During my vacation in the Netherlands, we took a day trip to the Hague to go see (among other things) Escher in Het Palais. I loved seeing the art and the actual woodcut blocks he used and learning more about the artist. Usually I go for the older stuff (gosh I love Renaissance artwork of Catholic saints), but Escher’s use of impossibility, you can’t not love it. One of the things that I found really cool (and I guess was a fairly new fact, given that the article I’m about to link only came out last year) was that the staircases he drew in Relativity were inspired by the staircases in a school he attended in Arnhem as a teen. He hated the school, but was obsessed by its very, very weird staircase.

Even if it didn’t hold a bunch of great art, Het Palais is a gorgeous building. Every room had a different bizarre chandelier. They were amazing! These were my favorites: