Sometimes my desire to say something of substance in these blog posts gets in the way of my saying anything at all . . . or at least putting up some photos. Since our time is growing short here (sob) I'm going to catch up with some bits and pieces of travelogue over the next few days.We spent a day in Haarlem last week, mainly to visit the Frans Hals museum, but also to wander its pretty streets -- which were as charming as we remembered them to be, even in the rain.
In the midst of World Cup fever, there was a youth soccer tournament going on in the city's Grote Markt - right on the cobblestones.
Haarlem is like an older, gentler, less touristy (and less diverse) version of Amsterdam. We had fun exploring its twisty, tiny streets and speculating about the history of its buildings, many of which still sport the sculptural key to their original use -- before street addresses, buildings would simply have a depiction of the owner's profession over the door. Hence the slaughterhouse:
. . . . . the hospital (I don't know if you can see the stretcher -- I think we had our camera on the wrong setting that day)
(by the way, you can see that Zander is rocking a scarf in the European fashion. Will he bring this style home to Bexley? Only time will tell.)
And a pork sausage house? "Crowned East and West Indies Sausage Barrel."
What this last building was, I'm still wondering.
By the way, Haarlem is really beautiful and atmospheric, with the added bonuse of some of the greatest shopping around. And the Hals Museum was terrific. But my favorite of the Hals paintings I have seen -- and I love him more than Rembrandt -- is here in Amsterdam, at the Rijksmuseum: "Married Couple in a Garden." Don't they look happy to be married?
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