Haarlem Day Trip

Haarlem is the day trip we recommend most to visitors who want to see another Dutch city without spending half the day travelling. Trains from Amsterdam Centraal run many times an hour and take around twenty minutes, arriving at a lovely Art Nouveau station on the line that, in 1839, became the first railway in the Netherlands. From there the historic centre is a short walk. Its heart is the Grote Markt, one of the finest squares in the country, ringed by cafés and the old town hall and dominated by the Grote Kerk, or St. Bavo's Church, a huge late-Gothic church whose great Müller organ was played by a ten-year-old Mozart. Haarlem was a major art centre in the Golden Age, and the Frans Hals Museum, in an old almshouse for elderly men, holds the joyful group portraits by the master who painted laughter better than anyone. The Teylers Museum on the river Spaarne, opened in 1784, is the oldest museum in the Netherlands, an extraordinary cabinet of fossils, instruments, coins and drawings in an Oval Room that seems untouched since the Enlightenment. Beyond the sights, the pleasure of Haarlem is wandering: the hofjes, quiet courtyards of almshouses hidden behind ordinary doors; the independent shops of streets such as the Kleine Houtstraat, voted among the best shopping streets in the country; the Saturday market on the Grote Markt; and the windmill De Adriaan on the Spaarne. The Corrie ten Boom House, where a family hid Jews during the Second World War, offers moving guided visits. Haarlem is also the gateway to the dunes and the beach at Zandvoort, and in spring to the bulb fields.

Why Haarlem rather than another town: it has the canals, gabled houses and Golden Age art of Amsterdam on a human scale, with a fraction of the crowds and a strong local café and restaurant scene. Many visitors who stay a night say they wish they had based themselves here. Most of the big sights can be seen in a day, and the town is compact enough that you never need transport once you arrive. Unlike the windmill villages, it is a real working city of around one hundred and sixty thousand people, so it feels lived-in rather than staged. It is also a good choice for a rainy day, with three excellent museums within a few minutes' walk of each other.

A good day: take a mid-morning train, walk down the Kruisstraat and the Barteljorisstraat to the Grote Markt, and see St. Bavo's Church first, checking whether an organ concert is scheduled during your visit. Choose one museum, the Frans Hals Museum for Golden Age painting or the Teylers for something stranger and more unusual, then lunch on or near the square. In the afternoon, look for the hofjes, many of which welcome quiet visitors at set times, cross the Spaarne to De Adriaan windmill, and browse the shops of the Negen Straatjes area. On a sunny day, a bus or train to Zandvoort turns the trip into a beach afternoon, and cyclists can follow routes through the dunes of the national park Zuid-Kennemerland.

Practical notes: the Amsterdam and Region Travel Ticket covers the train, which is handy if you also plan to visit other towns in the area. The church, the museums and the Corrie ten Boom House each have their own admission or booking arrangements; check them before you go, as guided visits to the ten Boom House need to be reserved. Walking the town is free. Haarlem's restaurants fill up on weekend evenings, so book if you plan to stay for dinner. In spring, from roughly late March to May, Haarlem is also a convenient base for the bulb region and the Keukenhof gardens, which are not open the rest of the year.