Wow! what a lovely city.
Checking out Haarlem was one of those ‘what do we want to do tomorrow?’ conversations and turned out to be a great discovery. This is one of the huge benefits we’re finding of being in the same place for an extended period. We can move at our own pace and driven by our own motivation. So far that’s working really well.
We’re also loving the ease that comes with living in a cycling paradigm: why would you bother with one way streets, no parking etc etc when you can simply jump on your bike; ride flat, separated cycle paths to wherever you need to go; jump off, lock the back wheel and go and do your stuff.
So, from our home in Hoorn, we ride to the station. Takes about 5-8 minutes. Chain both bikes together alongside around at least 500-1000 other bikes outside the station.
Check in with our chip cards. Get the Sprinter to Haarlem via Alkmaar, the historic battle site of Castricum and on South to Haarlem. The Sprinter tends to be an all stations train: but it runs really quickly between stations 🙂
Seems that there’s a fire in a tunnel ahead. The conductor lady comes to find us as we spoke to her on the platform and she knows we’re foreign. She tells us that the train has to terminate because of the fire and that we can instead go to Sloterdijk and then change etc. She said: “I will make the announcement in Dutch but knew that you wouldn’t understand.’ How lovely is that?
Enjoy some pictures of wonderful Haarlem.