April ’04, Tuesday. We boarded the train for Haarlem at 10:59am. Alright, I know, the morning hours start a little earlier than 10:59…. First, I either caught my second cold or, because everything is in full bloom around here I’ve got an allergy problem. I just could not get to sleep last night…. my head felt like a stuffed medicine ball. Unfortunately Louise isn’t feeling up to par either so we’ll let all that answer our tardiness. Attached to the Haarlem station is the VVV (visitor information center) so we went in and purchased a map of the 2 walking tours of Haarlem. It seems that Haarlem was in a 2 year siege beginning in 1572 and lost most of their inhabitants. That was when the Flemish came into the picture. By 1621 the Flemish had established themselves at 51% of the inhabitants of Haarlem. The architecture shows us that today. Our walk took us to the Grote Markt. This Markt is were they had among other things, competing knights in tournaments. The town hall dates back to 14th century and was a hunting lodge belonging to the Counts of Holland (Now tell me, why is it that we HAD TO HAVE a new City Hall in Seattle? This one even looks better and it is a couple of years older…. Someday I’ll understand I’m sure). We then walked across the Markt and entered the Great Bavo’s Church. This is a late Gothic cross-shaped basilica with a slim-line wooden crossing tower. This church was built in 1445-1446. If you are in to the arts, Frans Hals the portrait-painter is buried here. Also in this church is a large Muller organ and was played by Mozart during his tour of the Low Countries. Walking further. we came upon one of the museums that we’ve wanted to see. The Teylers Museum with a striking neo-classical façade from 1878. This is the oldest museum in the Netherlands. There is a large display of fossils, coins, an electrostatic generator and a very nice collection of paintings and drawings which included Rafael and Rembrandt. This day was done for both of us so we decided to call it and head back to our pitch. As I mentioned yesterday, it is amazing just how much later it stays light here. When we arrived back it was already just before 7:30pm and the sun was still high in the sky… Well, hope we sleep better tonight. Tomorrow we are off to the tulip fields of Netherlands and the nationally known gardens of Keukenhof.