Terps, borgs and the pink granite coast: Tours, treats and attractions

Our trip to Den Haag was primarily to visit friends in their new home, which is so lovely, so like them, and so much more spacious than we had envisaged, looking at photos in Australia.

After a quick walk around their neighbourhood shopping precinct, ogling the gracious old buildings and amazingly cheap fresh flowers and tasting endless Dutch cheeses displayed in big wheels and cubed for our pleasure, we experienced our first taste of the incredibly delicious broodje kroket: a deep fried croquette, crusty on the outside, soft, almost molten on the inside, on thick delicious weighty chunk of bun. So good we have had them again since. And again.

The heart of the city was just minutes away by tram (we might have walked it but it was cold) and there we visited the Panorama Mesdag, one of the most stunning art installations we have come across. Panoramas are large, circular and this one is approached via dark stairs leading up into a pool of natural light revealing a painted canvas in the round occupying all the space on a high viewing platform, that looks so real after dark that you need a mind blip to comprehend that it is actually painted.

Panoramas became popular a couple of hundred years ago so not many survive. Hendrik Mesdag (with his wife and two assistants) was commissioned to paint this particular circular piece a full 120 metres in circumference which occupies a medium-sized gallery purpose-built for it. It reveals a complete 360° view of what was the small fishing village of Scheveningen in the 18th century, highlighting its beach world, including cavalrymen boarding boats, wreckage on the sand, bathers and beach dwellers of all varieties, the fishing village as it then was, along with the surrounding sand dune scenery that protects the coast from the brunt of the wave action, and so saves lives.

Mesdag and his band of merry painters completed this work in under four months. It is spectacular and equally with one other site, is my favourite thing to see in Den Haag. Definitely not to be missed.

Owen then took us on thorough exploration of Den Haag downtown, including the beautiful Binnenhof which houses the government, but which long ago was a hunting lodge for aristocrats. We saw the Peace Palace and the Mauritshuis, which is currently closed, so Vermeer's Lady with the Pearl Earring is displayed elsewhere in the city: we missed her this time. We saw the stunning exterior of Berlage's gorgeous city museum. One day I am going to have time to just sit and ogle its simple, elegant, art deco exterior.

Home to a traditional meal of white asparagus, smoked ham, boiled eggs and potatoes topped with a warm butter sauce. Life just doesn't get much better than this.