Haarlem

On Wednesday we had a day off from Amsterdam and took a short train ride to Haarlem.  It was a wonderful day and I wish we had time to visit more of the small cities and towns outside of Amsterdam.

We enjoyed a delicious lunch at a café in the market square  before we began our sightseeing.  We first visited Haarlem’s cathedral, the Grote Kerk.  It was gorgeous – very different from the cathedrals we had seen because it had been taken over by the Protestants.  They whitewashed the walls, and stripped the church of much of its decoration, so unlike other cathedrals it was light enough to take some great pictures.  We spent a long time there, because there were so many great photo opps.

We next visited the Franz Hals museum.  Franz Hals is an artist from Haarlem whose work we really enjoyed at the Riksmuseum.  Although much of this museum was closed for renovation (our fate this trip, I guess) the portion that remained open was great.  We really enjoyed our visit, and definitely developed an appreciation of the Dutch masters.

After leaving the museum we enjoyed strolling through the city, which was peaceful and very pretty.  We somewhat reluctantly headed back to Amsterdam for the last day of our wonderful adventure.

Grote Kerk

We had lunch here

The Grote Kerk organ

Grote Kerk ceiling

Grote Kerk ceiling

True works of art in a bakery window