Haarlem and Amsterdam

So here's my bit of tourist advice- should you ever find yourselves visiting the Netherlands, stay in Haarlem, and take the train for a day trip to Amsterdam. If you're interested in Rembrandt or Van Gogh.

Unless of course you're interested in the other two things that are the big tourist draws in Amsterdam, (but this is a family friendly blog, so I'm not gonna talk about that here)- then feel free to stay in Amsterdam, the quaint feel of Haarlem probably won't be of much interest to you anyway.

Haarlem is the cutsey touristy kind of place that I like. Small town feel, windmills, shops full of tulips, more of a "family friendly" kind of place. I really liked it.

A little over four years ago, book club was started in my neighborhood and I was really excited to be a part of it. I was pregnant with Christopher, but not due for two months. My mom was staying with us to help me stay pregnant, and we were hoping to keep the little guy in another month, so I had plenty of time to lay around and read.

I was excited to get started reading and ordered "The Hiding Place" from Amazon. I never finished it. Christopher was born sometime during chapter 2.

The book has sat on my shelf for the last 4 years. I've meant to get to it. Really, I have. I heard it's a great book, really uplifting despite the fact that it takes place during the Nazi holocaust.

So since we were visiting Haarlem, where the museum for "the hiding place" is located, I decided it was time to dust off the book and finally finish reading it. It was a really good book, btw.

In a nutshell the author, Corrie Ten Boom lived with her father and sister above their watch shop. During the German occupation in WWII, they were part of a resistance group who helped the Jews escape. They even had a "hiding place" built into the back of Corrie's room to hide any Jews in the event the house was raided and searched. She was caught (but the Jews weren't) and she and her father and sister were sent to a concentration camp. Her father and sister died before being released, but yes, it's still an uplifting story.

You can go see the house and it's hiding place when you visit Haarlem. It was pretty interesting to see first hand.

In Amsterdam we visited the Rijksmuseum (Huge collection of Rembrandt) and the Van Gogh Museum. Both famous artists from Holland.

Another impression was that bikes outnumbered cars AT LEAST 2 to 1. If you told me 10 to 1, I would not be surprised. I mentioned taking the train into town, because parking is also ridiculous and expensive. But if you have a bike, you can just chain it to anything standing still. (and they do.)