Den Haag (The Hague) is about 30 minutes away from Amsterdam by train, and very quiet and relaxing. Den Haag is a mix of modern and historic buildings, and lots of little streets and alleys like this one, with a little pub and in the distance a large church.
Right in this area of Den Haag, there's a really great pub/cafe next to an old church. This was our favorite place for coffee and appeltart. From here, we could sit under this great old tree, on the brick plaza, under the watch of a big brick church, and just meters from the trolley. There was something really intersting about all of the spaces between the wall of the pub and the wall of the building on the other side....so many spaces. the chairs, the tree, the brick, then a walking surface, then bicycle lanes, then the trolley lines, then bicycle lanes, then walking surface, then the sidewalk. A whole series of spaces delineated by the ground. Anyway we liked this cafe.
At first we were thinking "hmmmm....doesnt it seem kind of odd that a pub rents a part of a church." Later we found out that historically, many churches had pubs attached or around, as a sponsor. Also, we found out that the same tradition was true in Romania, that monasteries used to have inns attached. So, that will probably be a subject for a future blogpost.
The other thing of course that makes this cafe so fun.........is the trolleys! The trolleys in Netherlands are like historic art on wheels, literally.
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