A museum devoted to the graphic work of M.C. Escher, housed in the former Winter Palace of Queen Emma — a townhouse on the Lange Voorhout, one of The Hague's most elegant boulevards. The combination of royal interior and Escher's paradoxical prints works remarkably well: the ornate 18th-century rooms provide an incongruous backdrop for drawings of impossible staircases, interlocking lizards, and hands drawing themselves.
The collection includes a large number of original lithographs, woodcuts, and mezzotints, displayed alongside explanations of the mathematical ideas that underlie them. Interactive exhibits let you understand how the visual tricks work. The museum is small enough to cover in a comfortable hour and a half, and the building's location on the tree-lined Lange Voorhout — one of the best streets in the city for a walk — makes it easy to combine with a stroll through the diplomatic quarter.