A short ride from Amsterdam, this laid-back city has great museums, cosy bars and a new exhibition featuring the works of Rembrandt and local artist Frans Hals this winter
It’s only 15 minutes away from the Dutch capital by train, but Haarlem feels a million miles from Amsterdam, and perhaps provides a more typical glimpse of the Netherlands than trailing around the well-worn tourist trail of Van Gogh, coffee shops and red lights. An attractive city of cobbled streets, gabled houses and canals, Haarlem is, as the Dutch would say, a gezellig sort of place – cosy, convivial, and full of intriguing nooks and corners. I’ve been coming here for years, and it seems odd that Haarlem is not better known, at least to UK visitors.
This winter there’s the added draw of an exhibition devoted to the works of a local boy, the 17th-century painter Frans Hals, and his better-known contemporary Rembrandt in the city’s Frans Hals Museum (until 28 February 2027). No one really knows whether these two titans of the Dutch Golden Age of the 16th and 17th centuries ever met, but seeing their work hung together like this is powerful and compelling. The museum used to be the Oudemannenhuis (Old Men’s House), a retirement and care home where Hals lived out his final penniless years.