12 Best Sights in The Randstad, Netherlands

Named after the celebrated man himself, this not-to-be-missed museum holds a collection of amazingly virile and lively group portraits by the Golden Age painter, depicting the merrymaking civic guards and congregating regents for which he became world famous. The building itself is one of the town's smarter hofjes: an entire block of almshouses grouped around an attractive courtyard. In the 17th century, this was an oudemannenhuis, or home for elderly men, so it is only fitting that their cottages now form a sequence of galleries for the paintings of Hals and other 17th-century masters of the Haarlem School, along with period furniture, antique silver, and ceramics.

Many of the works on display represent Hals at his jovial best—for instance, the Banquet of the Officers of the Civic Guard of St. Adrian (1624–27) or the Banquet of the Officers of the St. George Militia (1616), where the artist cunningly allows for the niceties of rank (captains are more prominent than sergeants, and so on down the line) as well as emotional interaction: he was the first painter to have people gaze and laugh at each other in these grand portraits.

As respite from nearly 250 canvases, step into the museum's courtyard—lovely, and planted with formal-garden baby hedges, of which you get only fleeting glimpses as you work your way through the galleries (most of the blinds are shut against the sunlight to protect the paintings). In one room, with curtains drawn for extra protection, is Sara Rothè's Dolls' House; nearby is an exquisitely crafted miniature version of a merchant's canal house. On leaving, View of Haarlem (1655) by Nicolaes Hals, Frans's son, bids you farewell.

From mid-March to mid-May, during bulb season, the museum is made even more resplendent, with a liberal splash of tulip bouquets and other floral art displays adding extra color to the galleries and hallways.

Built around 1400, this is Haarlem's only remaining city gate; remains of the city wall can be seen at its base. It's slightly to the east of the current center, just to the east of the Spaarne River.

Just off the Grote Markt, and tucked into a small gabled building above a shop, this house honors a family of World War II resistance fighters who successfully hid a number of Jewish families before being captured by the Germans in 1944. Most of the ten Boom family died in the concentration camps, but Corrie survived and returned to Haarlem to tell the story in her book, The Hiding Place. The family clock shop is preserved on the street floor, and their living quarters now contain displays, documents, photographs, and memorabilia. Visitors can also see the hiding closet, which the Gestapo never found, even though they lived six days in the house hoping to starve out anyone who might be concealed here. The upstairs living quarters are not accessible through the shop, but via the side door of No. 19, down a narrow alley beside the shop. Meeting instructions giving the time of the next guided tour are posted on the door; note that the last tour begins 30 minutes before the posted closing times.

A branch of the Frans Hals Museum, De Hallen has an extensive collection of Dutch Impressionists and Expressionists, including sculpture, textiles, and ceramics, as well as paintings and graphics. The complex consists of two buildings—the Vleeshal and the Verweyhal House.

The Vleeshal (Meat Market) building is one of the most interesting cultural legacies of the Dutch Renaissance, with a fine sweep of stepped gables that seems to pierce the scudding clouds. It was built in 1602–03 by Lieven de Key, Haarlem's master builder. The ox heads that look down from the facade are reminders of the building's original function: it was the only place in Haarlem where meat could be sold, and the building was used for that sole purpose until 1840. Today it is used for exhibitions—generally works of modern and contemporary art, usually by local artists. Note the early landscape work by Piet Mondrian, Farms in Duivendrecht, so different from his later De Stijl shapes.

The Verweyhal was built in 1879 as a gentlemen's club, originally named Trou moet Blijcken (Loyalty Must Be Proven), and now bears the name of native Haarlem artist Kees Verwey, who died in 1995. It is used as an exhibition space for selections from the Frans Hals Museum's enormous collection of modern and contemporary art. In addition to the works of Kees Verwey, the exhibition covers such artists as Jacobus van Looy, Jan Sluijters, Leo Gestel, Herman Kruyder, and Karel Appel. Note, too, a fine collection of contemporary ceramics.

Don't miss this series of houses with their identical step gables at the southern end of Groot Heiligland, across the street from the entrance to the Frans Hals Museum. They originally formed part of the St. Elizabeth hospital and were built in 1610.

Late Gothic Sint Bavo's, more commonly called the Great Church, dominates the main market square. It was built in the 14th century, but severe fire damage in 1370 led to a further 150 years of rebuilding and expansion. This is the burial place of Frans Hals: a lamp marks his tombstone behind the brass choir screen. Laurens Coster is buried here, too. It is rumored that he was the first European to use movable type in 1423 (sorry, Gutenberg), which he discovered while carving letters for his children; he was inspired when one of the bark letters fell into the sand and made an imprint. The church is the home of the Müller organ, on which both Handel and Mozart played. Installed in 1738, and for centuries considered the finest in the world, it has been meticulously restored to protect the sound planned by its creator, Christian Müller. Between May and October organists perform free concerts every Tuesday at 8:15 pm, and occasionally on Thursday at 4 pm—Bach fugues have never sounded so magisterial.

Around this great market square the whole of Dutch architecture can be traced in a chain of majestic buildings ranging from the 14th to the 19th century (with a smile and a little bravado, you can enter most of them for a quick look). Yet it is the imposing mass of Sint Bavo's that catches the eye and towers over everything.

Located near the Frans Hals Museum, the town's history museum makes the most of its limited resources to mount two or three small temporary exhibitions a year, offering insight into the history of the city and the surrounding area. Among the permanent exhibits are video screenings (in English), models of the city, and touch-screen computers relating stories that take you back through history. There are fascinating old prints and maps, along with some apparently random exhibits, including one of the earliest printing presses, dating to the 17th century.

This former hunting lodge on the market square belonged to the Count of Holland, who permitted it to be transformed into Haarlem's Town Hall in the 14th century. The large main Gravenzaal (Count's Hall) is worth a visit—if you can sneak in between bouts of confetti throwing; a good number of bridal parties ascend its steps on a regular basis—to study its collection of 16th-century paintings amassed by the Count of Holland. If you wish to tour the premises, call in advance to get permission.

Just north of the Waag (the Weigh House, built entirely of stone in 1598 and now a pleasant little café), Teylers is housed in a grand 18th-century building with mosaic floors. The best sort of small museum, it is based on the whims of an eccentric private collector, in this case the 18th-century merchant Pieter Teyler van der Hulst. It's the country's oldest museum, founded in 1784, and has a mixture of exhibits: fossils and minerals sit alongside antique scientific instruments, such as a battery of 25 Leiden jars, dating to 1789 and used to store an electric charge. The major artistic attraction is a legendary collection of drawings and prints by Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Raphael, and other Old Masters that once belonged to Queen Christina of Sweden.

Zandvoort is only 9 km (5½ miles) from Haarlem and has the area's biggest and best beach (a favorite of sun-starved Amsterdammers). It can get crowded, but if you wander south for 10 minutes, you can find isolated spots among the dunes; after about 20 minutes, you come to the nude (in places, gay) sunbathing beach.