Amsterdam (Rough Guide) - Martin Dunford [86]
Day-trips from the city | Haarlem | The Town |
The Teylers Museum
It’s a short stroll from the Grote Markt to the River Spaarne, whose wandering curves mark the eastern periphery of the town centre, home to the surly stone facade of the Waag (Weigh House) and the country’s oldest museum, the Teylers Museum, located in a grand Neoclassical building at Spaarne 16 (Tues–Sat 10am–5pm, Sun noon–5pm; €7; www.teylersmuseum.nl). Founded in 1774 by a wealthy local philanthropist, one Pieter Teyler van der Hulst, the museum is delightfully old-fashioned, its wooden cabinets crammed with fossils and bones, crystals and rocks, medals and coins, all displayed alongside dozens of antique scientific instruments of lugubrious appearance and uncertain purpose. The finest room is the rotunda – De Ovale Zaal – a handsome, galleried affair with splendid wooden panelling, and there is also a room of nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century Dutch paintings, featuring the likes of Breitner, Israëls, Weissenbruch and Wijbrand Hendriks (1774–1831), who was once the keeper of the art collection here.
Day-trips from the city | Haarlem |
Eating and drinking
For a fairly small town, Haarlem has a surprisingly good range of bars, cafés and restaurants, all within easy walking distance of each other.
Applause Grote Markt 23a 023/531 1425. A chic little bistro serving Italian food with excellent main courses hovering at around €15. Wed–Sun noon–3pm & 5.30–9.30pm.
Fortuyn Grand Café Grote Markt 21. A popular café-bar with charming 1930s decor, including a tiled entrance and quaint glass cabinets preserved from its days as a shop. Decent food, otherwise a nice place for a coffee or hot chocolate.
In Den Uiver Riviervismarkt 13. Just off the Grote Markt, this lively and extremely appealing brown café is decked out in traditional Dutch café style; it has occasional live music too.
Jacobus Pieck Warmeosstraat 18 023/532 6144. Welcoming café-restaurant that’s a good bet for either lunch or dinner, with sandwiches, burgers and salads for €5–8 at lunchtime and a more substantial menu served in the evening. Mon 11am–4pm, Tues–Sat 11am–4.15pm & 5.30–10pm.
Lambermons Korte Veerstraat 51 023/542 7804. Large and comfortable restaurant and brasserie serving both classic Dutch and French food – everything from bouillabaisse to pot au feu, to oysters and seafood – or just cheese and charcuterie plates if you prefer. Brasserie Tues–Sat noon–10pm, restaurant 6–10pm.
Proeflokaal Blauwe Druif Lange Veerstraat 7. Just off the main square, this is an intimate, typically Dutch bar.
Specktakel Spekstraat 4 023/532 3841. Inventive little restaurant that tries its hand at an international menu – everything from kangaroo through to antelope. For the most part, the main courses are very successful and cost around €17. Daily from 5pm, Sat also noon–4pm.
De Vlaminck Warmoesstraat 3. Decent and very central friterie and snack bar if you fancy a lunch on the go. Tues 11.30am–6pm, Sat 11.30am–5pm, Sun noon–5pm.
Day-trips from the city |
The Dutch bulbfields
The pancake-flat fields extending south from Haarlem towards Leiden are the heart of the Dutch bulbfields, whose bulbs and blooms support a billion-euro industry and some ten thousand growers, as well as attracting tourists in their droves. Bulbs have flourished here since the late sixteenth century, when a certain Carolus Clusius, a Dutch botanist and one-time gardener to the Habsburg emperor, brought the first tulip bulb over from Vienna, where it had – in its turn – been brought from modern-day Turkey by an Austrian aristocrat. The tulip flourished