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“A chance to see the whole country in an hour or two without dropping a fortune on train tickets” |
In 1952, the Netherlands commemorated a war hero and resistance fighter named George Maduro rather oddly: by constructing a dollhouse version of Holland here in the Hague. Skyscrapers, royal palaces, the airports and shipping ports and offshore oil rigs, tiny railroads and highways where the cars go at different speeds and pass one another -- processions of morsel-sized nuns who (in consideration of 10 Euro cents dropped in a coin slot) file out of church amid a jangling of wee bells. On a conveyor belt.
It all has proved popular ever since with children of all ages, including Queen Beatrix who was then just a princess. She was named "mayor" of this Lilliputian realm and held the title until she became queen 28 years later. Each year since then a new youth council of high school students is elected to cut the ribbons on new exhibits.
Monday weather was terribly rainy and windy here, interspersed with sun and warm temperatures for just long enough to lure you out into the next band of storms. But eager to see this tourist trap oddity finally after five trips to the Hague, we crossed the Scheveningse Bos (an enormous woodsy park) and paid our 26 Euros for two adult admissions.
The general idea of the place was to give tourists a chance to see the whole country in an hour or two without dropping a fortune on train tickets over a month. And perhaps to fill their kids with wonder and an education ... of sorts. All the vegetation is real, with the trees and shrubs kept clipped to 60 cm or less, though this summer the wild swings of weather between rain and sun seem to have encouraged a few too many giant dandelions which, on the scale of the place, would be about 8 stories tall. Still, it is a hilarious way to spend the afternoon, especially to anyone with a taste for miniatures, dollhouses, architecture, Dutch life or dodging confused gangs of tourists with their heads in the clouds. Who are the size of Godzilla, in context.
One especially nice aspect of the place is the guidebook, which gives locations of the real buildings which are meticulously represented here, along with the names of the architects and a smattering of trivia about them. Aslo a treat, the Schiphol Airport has incredible planes taxiing, including a brand new Airbus A380, next tot the 747 that it so thoroughly dwarfs. One of these days we'd love to ride on one of these new double-decker monstrosities which are so big in real life that their scale model versions here could be ridden like a pony by a middling sized child.
We waited out a particularly heavy rain squall at the end of our visit before walking past the Dutch memorial to the West Indies portion of World War II on our way to peek into the grounds of the International Peace Palace, where some African dictator and various Serbian strongmen are currently being prosecuted for mistreatment of their fellow man by the International Court of Justice. Having just seen it a few km away in miniature, it proved surprising just how much its detailed facsimile did it justice.
Rounding out the evening was a salad and tuna dinner followed by coffee, chocolate and the first 65 min of a 275-minute Russian film opus about 20th century Soviet life. A pleasant Monday all in all, and restful after all the travel of the last five days. Coming Tuesday: an immense art show here of a sadly overlooked female Finnish painter finally getting her due after decades of obscurity. And more chocolate.
Finally, we figured out how to move photos from the camera to the desktop PC here at the house, so you can cruise back to the earlier two entries to see the pics finally.
previous travel blog entry
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