The mature trees
Exceptional sizes in woodland inside the city.
Rijksmuseum — CC0 · Rijksmuseum — CC0 · Rijksvastgoedbedrijf / Hetty Mos — CC0 · Rijksvastgoedbedrijf / Hetty Mos — CC0
Sorghvliet is a historic park between central The Hague and Scheveningen, and among the oldest surviving gardens in the Netherlands: laid out by the poet and diplomat Jacob Cats in 1643 as a country estate outside the city. The name means literally flight from care, which is what its owner wanted: somewhere to withdraw to from court life in The Hague. It was first designed in the geometric Dutch manner and then reshaped in the nineteenth century in the English landscape style — gentle mounds, ponds, curving paths and mature trees of exceptional size. The situation today is unusual: part of the estate holds an official government residence, so the park is **open to the public but over a limited area and on set hours**, with no leaving the paths. That preserves its quiet: you enter from central The Hague and find yourself in silent woodland within minutes. A short visit folded into the walk towards Scheveningen.
Exceptional sizes in woodland inside the city.
Silent woodland minutes from central The Hague.
Scheveningseweg, 2517 The Hague
The Indies MonumentA memorial in The Hague to the victims of the Japanese occupation of the Dutch E7 minutes walk4.6
The OmniversumThe Omniversum is a dome cinema in The Hague's museum quarter, among the first o8 minutes walk4.2
The Englandspiel MonumentA memorial in Scheveningen to fifty-four Dutch agents parachuted into occupied H8 minutes walk4.6
Kunstmuseum Den HaagEarth's largest Mondrian holding — three hundred works closing with Victory Boog9 minutes walk4.5
Fotomuseum Den HaagThe Fotomuseum Den Haag is part of the Kunstmuseum complex — the building design9 minutes walk4.4The Scheveningseweg, the oldest paved road in the Netherlands (1665), runs about five straight kilometres from central The Hague to Scheveningen beach between trees and historic gardens on both sides, Sorghvliet among them. It is an hour on foot or twenty minutes by bicycle, and it is the same road Prince Maurice cut so the court could reach the sea — still the best way to get there.