We decided to stay in Haarlem as a base and are so happy about our choice. Haarlem is a beautiful, quiet town with lots of beautiful canals and Amsterdam is only a 15-20min train ride from here. It was so lovely and quiet we decided to brave it on bicycles to explore the town- Happy!! It is easy, flat, no effort and safe to cycle here. There are dedicated cycle roads as in all of the Netherlands and bicycles has same status as cars. That also meant we had to cycle in the direction of traffic on the right hand side of the road. Luckily we have been walking and driving in Europe for a while now and were used to it. Because of the holiday season there were not a lot of bicycles on the road when we went out early, so we didn’t cause any near-accidents. The cyclists here are going very fast, it is scary! We loved our cycling trip through town and got to see so much more than what we would have been able to do on foot.
We didn’t get to go to any of the touristy Windmill towns, because of time, but this windmill in Haarlem is just beautiful, it’s name is Adriaan. Amelia also loved the ballet shoot here.
Lovely photos! And if we still lived in The Hague, you could’ve come over for a coffee and ‘gebakjes’.
It is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful over there. I would love to see this for myself one day . The Dutchie bicycle you are riding on is very similar to mine. I bought it second hand here in Australia and it still has the Dutch bicycle shop that it was serviced at’s sticker on the mud guard . I google earthed the shop and “ rode” the streets she once frequented , that way. Def on my bucket list too…