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Shopping in a historic city centre

TEXT: BAS VAN DUREN | PHOTOS: HUYGENSKWARTIER VOORBURG /HILBERT KRANE, MICHEL GROEN

If you want to get lost in a Victorian interior shops to beauty shops. There are ‘Lichtjesavond’ on the 23rd. That is when vibe in the Netherlands, look no further cafés, bars and restaurants aplenty, sev- the electric lights are turned off and can- than the Huygenskwartier in Voorburg. eral parks in the vicinity and two museums dles are used instead, children’s choirs As one of the suburbs of , to boot. sing in the street and chestnuts roast over Voorburg is a city with a rich history open fires. It is as ‘Dickens-esque’ as you and has named its old city centre af- It is a perfect way to escape from all kinds can get. ter the famous astronomer Christiaan of hustle and bustle, just like Constanti- Huygens and his father, poet and pol- jn Huygens did when he built his small, itician who both 17th-century country house ‘’ lived in the area. Nowadays it is a bus- in Voorburg. This lovely building is now tling part of Voorburg with many mon- a museum and was cleverly named as umental buildings, filled to the brim such because Huygens used to work at with modern shops, cafés, restaurants the ‘hof’ which means ‘the council’ and and much more. wanted to ‘ontwijk’, meaning ‘flee’, from time to time. Constantijn also designed With Voorburg just shy of five minutes the garden that is uniquely shaped to re- away by train from The Hague, one vis- semble the human body. iting the latter should definitely see what the Huygenskwartier entails. With the his- The area itself is rich with greenness: the torical Herenstraat at the heart of it, the Herenstraat connects two age-old parks Huygenskwartier really feels like stepping and a canal called ‘De ’ runs parallel inside a time machine taking you back a with it. Many events are being held around couple of centuries. Behind the façades of De Vliet, but maybe none as ubiquitous For more on Huygenskwartier check all the monumental buildings reside mostly as the welcoming of Saint Sinterklaas who www.huygenskwartier.nl/en small and medium-sized enterprises with arrives by boat this year on 11 November. And on Facebook a passion for their products, ranging from December is a month especially worth @huygenskwartiervoorburg specialist beers to kids clothing and from visiting the Huygenskwartier because of

Issue 45 | September 2017 | 37