Historic Haarlem

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During our visit to Amsterdam last November, we took two trips outside the city. The first was to Haarlem, just 15 minutes away by train. As we left the station and walked towards the main square, we were already noticing lots of interesting historic and decorative buildings.

Haarlem
Haarlem
Haarlem
Haarlem
Haarlem

The square, Grote Markt, is the heart of the city  where we admired St Bavokerk, the 14th century Town Hall, and a statue to Laurens Coster who is believed by Haarlemmers to have a claim, along with Gutenberg, to be the inventor of moveable type.

Grote Markt
Grote Markt

There is a small Tourist Information Office in the Town Hall, so we headed there to pick up a walking map of the old town which we followed for the rest of the day. At first, we passed mostly shops, some of which retained traditional signs such as this chemist (1849) and baker (1900).

Then we turned into residential areas, a higgledy-piggledy mix of narrow streets, small squares, churches and alms-houses.

Our steps then led us to 62 Groot Heiligland, formerly a poorhouse where the artist Frans Hals (1582-1666) spent his final years, and now a museum dedicated to him. We saw two interesting exhibitions, The Art of Laughter and A Global Table – both very good, but long over now so no point in me recommending them! Do you recognise Frans Hals’s friend in the bottom picture?

Groot Heiligland
Frans Hals Museum interior
Frans Hals and friend

It seems our walk took us down to the canal after the museum. I really should write these trips up nearer the time – even with my map, I’m struggling to remember what all the buildings are, so much of the gallery below is not captioned.

The Waag
Crow-stepped gables c1630
Gravestenenbrug

A last hurrah for some more decorative features:

Then, in the faded light of late afternoon, we arrived back at Grote Markt from where we headed for the train.

Vleeshall
Town Hall
Grote Markt
Grote Markt
Statue near station

With a few minutes to wait, we admired the art deco station, a national monument.

Haarlem Station
Haarlem Station
Haarlem Station

My Fitbit recorded 20,355 steps on this day, the second highest for our week in Amsterdam. The highest (almost 26,000) was the other day trip we did, to Utrecht. A post on that is coming soon – if I can remember it! In the meantime, this post is linked to Jo’s Monday Walk – today she’s in the beautiful North Yorkshire town of Knaresborough.

Netherlands ,

86 Comments »

  1. It’s amazing how far you can walk when sightseeing! You may not remember the names / purposes of all the buildings, but they still make for wonderful photos and memories.

    This series of posts on the Netherlands has made me miss my (Dutch) mother. In my head I can hear her pronouncing the names of things and places in your stories 🙂

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  2. I am very taken with the decorative panels set into the buildings. I especially like the visual narratives, like the St. Elysabets guesthouse panel and the one where the man witha long spear is stabbing something. Fascinating!

    Jude

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  5. That art is really amazing! I love noticing art within architecture. The other day I pointed out a tiny mural of fairies near our home to my daughter. She found a penny near the mural and insisted the fairies had left it there. Later, she dropped the penny and we couldn’t find it so she told me, “Oh well, the fairies took their penny back.”

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  6. One of my work colleagues has been in Amsterdam this week. I had to call him yesterday (no rest for lawyers on vacation!), and he raved about the city. They went especially to see the tulips, and he says that is worth the trip alone.

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  7. I love the photographs Anabel – you get a real sense of being on the walk with you. I don’t need captions to enjoy as I can get feel of the place. I do the same thing though – by the time I write up my posts I can’t remember all the exact locations! Haarlem looks a lovely historical town and a great day trip from Amsterdam 🙂

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  9. That’s a neck of the woods I’ve never visited. Looks lovely and interesting.

    I agree about writing up trips closer to when you took them–if I don’t do mine pretty quickly, it’s hard to remember detail. I love having the internet to look up the stuff I’ve forgotten 🙂

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  10. 26,000 steps sounds like loads! I’ve just got back from a short trip to Budapest, and I’m not sure exactly how many steps we did, but my feet are absolutely killing me. Maybe I need to get more comfortable shoes! Love seeing even more Dutch signs though – especially the sun!

