Quick Trip to Haarlem

The first dry weekend day since November! So, off to Haarlem.

All Together Now: "Yes, he lives on a beautiful street." This is a few houses north of my apartment, on the way to the Naarden-Bussum train station.
 

The station itself, from the south side, the Amersfoort stoptrein pulling out. At the top are the two town emblems...
 

...Naarden's on the left, Bussum's on the right.
 

And once you're in a Netherlands train station, this is how you make sure you're in the right place. This signage is fantastically full of information. Departing from this track (2) at 12:03 is the sneltrein (fast train), main destination Alkmaar, stops at Weesp (with connection to Schiphol airport), Amsterdam, etc. The main and occasionally-consulted information (track number and time) in boldface on the two sides, framing more detailed data in the middle. Very easy to read. Right by the book--well done. This (Utrecht-Lelystad) train line is actually a new one this month, the first in the Netherlands in years. Now that it's finished, I hope we have fewer construction delays. We'll see.
 

More about trains in a few days but now, let's get to Haarlem--on the other side, "upwind" of Amsterdam.

The center of Haarlem is very compressed and tight, even for the Netherlands. There are streets whose width I could almost span with my arms. When I first got there, I thought it was just me...after all I had several strikes against me. (1) I had sat through the movie Black Rain. It's amazing how similar crowded Japan and crowded Netherlands can seem sometimes. Still, I came to Haarlem already primed for claustrophobia.(2) Then at 3 o'clock in the morning, some extremely intoxicated Dutch fellows downstairs decided to howl with Jacques Brel at full volume on their stereo. After an hour I banged on their door and yelled at them in extremely colorful French, and they just stood there. They didn't understand a word M. Brel sang, they just wanted to howl with him. I got my point across anyway and then slept, a little. (3) Hey, it isn't just me--Haarlem is claustrophobigenic, essentially Medieval. If things Medieval don't stifle you, you probably need professional help.

Haarlem is also a very old town, even for the Netherlands. I very highly recommend the Frans Hals museum in Haarlem, the basement of which has a small but incredibly helpful exhibit on life in early Haarlem. Long ago the town had walls and gates, serious ones that could and did withstand sieges. Most citizens never left its walls, not their whole lives, knew no more about the world 100 meters beyond its walls than you know about Mars. The town was less than a kilometer across and probably stank horribly. When the large bell sounded for public events, often executions, all citizens would come to the Grote Markt and pay attention to the balcony at city hall. They all just dropped their work and walked over. No one stayed behind, there was no reason to stay behind--it's not like Amsterdam was going to call on the phone. And no one stayed behind to steal, either, lest he end up next "on the balcony."

After Haarlem surrended to a siege in 1576, the Spanish slaughtered thousands of its citizens. For the next one or two centuries, Haarlem painters over and over painted the Biblical scene "Slaughter of the Innocents".

The environment was problematic for early Haarlem. The water was too stagnant to make beer--a real emergency by any measure, in the Netherlands. They barged fresh water from springs in the dunes, toward the North Sea. Linen refining was so noxious that it was banned from the town, to the dunes. Preferably downwind.

The craftsmanship of early Haarlem--especially painting and silverwork--are beyond belief.

A detail on the Grote Markt, Haarlem's wonderful central plaza.
 

Three guesses what Haarlemmers do on a sunny winter's Sunday afternoon. Again, on the Grote Markt.
 

Lovely as Haarlem's points of interest (statuesque and live, both) are, it still gets dark too early for my taste, so it was back to the station and a long ride home, through Amsterdam, then the pleasant walk in near-dark back to my apartment.
 

A nice, dry afternoon in Netherlands winter--tantamount to a miracle.