Reading

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Tired feet now

So my plan today was to look at art. I started the day by taking the tram to Scheveningen again to go to Beelden aan Zee. They had a couple of temporary exhibitions of contemporary sculpture and an interesting sculpture terrace. Well worth seeing. Then I took the tram back towards the city centre and got off by the World Forum conference centre to go to the Kunstmuseum, which houses art from about 1900. Lots of wonderful art to see.

From there I travelled by a different tram to the city centre, followed by lunch, some browsing in shops and aimless walking. It took me a while to understand parts of the Binnenhof were harder to navigate than usual with the amount of building work going on. Mauritshuis houses the old masters, including the Girl with a Pearl Earring. Almost everything in the shop featured it, too. Disappointly, there was no temp exhibition, so I didn't feel I got very much out of Mauritshaus. But by then my feet were also rather tired, so I'm not sure how much I'd have given to an exhibition if there was one.

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trains,
travelling

In the Netherlands

I'm having few days off work this week, so yesterday I travelled to London and stayed over in Stratford. I originally had plans but in the end I was so tired and sluggish that I only did some browsing in the Westfield shops. This morning, I took the Elizabeth line and Thameslink trains to get to St Pancras for Eurostar. The Eurostar journey to Rotterdam went well, although we sat around at Lille Europe long enough for them to send an email suggesting we'd arrive around 20 minutes behind the schedule. In the end it was more like 5 minutes, just long enough for me to miss my planned connection to the Hague. On the platform when O got there, I had a choice between slower local train that left earlier and a faster intercity that left 10 minutes later. So I boarded the local train as it was there and had an easy journey.

After checking into my hotel I took a tram down to Schenevening to walk on the beach front for a while, before taking the tram back to the city centre. Tomorrow, my plan is to look at art.

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books,
reading

Wednesday reading

Finished since the last reading post
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, which was a sweet quick read, although towards the end it seemed to resolve repression and denial very easily.

Silchester Revealed: The Iron Age and Roman Town of Calleva by Professor Michael Fulford, which I bought when the museum was doing the lecture series in the spring and which covered the same current understanding of the town development based on the excavations since the 1970s in a slightly different format from the lectures.

A Heart So White (Corazón tan blanco) by Javier Marías in Margaret Jull Costa's English translation, about family secrets and secrets in relationships.

Currently reading
A Dangerous Kingdom of Love by Neil Blackmore, Seeing (Ensaio sobre a Lucidez) by José Saramago, in Margaret Jull Costa's English translation, and Crypt by Alice Roberts.

Reading next
No idea.