Haarlem, The Netherlands

Though only fifteen minutes from Amsterdam by train, HAARLEM has a very different pace and feel from its big-city neighbour, being an easy-going, medium-sized town of around 150,000 souls, and with an old and good-looking centre that is easily absorbed in a few hours or on an overnight stay. Founded on the banks of the River Spaarne in the tenth century, Haarlem went on to enjoy its greatest prosperity in the seventeenth century, becoming a centre for the arts and home to a flourishing school of painters, whose canvasses are displayed at the outstanding Frans Hals Museum.

At the heart of Haarlem is the Grote Markt, a wide and attractive open space flanked by an appealing ensemble of Gothic and Renaissance architecture, including an intriguing if exceptionally garbled Stadhuis, whose turrets and towers, balconies and galleries were put together in piecemeal fashion between the fourteenth and the seventeenth centuries. At the other end of the Grote Markt stands a statue of a certain Laurens Coster (1370–1440), who, Haarlemmers insist, is the true inventor of printing.