Doin’ the Haarlem Shuffle

For our final day in the Netherlands we decided to do a short trip to Haarlem. We slept in until about 8:00 a.m., which is late for us. After a little breakfast downstairs, we loaded up the daypack and headed to the train station.

Haarlem is about 20 minutes from Amsterdam on the train, and we got there around 10 o’clock when things were just getting going on a sleepy Sunday morning. Booksellers were setting up all over the market square for a big book fair. Vicki found one book she liked—Aunt Louisa’s Illustrated Book of Bible Stories. It was given as a gift in 1887 and had beautiful color wood block print illustrations. We decided that we wanted to think it over before spending € 50. But when we got back after lunch it had already sold.

Vicki:  I would have gotten the book first thing, but we have so many books.  Just so many books.  I really didn’t want to carry it back.  Since it was gone when we dropped back by, I figured it was okay.
Vicki:  We also walked by Corrie ten Boom’s house which is just around the corner from the main square in the oldest part of town.  We took some pictures.  There is a jewelry story in the 1st floor front where the watch shop used to be.  In case you might wondering who Corrie ten Boom is, I highly recommend reading The Hiding Place.  The rest of the house is a museum.  However, it isn’t open on Sundays.  The jewelry store wasn’t open either in spite of the fact that all the other stores around it were.  I wonder if it’s still in the family.

Anyhow we walked around the old town and took a canal boat ride and saw a lot of the old city. After a lunch beside the Spaare River we strolled around for a while longer before getting the train back to Amsterdam.

You've probably heard that that bikes are common in the Netherlands. Lots of people commute by bicycle, and it's common to see people out doing their shopping on bikes. I've included a couple of photos below to show something of the bicycle prominence here. One is bikes parked on the sidewalk outside the train station. The other is a 2,500 space bike parking garage beside the train station. It's full and plans are underway to expand to 21,500 spaces around Centraal Station by 2030.

After recovering in our room for a little while we went out for a final walk and a light supper. We went to La Place, a sort of cafeteria associated with V&D, a big Netherlands department store. After some pasta we took a walk down the Kalverstraat—a pedestrian shopping street. In the 500 meters (550 yards) between a street called Rokin and Dam Square we saw no less than 4 H&M stores.

We’re now back at our hotel (step count 13,548) with bags packed (or more accurately stuffed) for the trip home with our clothes for tomorrow hanging up ready to put on in the morning. The plan is to get up around six and get to the train station in time to catch a train between 7:00 and 7:30 to get us to Schiphol in plenty of time for our 10:45 departure for Philadelphia. If all goes well, we should get to Nashville around 4:30 tomorrow (Monday).

It’s been a great trip. We saw most of what we wanted to see and despite full days we’re not worn out or overly tired (don’t know if that will be true tomorrow afternoon).