Haarlem, Netherlands 2 of 7

 Is built upon sandhills with a national park on one side and reclaimed lowland on the other. The Spaame River which flows through this small city-town has a network of canals and dykes that are used for transporting people and goods around the city and for leisure activities. Like most of the Netherlands Haarlem is a very flat city with no hills so most people ride bikes or walk around its narrow cobbled-stone streets. Being summer many of the homes and buildings had hanging baskets of flowers and even mini gardens of colourful flocks, petunias and violets. I had hoped to see tulips but maybe we'll see these later in the day.

We found it relaxing, interesting and easy to walk around. We loved looking at the old buildings and walking along the narrow cobbled streets filled with all kinds of shops with fresh produce or small cafes and all kinds of merchandise. We stopped at a fresh food market and bought some bread rolls with ham and cheese fillings and some fresh oranges which we planned to eat later in the day after we'd explored more of the old Town area. 

We came to an ancient square in the middle of the Old Town of Haarlem. All the buildings around the square were amazing and were hundreds of years old. Australia's history is so young in comparison! Look at the red brick building behind me in the photograph of the square. It is a typical  Dutch design with its stepped facade and spinneret decorations. Usually the square is filled with market stalls through the week but we were too early in the morning to see them. We could only imagine what a busy market place it would usually be so we continued on through the cobbled streets until we came to a building on a corner of a maze of narrow laneways. I recognised it as a building I'd seen before and it turned out to be the shop that was once the home of the ten Boom family. It is now known as the Corrie ten Boom Museum.  We were booked to visit this museum later in the morning (It's a good idea to book on line ahead for this free tour as only 15 people per I hour tour can attend and we saw people lining up hoping to be let in if the numbers were less than 15) The reason I recognised was that I had seen a picture of it on YouTube and from pictures in the book, "The a hiding Place" when I read about Corrie's  life story several years ago. We found Haarlem so relaxing to wander around because it is so flat with miriads so of canals with passing barges, tour boats and other watercraft. There were many cute bridges to cross the canal networks ans because there are less cars the town is peaceful and quiet. I came across a bike and had to have a mini ride just like a local.