no issue using this. When we got to platform, we only had a short wait until the next metro arrived. We had a nice smooth run into Rotterdam. All the lifts we needed worked. We headed out to the bus station to check out where the P&O Ferries shuttle would leave from. We found the stop that it was meant to be close to, but we could not see anything that was labelled as international stop. We figured that it would become self-explanatory once the shuttle got there and we would just allow some extra time. Then we went to get some late lunch.
There were not a lot of options around the main station in Rotterdam, but we found something right by the bus station that was called Lebkov and Son. They specialised in sandwiches and soups. Graham had a ham & cheese toasted sourdough sandwich and some spicy carrot pepper soup. He had a pear oolong iced tea. I had a spicy chicken toasted sourdough sandwich. I had ordered a curried red lentil soup to go with it. I also ordered a hibiscus iced tea. They had run out of the curried red lentil soup, and I ended up having the tomato basil soup instead. There was nothing to indicate that this would be spicy, but it had some kick. Everything was delicious though.
Once we had finished our food, we headed back to the bus stop that we had checked out earlier. The shuttle was already sitting there. The driver had a list of people he was expecting. He told us to put the luggage underneath the bus and then we ticked us on his list. Just before 17:00, he reached out to somebody advising that we were still two people short. They told him to leave. We had a nice clear run to the port. When we got there, the line did not move at all even though check in supposedly had started two hours earlier. There were a number of large groups, which did not help either. We could see the front of the queue, and it did not look like anybody was being checked in. However, once they actually started checking people in, the line moved quite quickly. After this, everything went swimmingly. Once we were checked in, we went through immigration. There was nobody in front of us. After this, we had the option of putting any luggage that we did not need on a luggage trolley. Graham left it up to me if I wanted to drop off our luggage or if we were taking this with us. I did not trust the process, and we took the luggage with us. Security was a complete joke. They may as well not have bothered. Then we were good to get on the ferry.
We headed to our cabin, which to my amusement was on deck 10 just like our cabin on Nieuw Statendam had been. I had paid a little extra to get a double bed rather than bunk beds. The bed was actually really comfortable. The ferry had all kinds of different facilities like multiple restaurants and bars, a show lounge with live entertainment, a cinema, a casino, and shops. However, I was done being sociable at this time. We stayed in our cabin. We were talking for a while and then I read for a bit. We then got ready for bed and had an early night.
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