Haarlem

Monday 18th April
It was another lovely day, but unfortunately I was feeling very tired and was struggling a bit with a migraine that had started the previous day.

We went out mid-morning into the town centre, found a carpark in a parking building and went for a walk down the streets to the ten Boom museum. Deep shadows still filled some of the narrow streets due to the tall buildings blocking out the morning sunshine.
Unfortunately we found out that the museum is closed on Mondays, so we decided to try again the next day as we had the whole morning available.
So we went on a wander around the shopping area – lots of shops stocking clothing and shoes, and a range of others too of course. There were so many bicycles either being ridden or parked in the streets, often in one of the many bicycle parks
There was a very bustling market full of all kinds of interesting things and I enjoyed hearing Kay enquiring about prices at a stall, and the gutteral reply. The Town Hall is one of the imposing buildings surrounding the market place. We went for a coffee inside one of them before continuing our walk.



Guess what we saw on one street corner! (LH pic.) Inside an arched passage off another street we spied the fresh green of a spring garden - we found a plaque on the wall which said that it was the site of a former convent. Further on we saw a most unusual-looking building at the end of a long, narrow alleyway.
The many canals intersecting the city are very beautiful with a variety of boats and bridges. On the way back to the car park we came across a tiny car parked on the pavement!

After lunch, we went out for a good walk, passing by an old fortification and German gun positions from the Second World War before reaching the Spoorbaam river. Many people were out walking dogs, some several together – in fact, for some people it is their occupation, walking dogs for people who live in apartment buildings but work all day. There was a lot of traffic on the river, and one barge looked particularly low in the water, it appeared to be full of concrete! One could almost imagine you were out in the countryside walking beside the river as the houses drop back some way. Many people come here to escape their urban surroundings and to enjoy a bit of peace and quiet.
We followed a canal back into Haarlem and enjoyed looking at the lock gates and interesting housing round and about. Soon we were back to the statue of the boy with his finger in the dyke. You can see just how unrealistic this is when you have seen the real dykes.



Some of the streets had some really interesting houses and some were at a much higher level than the canals.

Further on we walked beside a very dank smelling canal that had houses with quite substantial gardens on the opposite side to us. The path on our side of the canal bordered quite a larger marshy strip of land that has been allowed to remain as part of the green belt. There were quite a few wetland birds around.
After dinner we watched a couple of videos before going to bed rather later than usual. It had been a wonderful day.