Back In Haarlem – 2023

Back to our “Home Away” – Haarlem, NL

It was a long journey as always but not too bad and we are happy to be back and feeling right at home. Only about 30 hours door-to-door. We didn’t take any pics of the journey. We are here in our are charming tiny space right near centrum. Everything we need or want in a small package.

A lazy day. Can’t get the bikes til tomorrow due to a horserace having the town roads closed. So we are tethered to the earth. The Grote Markt is all shrouded as they prepare for the big market tomorrow. We are only a block or two from Jopenkerk brewery, an Albert Heijn and the main square so it’s perfect. Plenty of rain here. All is good.

It’s a tiny house carved out of a big three story house with a great deal of engineering and ingenuity. They even fit in a dishwasher and washer/dryer! We have the narrow sliver between the door where Jim is standing and the door to the left (which leads to the 2-story upstairs apartment. So ours is pretty narrow and the kitchen looks like it was once the tiny backyard. They were very creative carving a very livable space out of what was the ground floor of a big house. Our bedroom is an even tinier narrow room on the mezzanine. So far we haven’t fallen down the stairs!

After getting settled in, and two trips to the grocery store, plus the adventure of cooking a nice healthy dinner and then breakfast in a strange kitchen, everything is wonderful.

We walked around town and got refamiliarized with the area. We walked all around the Grote Markt plaza but the center was completely shrouded with all the vendors preparing for tomorrow’s market. We stopped in the stadthuis (town hall) complex. A beautiful astrolabe in the center courtyard. Then back to the plaza near the Jopenkerk for a wonderful early dinner.

Tomorrow the bikes!