Haarlem, June 2010

On Tuesday, June 1, we walked up to our favorite breakfast restaurant, had our usual coffee, eggs and bacon and then walked back to the hotel, loaded up our luggage and took the taxi to Centraal Station. It was warm and cloudy, and I was sweating under my jacket, but it was easier to wear it rather than pack it. Jack had already told me my luggage was way too heavy, and I knew that but I had decided that I needed all of that stuff. Now I wasn't sure what was even in my luggage!

We bought the train tickets- I think they were 4 euros apiece, found our train track to Haarlem, piled our luggage on the train and sat down. These inter-city trains are usually second class seats, so people just sit anywhere. Right on time the train pulled out of the station and we were on our way to our next adventure. The problem is that all of these towns are very close together so in about ten minutes the engineer was announcing Haarlem. We couldn't believe it, so we asked another passenger, and he said, yes, this is Haarlem.

We jumped up, gathered our luggage - we each have a big suitcase, and then I have a cosmetic case, a backpack and a small container for our computer. Jack has his camera case. From past experience, we know these trains do not stop long so you have to be ready to hop off as soon as the doors open. We passed our luggage to each other out the door, gathered them up, got our bearings for filing out of the station to find the taxi line. We hardly had time to look around at our new town.

Before we knew it the taxi had delivered us to our hotel, the Carleton Square Hotel, a nice-looking hotel in a very green area of town - parks going every which way. We soon discovered that we were on the edge of the green part of town. As we discovered in our exploration of the town, we only had to take a right and we would find the shopping part of the town.

The town of Haarlem is very old, with canals and narrow passageways and apartments close together. I think that it is unfortunate that the city situated itself to the west of its river Spaarne, instead of having the river run through the middle of the town. Now the Spaarne is an afterthought and not taken care of at all.

The center of town is the GroteMarkt, the Large Market, with the St. Bavo church dominating it now, as it has for over 500 years. The church itself is beautiful, and I found out that this church is the location for the International Organ Competition to be held in a couple of months. When we visited it, someone happened to be practicing, so we heard its magnificent organ. Its picture is above.

They have a real market in the space every other day, and the one we found most interesting or weird was the comic book market. Evidently people come from all over Holland to visit this market. There are bars and cafes ringing the market space and it is a great place to get a beer and people watch on a sunny day.

We were always on the look out for good restaurants, and they were tucked in small places all over the town. There are some great chefs in Holland, and Haarlem was no exception. These restaurants are tiny, maybe ten tables at the most. The people in Holland eat early; six o'clock or little later.

One of Haarlem's claim to fame is the artist Frans Hals, born 1582. Besides many of portraits, his museum had a very good history of Haarlem. Visiting his museum was part of the walking tour of the city, which we found very interesting. Holland is very proud of its almshouses, which were set up in the 18th century for unmarried women who were faithful Calvinists. They usually have a small courtyard with little one-story apartments ringing the courtyard. Now they can be rented, usually only for women.

Our next place to visit is Leiden. I will have some photos of that lovely town in my next posting. Stay tuned! Any comments? Please let me know if you have any questions or comments.