The Hague attractions

Are the stairs going up or down? Are they even really there? M.C. Escher's mind-boggling work has confused people for years, and Escher in Het Paleis will blow your brain even more with a whole world of optical illusions. Check out the Impossible Penrose Triangle. Ponder over twisting towers, shark-shaped chandeliers, and endless staircases. You’ll freak yourself out over tiny grown-ups, infinity mirrors, and giant kids. Everything that’s wrong feels right at this museum dedicated to the country's most famous (and clearly tripped out) graphic artist.

The world's second-largest flower garden delights locals, expats, and hoards of visiting foreigners every single year with over 7 million flowers in various exhibitions, rows, and glass houses. Every year, from late March to May, the so-called “Garden of Europe” invites visitors to walk these former 15th-century hunting grounds, breathing in the scent of 79 acres of tulips and an exotic Japanese garden. The park was founded in 1949 to display Dutch and European hybrids, and the best views are most definitely from the tops of the windmills.

Crammed into a 17th-century waterfront building is more famous art than you can shake a paintbrush at. Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring hangs here at Mauritshuis, and so do almost 900 objects from the Dutch Golden Age. Wander the halls and galleries and soak up priceless works from artists like Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Potter, and see why people all over the world looked to these Dutch artists for a more realistic representation of life in oils. Guided tours will talk you through the paintings, adding that all-important extra depth.

Dutch counts sat in this 13th-century Gothic castle and talked politics, so it’s fitting that today it’s still a center of politics here. If you’re lucky you might even see the current parliament in session. The castle is home to both legislative houses and the office of the prime minister. Some parts of the building might be off-limits due to politics in action, but as the historic and current center of Dutch political life, a visit to Binnenhof makes an intriguing respite from the drizzle on a winter’s day, and stays fascinating all year round.