Dave Hippler

Sometimes you get a good feel for a place immediately. And we immediately loved Haarlem. It's much smaller than the Hague. The center of the city is surrounded by canals. We arrived on a sunny Saturday which is Market Day- lucky for us.

We had some problems with our apartment through booking.com. Our original apartment was overbooked according to the owner and he wanted to move us to a new place. I was pretty suspicious and worried if it was a scam. It wasn't. And like he said, the new apartment was much better.

The building was built in 1450! That's a new record for oldest building I've spent the night in. The owner lovingly remodeled it in 2010. It's an awkward setup with stairs from the bedroom up to the kitchen and bathroom and with his son living on the third floor and walking through a shared stairwell that divides the apartment. But that's a minor tradeoff for the beautiful apartment and amazing location in the heart of the city.

When we arrived, all the cafes and restaurants in front of the building were full of people basking in the sun and enjoying the view facing the Spaarne River. It's a view that we get for three full days.

The Grote Markt (big market) was in full swing when we arrived. It reminded me of Madison's Saturday farmers market. We opted for kibbeling for lunch which is small pieces of cod, battered and fried. You can take the boy out of Wisconsin......

Most Dutch cities have a central plaza with the Oude Kirke (old church) in the center with the Grote Markt next to it. Haarlem's is especially beautiful. There's not much modern development in the old town and the old buildings are lovingly cared for. There are some art nouveau treasures hidden in the streets also.

Only in the Netherlands can you get a drink at a bar, watch a movie, or get a University education in a former prison. The dome-shaped Koepelgevangenis was built in 1899 and served as a prison until the '70s. About 10 years ago, a non-profit bought it and has made it into public working space and all the things I mentioned above. Each prison cell had a window and a fair amount of room. I've paid more for rooms that were smaller than a prison cell here.

The Netherlands is known for tulips and cheese. Well we've already toured Gouda, so that means we had to find some tulips. It's the end of the season but we did go out to a place called the Tulip Barn 20 minutes south of town on a train to see what's left. They were charging $9.50 to enter an area to see see a tulip garden but you can see it from outside the fence. It just so happened that a bottle of wine at their cafe cost the same as two tickets to enter. Which option do you think we chose? Haha.

Lodging in Amsterdam is really expensive so we only booked two nights there. Less than 20 years ago I paid $25 for a dorm room there. Today you pay about $100 to stay in an 8 bed dorm or $250 minimum for a small hotel room.

Haarlem is close enough that we decided to go for a half-day trip to Amsterdam before we check in there in a couple days. It took only 1 5 minutes on the train to get there. Haarlem is just small enough that we've seen most of it already between all the walking we've done and a 1-hour canal boat tour we just took. What a contrast! Amsterdam is crazy busy at all times of the year now.

May 5th is Bevrijdingsdag, or Liberation Day in the Netherlands. It celebrates the end of Nazi occupation from that day in 1945. It's a huge party with festivals all over the country. We had no idea. We're fortunate that the festival grounds here are only a 15 minute walk. May 5th is also the 20th anniversary of our first date. Even I can remember 05/05/05!

Unfortunately the festival here was over crowded. Last year they claimed 130,000 attended. The fenced-in park could only hold less than half of that. There were long lines to get in, lines for tickets, lines for drinks, food, etc. and you couldn't see a stage, so we left early. Our 575 year old apartment on a canal is more our style.

More photos and videos are here.

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