The Hague never became a chartered city — it grew as the count's hunting estate, then as the address of Dutch power. Three days trace that arc: medieval hall, Orange courts, the world's first international court, Nazi occupation, and colonial reckoning.
Floris V's 13th-century great hall with its 26-metre oak roof, built as the count's banqueting room and still used for the King's Speech each September. Guided visits via ProDemos, roughly €12; Binnenhof restoration means access varies — book ahead.
The hexagonal-towered church begun around 1280, where William III was baptised and Orange nobility lie under 15th–17th-century floor slabs. Painted vaults, 51-bell carillon. Open irregularly — usually Tue–Sat afternoons in summer.
Housed in the 1636 civic-guard hall on the Hofvijver, it tells the village-to-capital story and displays the reputed relics of the 1672 lynching of the De Witt brothers. Around €14 adults, under-18s free.
The 14th-century gatehouse that became the county jail, where Cornelis de Witt was tortured in 1672 before the mob killed both brothers outside. Guided tours only, through cells, torture instruments and debtors' rooms; about €13.
Carnegie's 1913 gift after the 1899 Hague Peace Conference, now home to the International Court of Justice. The visitor centre is free with audio tour; interior guided tours run only on selected weekends, around €13, sold out weeks ahead.
On 3 March 1945 an RAF raid meant for V-2 launch sites hit the Bezuidenhout district by navigational error, killing about 500 civilians and levelling the quarter — which is why its architecture is abruptly post-war.
The Indies Remembrance Centre in a Sophialaan villa covers Dutch colonial rule in Indonesia, Japanese internment camps and the post-1949 repatriation that reshaped The Hague. Around €12.50; the city's Indo community is the largest in Europe.
Concrete German bunkers of the 1942–44 Atlantikwall still sit in the dunes; the Nazis demolished thousands of Hague houses to clear a fire zone and cut the city with an anti-tank ditch. Free to walk; Museum Bunkers open selected Sundays.
The old Jewish neighbourhood around Gedempte Gracht lost roughly 12,000 of 17,000 residents in the Shoah. The playground monument names deported children; the 1844 synagogue on Wagenstraat is now the Al-Aqsa mosque.
The Statenkwartier's 1900s villas were emptied when the Germans requisitioned the district; some streets kept blast walls and requisition scars. Walk Frankenslag and Stadhouderslaan past the wartime command zone.
The 1645 palace built for Amalia van Solms in the count's ancient hunting wood, later the seat of the 1948 Round Table talks era and now the King's residence. The palace is closed to visitors; the Haagse Bos paths give the classic sightlines.
Before the 19th-century seaside resort, Scheveningen was a herring village repeatedly destroyed by storm surges; the Keizerstraat lanes and Oude Kerk of 1470 survive behind the boulevard, alongside the working fishing harbour.