Haarlem

Haarlem is what many visitors imagine when they picture a Dutch town, and it sits close enough to Amsterdam to make an easy day out yet feels a world calmer. Its huge market square is dominated by the Grote Kerk, a late-Gothic church whose Müller organ, one of the most celebrated in Europe, was played by a ten-year-old Mozart and still gives recitals. Around it run streets of stepped gables and canals, along with the hofjes, tiny almshouse courtyards tucked behind unremarkable doors where quiet gardens open up between low cottages. The Frans Hals Museum holds the great civic group portraits by the painter who lived here, and the Teylers Museum, the oldest in the country, survives as a wonderful eighteenth-century cabinet of fossils, instruments and drawings lit only by daylight. Haarlem is also the gateway to the bulb fields and the dunes.

What you actually see

• The Grote Kerk and Müller organ - the great church on the square and its famous instrument.
• The hofjes - the hidden almshouse courtyards behind the streets.
• The Frans Hals Museum - the painter's civic group portraits in his own town.
• Teylers Museum - the oldest museum in the country, still lit by daylight.

When to go

April to September is warmest, and the spring bulb fields nearby are at their peak in April; the town is pleasant year-round and quiet in winter. Saturday is the big market day on the square. Organ recitals run on a published schedule, worth checking if you want to hear the Müller.

Honest expectations

The hofjes are private homes whose courtyards are opened as a courtesy, so visitors should enter quietly, in small numbers and only during posted hours. Haarlem is small and easily seen in a day, and being so close to Amsterdam it fills with day-trippers on fine weekends. Teylers is idiosyncratic and unlit by design, so on a dark winter afternoon some cases are genuinely hard to see.

Nearby

The bulb fields and Keukenhof are a short ride inland; the dunes and the beach at Zandvoort are minutes west.