Haarlem

Dear Friends,

Yesterday, we decided to spend the day in Haarlem, the little town near Amsterdam where we are staying. We had done about as much as we wanted to in Amsterdam (we'll try to say more about day 2 in Amsterdam later).

I was a bit skeptical about spending the entire day in our sleepy little town, but we ended up having a really lovely and educational day.

We should also say that blog comment from Sander was spot on: the bicyclists in Haarlem were much more pedestrian-friendly than those in Amsterdam (though it may also have helped that, by our third day here, we are beginning to develop a kind of "bicycle sense" that enables us better to anticipate where the bikes are going).

We began the day with a few lessons. The kids hadn't done much school work since we arrived in the Netherlands. Doing lessons in the morning was a good thing, since things don't open up around here until 10:00, at the earliest.

Our first stop on our Haarlem tour was the central church. it's a Dutch Reformer church, which meant that it took a beating during the Reformation, with the Protestants stripping it down. It was still beautiful, though. Some lovely windows. The floor is made up entirely of tombstones. The best part is the organ — remarkable, huge organ pipes that dominate one end of the church. Both Mozart and Handel played the organ at this church. The organ is pictured, here:

John, it turns out, has at least one strongly Catholic inclination — despite his Protestant mother's best efforts: he insists on lighting a candle in every cathedral we visit. We've allowed him to do this (and yes, we come up with the Euro or whatever offering is required) but on the condition that he say a prayer. As you can see, he is very serious about it:

After the church, we wandered down to the local canal and enjoyed a picnic lunch. After lunch, we went to the Frans Hals Museum, which is housed in a building that was used both as an old men's home and as an orphanage. We liked this museum a lot. They had a good kids activity that could be used by children who don't read or speak Dutch: there were a series of fifteen pictures of faces on a sheet of paper, and the kids had to identify the rooms in which the paintings were hung — which inspired them to look closely at all the paintings with human figures in them. (On the other hand, they breezed past the still lifes and landscapes — oh, well). The museum overall presented a nice display (with a lot of English signs) of a great period of artistic awakening in Haarlem.

Our art senses on overload, we headed next to the local windmill museum. Here's a picture of the mill — a traditional-looking Dutch windmill, though it was actually reconstructed only a few years ago.

We were not sure what to expect. We found that the entry fee bought us some quality time with a tour guide (and a couple of tourists from Texas), who explained the windmill in great detail. Since Margaret's class back at home is studying energy in science, this was a great stop. We learned more than we ever thought we could know about windmills. The tour guide was a completely charming man, who had a good command of English and also allowed the children to participate in demonstrations of how the windmill works. They even got to use the winch the miller would have used for hoisting grain up to the mill to lift their father a few feet off the floor — a highlight for both kids.

Random fact: traditional Dutch windmills all spin counter-clockwise; modern wind turbines spin clockwise.

With all of this new knowledge, we stumbled back to the center of town and found a nice cafe with an outdoor table in the sun. The kids worked on journals, as they sipped hot chocolate. And, Joe and I enjoyed sampling some local Dutch beer, though we did not catch its name.

Here's a shot of the market in Haarlem and another of the Cathedral:

We then went back to the room to rest a little and change our clothes. And, then, off to dinner — out and in a restaurant! We took Rick Steves' advice and ate at a place just around the corner from where we are staying — the Jacobus Pieck Eetlokal. Our waitress was a little rusty on her English (but it was still much better than our Dutch!), but was patient and helpful with us. She suggested a kids plate with some beef, frites and salad. Joseph ordered some Dutch stew and I ordered the white fish on raviolis. Everything was delicious.

Now, we're packing for our train trip to Bacharach — let's hope we have better luck with the trains today!

cheers,
Joe