Delft
Museum Prinsenhof and the Nieuwe Kerk with the tomb of William of Orange.
Route by public transport ↗
A small country with a big story.
The Netherlands has been a kingdom since 1815, but the House of Orange shaped the country centuries earlier. Together with trade across the seas, the women who kept everything running at home and the explorers who mapped the world, it explains how a small river delta became a world player and a nation of culture.
This story starts in 1568, with the revolt led by William of Orange, and runs to today. Along the way you meet the Golden Age, the VOC and the WIC, the paintings that stadholders and kings collected and that now hang in public museums, and the royal foundations that still support the arts and initiatives that bring people together. The timeline below sums it up, with the place where you can still see each moment. Pick a colour to follow one story.
Pick a colour to follow one story. Every moment shows where you can still see it.
William of Orange leads the revolt against the Spanish king. It is the start of the Eighty Years' War and of the Netherlands as a country of its own.
See it at: Museum Prinsenhof Delft →William of Orange founds the first university of the northern Netherlands in Leiden, after the city's siege.
See it at: Academy Building, LeidenWilliam of Orange is shot dead in Delft. His tomb in Delft's Nieuwe Kerk becomes the burial place of the House of Orange.
See it at: Prinsenhof → and Nieuwe Kerk, DelftSix cities pool their trade with Asia. The wealth that follows, paid for with violence and slavery, changes the country.
See it at: Het Scheepvaartmuseum, AmsterdamLooking for a route to Asia, Hudson takes the Halve Maen up the river that will bear his name, where New Amsterdam will grow.
See it at: Het Scheepvaartmuseum, AmsterdamThe WIC is given the trade with Africa and the Americas. It founds New Amsterdam and plays a major role in the transatlantic slave trade.
See it at: Rijksmuseum →, AmsterdamJudith Leyster is registered as a master in the Haarlem painters' guild, one of the first women to do so, with her own workshop and pupils.
See it at: Rijksmuseum → and Frans Hals Museum →Anna Maria van Schurman attends lectures at the new University of Utrecht, behind a screen, as the first woman at a Dutch university.
See it at: Museum Martena, FranekerSailing for the VOC, Tasman reaches a land later named after the Dutch province of Zeeland.
See it at: Abel Tasman Kabinet, LutjegastThe Peace of Münster recognises the Republic. Amalia van Solms has the Oranjezaal painted in Huis ten Bosch in honour of her husband Frederik Hendrik.
See it at: Huis ten Bosch, The HagueIn New Netherland the village of Nieuw Haarlem is founded: today's Harlem in New York.
See it at: HaarlemAt 52, the artist and naturalist travels to Suriname with her daughter to draw insects and plants.
See it at: Rijksmuseum →, AmsterdamStadholder William V opens his picture gallery in The Hague to visitors: the Prince William V Gallery.
See it at: Prince William V Gallery, The HagueThe National Art Gallery opens in Huis ten Bosch: the core of the later Rijksmuseum.
See it at: Rijksmuseum →, AmsterdamWilliam I becomes the first king. The Netherlands has been a kingdom ever since.
See it at: Paleis Het Loo →, ApeldoornThe Royal Picture Gallery moves into the Mauritshuis, with masterpieces from the stadholders' collection.
See it at: Mauritshuis →, The HagueOn 1 July slavery is abolished in Suriname and the Antilles, although the formerly enslaved are forced to keep working for ten more years. Keti Koti remembers and celebrates this every year.
See it at: Rijksmuseum →, AmsterdamPierre Cuypers' new building opens in Amsterdam, designed to show off the Golden Age.
See it at: Rijksmuseum →, AmsterdamA fund set up in London grows after the war into the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, one of the main supporters of culture and nature in the Netherlands.
Beatrix becomes queen. A sculptor herself and a great lover of ballet, she is patron of, among others, the Rembrandt Association, which helps museums buy art.
See it at: Rijksmuseum → and museums across the countryThe palace of William III and Mary opens as a museum, with its Baroque gardens restored.
See it at: Paleis Het Loo →, ApeldoornMarking the wedding of Willem-Alexander and Máxima, the Oranje Fonds is created to support initiatives that bring people together.
Willem-Alexander becomes king. The same year the Rijksmuseum reopens after ten years of renovation.
See it at: Rijksmuseum →, AmsterdamOn Keti Koti, 1 July, King Willem-Alexander apologises for the role of the royal house and the Netherlands in slavery.
One day, four moments. How to get the most out of your visit.
Six places to complete your museum day.
William of Orange was murdered in this former convent in 1584, and the bullet holes are still in the wall. The museum tells the story of the Father of the Nation and the birth of the Netherlands.
The oldest university in the Netherlands, founded by William of Orange in 1575. Juliana, Beatrix and Willem-Alexander all studied here. Walk past the Academy Building on the Rapenburg and visit the Hortus botanicus.
The royal picture gallery opened here in 1822. Rembrandt, Vermeer and Steen hang in a 17th-century city palace on the Hofvijver, with the Prince William V Gallery of 1774 next door.
The hunting palace of stadholder-king William III and Mary Stuart, with one of the finest Baroque gardens in Europe. A museum since 1984, and larger since its 2023 renewal, with new halls beneath the forecourt.
Built as the city hall in the Golden Age and now one of the King's working palaces. When there is no state visit or reception, you can walk through the marble Citizens' Hall.
The national art collection, with The Night Watch at its heart. It began in 1800 as the National Art Gallery in The Hague and grew into the treasure house of the Golden Age.
Three places where the story of Orange began or can be seen, all easy from The Hague.
Museum Prinsenhof and the Nieuwe Kerk with the tomb of William of Orange.
Route by public transport ↗The oldest university in the country, the Hortus botanicus and the Burcht.
Route by public transport ↗Paleis Het Loo with its Baroque gardens and new museum halls.
Route by public transport ↗Travel times are indicative. Live times on 9292.nl ↗.
The Hague is the seat of government and of the royal house: the King works at Noordeinde Palace and lives at Huis ten Bosch. It makes a good base. Delft and Leiden are fifteen minutes away by train, and Apeldoorn and Amsterdam are easy day trips.