Free audio walk in Den Haag
Extraordinary People
- 79 min
- 4.8 km
- 11 stops
- Free
Starts at Lange Vijverberg 11
About this walk
Ten people who ran this city, argued with it, painted it or made fun of it, and two who arrived here as children given away as gifts.
The stops
Walk them in order; each story plays when you reach its pin.
- 1Stop 1
The Hague in Ten Lives
A village with no city rights that collected the people who ran the country, argued with it, painted it and made fun of it.
- 2Stop 2
Cupido and Sideron
Two boys were handed to the Dutch court as diplomatic gifts. One rose to be the stadtholder's personal valet, and both followed the family into exile.
Read the story - 3Stop 3
Louis Couperus
The youngest of eleven children from a wealthy Hague family, who turned that world into novels its own readers recognised uncomfortably well.
Read the story - 4Stop 4
Thorbecke, the Outsider on the Voorhout
The man who rebuilt Dutch government was disliked by almost everyone who worked with him, and his home city took a century and a half to put him on this square.
Read the story - 5Stop 5
Johan van Oldenbarnevelt
He ran the diplomacy of the young Dutch Republic for three decades, and the Republic beheaded him on the Binnenhof at seventy-one.
Read the story - 6Stop 6
Johan de Witt
He led the Republic for nineteen years and wrote serious mathematics on the side, and a crowd killed him and his brother on this spot.
Read the story - 7Stop 7
Haagse Harry
A cartoon character in a white tracksuit stands in bronze above the tram tunnel he spent years mocking.
Read the story - 8Stop 8
Spinoza on the Paviljoensgracht
Expelled by his own community at twenty-three, he ground lenses for a living and wrote the book that still unsettles people.
Read the story - 9Stop 9
Jan Steen on the Bierkade
He learned his trade on this quay, married his master's daughter, and gave the Dutch language a phrase for a household in happy chaos.
Read the story - 10Stop 10
Scheurleer's Lending Library
In 1757 a bookseller on the Prinsegracht decided that people who could not afford books should be able to borrow them.
Read the story - 11Stop 11
Willem van Oranje
Born Catholic, raised to serve the Spanish crown, and ended as the man Philip the Second put a price on.
Read the story
Ready when you are
Walk Extraordinary People with ROODS.
11 stops through Den Haag, about 79 minutes. Open ROODS in your browser, walk to the first pin and the story plays.
- Stories on a map, with narrated audio
- Walk at your own pace, stop where you like
- Runs in your browser. An app is optional.
