After our visit to the Mauritshuis we decided to explore the town and grab a bite to eat. It was a cold, grey day, so not so great for sightseeing and taking photos, and we hadn’t really done any research about the sights, so we restricted ourselves to a brief, unstructured walk in the older area to the west of the museum, stopping off in a café for hot drink and a bite to eat.
The Mauritshuis is next to the Binnehof, the home of the Dutch Parliament. Despite this, security was minimal and we were able to walk right through the central courtyard
This is the Royal residence in the city, the Noordeinde Palace. It’s currently used as a “working palace” by the KIng.
Meandering through the old streets I was reminded a little of Brussels. Like the Belgian capital the streets were lined with individually designed buildings rather than regimented rows.And like Brussels, there were quite a few Art Nouveau influenced buildings. There was clearly much more to see but time was limited and it was cold! Here’s a few photos of some of the more interesting buildings we saw.
These are some of the Art Nouveau/ Jugendstil style, or influenced, buildings I spotted
This building, with it’s decorative brickwork, looked like it was influenced by the Amsterdam School, although there are also some Art Decoish features
This rather grand former restaurant is now the home of the Pathe Cinema
We had a peek inside
Down by the Dougie 
Great visit. I think your postings is helping us think of going to Amsterdam whenever and that’s a big when! London of course, but maybe someplace else as well. Inspirational.