"It's all about Amsterdam," shrugged the car rental agent, proffering a map of the capital as we picked up our vehicle, bound for some of the Netherlands' other great treasure-houses of art.
Has one of the world's favourite cities pushed its neighbours off the map? Sure, with the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum and an outpost of St Petersburg' s Hermitage, not to mention its contemporary offerings, especially in the field of photography, it's understandable Amsterdam gets the lion's share of tourists seeking culture.
But those who don't take a day or two to discover The Hague are missing out. This gorgeous Golden Age city is just as rich as the Capital in canals and elegant 17th century buildings, not to mention its own fair share of cafes and coffee shops, both those serving espresso and pastries, as well as the sort where cannabis can be legally purchased and consumed.
We were here to see the city's unique art offerings though, which are so varied as to be dizzying - a trippy experience even without the drugs. In one afternoon we progressed from the elegant little Lange Voorhout Palace devoted to the surreal graphics of MC Escher to the sumptuous Mauritshuis, a palatial townhouse on the water which houses the country's greatest art treasure, Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring.
The latter, once a luxurious 17th century hotel for the good and great, is a fitting home for Holland's Old Masters. As well as Vermeers, we feasted our eyes on works by Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck and the great still life, perspective and genre paintings which distinguish three centuries of Dutch painting before Van Gogh and Mondrian launched a new wave of great art for the modern age.
Stay until closing for the vista of its huge windows reflected in moonlight on the water.Those who get there before January 8 can enjoy the additional treat of the British royal family's collection of Dutch greats featuring another Vermeer normally hung behind closed palace doors.
The art theme extended to our accommodation, the buzzy art deco Parkhotel with its Escher-style staircase and a garage in a town where parking can be difficult. Just off Prinsestraat, a charming narrow street within walking distance of the Mauritshuis and Escher museum, we enjoyed smoked salmon bagels followed by excellent pistachio cheesecake at the appropriately-named Pistache Cafe.
Later the tram took us to the Hague Tower, whose Penthouse Restaurant, the highest dining-room in Benelux, is situated on the 41st floor of a building dedicated mainly to student housing - an example of Holland's egalitarian and innovative regeneration policies.
We should also have taken the tram to Scheveningen, The Hague's seaside suburb, too. Instead of a 15-minute ride the parlous lack of road signs in the city meant it took us more than an hour to reach by car. But it was worth the trip to discover the Museum Beelden aan Zee, a delightful contemporary sculpture gallery lit by bright ocean light which spills fairytale figures onto the promenade below.
Anish Kapoor's aluminium mountain, Picasso's goat and other sculptures, plus many of his colourful ceramics, are on show until February and March respectively.
If Escher's work with its impossible staircases and shape-shifting creatures is a trip for the modern eye, Hieronymous Bosch's scary, phantasmagorical visions must have scandalised his medieval brethren.
We celebrated his 500th anniversary with a trip to 's-Hertogenbosch, better known as Den Bosch, the southern city from which the artist took his name. The otherwise austerely elegant town is currently paying particular homage to their most famous son and we enjoyed spotting these in the river and around the streets.
While his most famous work, the huge Garden of Earthly Delights triptych, lives in the Prado in Madrid and other originals are scattered around the world, you can still study the master in depth at the Jheronimus Bosch Art Centre, packed with sculptures of famous elements of his work like the half-man along with replicas of the great works which inspired many a sixties record album cover, not to mention Monty Python's Terry Gilliam.
We were also looking forward to the light show, a special attraction to mark the Bosch 500 anniversary until mid-December - only to discover we had arrived on a night when the paintings projected huge onto the city's medieval buildings had been cancelled.
It would have been a huge disappointment had we not discovered Noble. Set in a historic villa, Edwin Kats's creation is resolutely modern, turning its back on the chef's former two-star credentials to focus on the Asian flavours he grew to love while working in China, and which he now wraps into elegant fusion dishes.
We even enjoyed a 21st century light show driving back to the Movenpick hotel, thanks to the changing colours on the facade next door, and a city hall bearing its own surreal projection of a clock with a virtual man diving in and out to adjust the minute hand.
The hotel offered an excellent chance to study The Garden of Earthly Delights, reproduced in its lifts, on the way to an excellent buffet breakfast.
Surprisingly for such a Catholic city, Den Bosch was also home to Jews in the time of Hieronymous, though it took them until 1938 to build their first free-standing synagogue. A Jewish primary school and high school followed to cater for children expelled from public education under the Nazis, but tragically the town later became a regional transit point for deportations.
Yet the synagogue survived, along with 200 of the deported Jews from the community, and they reconsecrated the synagogue anew in 1947, although the congregation has declined to sub-minyan levels. The Hague, on the other hand, has regained a thriving Jewish community with several synagogues, both Ashkenazi and Sephardic.
And if the capital has its own Jewish history, not to mention the Banksy and Warhol show at the MOCO contemporary art museum, and the Portraits of the Golden Age exhibition at the Hermitage until December 31, it's worth remembering that sometimes, it's really not all about Amsterdam.