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  12. I think that I mentioned to you in a previous comment that I started my circumnavigation from Amsterdam. I never made it as far as Harrlem but it’s post like this one that make me long to return to this area. My favorite picture is the one of the bust above the chemist shop, one of many beauties here that are reminiscent of The Netherland’s seafaring traditions to far away lands. That picture of John as Frans Hals ‘friend’ totally cracked me up. And the cherry on top is that the residential areas offered you the opportunity to use ‘higgledy-piggledy’ in a sentence 🙂

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    • Amsterdam is wonderful, but it does tend to obscure all the other beautiful cities round about it (though keeps them quieter for us!) John is always game for sticking his head through those things and higgledy-piggledy is a great phrase! I’m struggling with autocorrect to type it – it’s sure I want to talk about giggling. 😀

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  13. Hi, Anabel – You truly had me at the opening photo! I love my virtual tours with you (and John) and always anxiously await the next one! Stunning photos and descriptions.

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  14. I love reading your blog posts! Between the words and the pictures, I feel as if I have visited so many new places. Although I do hope to make it to Amsterdam some day, you have opened my eyes to so many places I’ve never visited. Thanks for that!

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  16. I’ve never been to Haarlem. It looks like an interesting historic town! You guys sure packed a punch in one day. I have the same problem as you, remembering the sights I take photos off. When I was still shooting with film, I’d write down every time I took a photo and where. Now, with digital photography, classifying and captioning is harder! I could start writing everything down again, of course. Except, I now take 10 times as many photos. Or more.

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    • Exactly! We’d never get anywhere if we wrote everything down. The map was helpful if a building was illustrated and I could match it up with our pictures. Otherwise, it was more difficult.

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  17. Very interesting place and I can see definite resemblance in the architecture there to Edinburgh’s Leith who must have traded in that area and liked the style, bringing it back to the capital. Is that person of colour statue a Barbary Coast Corsair by any chance?

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  19. Thanks for this. Haarlem looks beautiful. I particularly like the look of the train station and the statue nearby.

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  21. Wow 😲 that’s a few steps! Some distance covered.
    I recognise most of the buildings you photographed – no windmill though!
    I never noticed all those old shop signs, just like in Amsterdam . Will have to start looking up next time I’m over there. Daughter is now living on a house boat on the Prinsengracht

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  22. This is a beautiful walk and so much to see. I love the surprised, scared look of the pharmacist. All the houses are so unique and intricate. I would love to walk around there and I have to say Hal’s never painted a face so well..hee, hee

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  25. Hi Anabel – so much history … and I’d have loved to have seen those exhibitions … beautiful architecture … so interesting – thanks – Hilary

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  26. It’s on the list of things to do when we head to Amsterdam again this September. Anabel, it looks like you had a fab time!

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  27. I love those Dutch canals and (draw)bridges. Reminds me of the times – long bygone – when I did quite a bit of sailing in tyhe Netherlands. It was always fascinating that they stopped the traffic and opened the bridge for the (pleasure) boats to pass through. And the the bridge warden dropped a wooden shoe dangling from a fishing-line onto your boat, and you put the fee – usually a quarter – in.

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  29. I stayed in Haarlem on the way back home after hitch-hiking around Europe for 10 weeks when I was seventeen. Yup. A long time ago. I don’t recall much as it was October and wet and cold, but it did have a lovely quiet YH after the hectic one in Amsterdam. It looks like a very pleasant town.

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  32. It looks a charming sort of place, Annabel. I usually write from memory but sometimes you need a prompt and it’s frustrating if your notes don’t help. I liked all the interesting buildings anyway 🙂 🙂 And thanks for the link. Looking forward to Utrecht- don’t know it at all.

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  33. Time I also went back, last time was 1961. I don’t remember any of that, either I’d hit the Oude Genever too hard (no ‘brown’ cafes in those days so I can’t blame it on the weed) or I was at that shallow age when old buildings didn’t have much charm. I think it was on that holiday that we took a boat on the canals for about 3 days with some Dutch friends from The Hague. We’d gone there to hear the Dutch Swing College Band and I remember that vividly.

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    • They all sound like good things to do though. We tried both old and young genever on our first trip but tend to steer clear these days. Wine with dinner, then we’re at capacity!

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  35. It’s okay, Anabel. You may have forgotten some details, but you’ve given us the essence of Haarlem, a place I didn’t even know existed. The only Harlem I was aware of is the scary, downtrodden area in New York City. This Haarlem, in contrast, is gorgeous. I’d love to visit any place that has any connection to moveable type. We owe so much to Gutenberg …. and Coster?

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    • I had never heard of Coster before, but so it seems! I think that Harlem was named after this Haarlem, presumably in the days when New York was New Amsterdam, and the spelling eventually anglicised.

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