Haarlem: Charming or overrated?
 

I will be going to the Netherlands in July. I had planned to fly into Amsterdam airport and spend the first 3 nights in Haarlem, to see it and go into Amsterdam one day. (After visiting Brugge and Delft I will be staying in Amsterdam later in the trip for 5 nights prior to a river cruise).

Now I have been reading some conflicting comments about Haarlem. According to the guide books, it is charming and I thought this would be a good place to ease into the trip. But I have read some negative comments about it recently concerning noise and graffiti. One poster on another website compared it negatively to Maastricht.

Has anyone been there recently(say, in the last year or so) who can give a current description of Haarlem?

any complaint about Haarlem IME should be taken ten-fold to be expected in Amsterdam.

I have stayed several times in Haarlem and have loved it - but it is church-mouse quiet at night compared to Amsterdam. But for a base it is great - great rail links to Leiden for mainline trains south, etc. And direct bus service from Schiphol Airport arrivals halls to many points in Haarlem.

I have not read the critical posts you have and i've read a whole lot of posts that really like Haarlem. Haarlem has canals, a windmill, a huge main square often with farmers market on it, a lively pedestrian shopping zone and even a redlight district and cannabis-selling coffee shops if those are in your bag (Indeed Haarlem has been dubbed Cannabis City by some cannabis aficianodos>)

I visited Haarlem on a day trip from Amst. this summer .
It is charming enough, but several hours there was enough for me.

but several hours there was enough for me>

yup it is not Amsterdam and anyone wanting to visit Amsterdam i think should base in Amsterdam and not Haarlem

3 days is too much in Haarlem against only one day in Amsterdam. Use Haarlem as a base if you must but you need more than a day in Amsterdam!

Visit Haarlem for the day from Amsterdam.

Haaarlem is not over rated, its a nice small city with interswting sigts to see, but for charming go to Delft and Leiden.

If you are staying in Amsterdam for five nights later in your trip, and you are concerned about noise and graffitti in Haarlem, then surely you

(a) don't want to add more nights to Amsterdam

and

(b) want someplace that is very tame.

I can't answer the accusations that Haarlem is blighted by noise and graffitti, but if it is, than perhaps Leiden or another Dutch or Belgian small touristic town is what you are looking for. Since you are already booked into Delft and Brugge, you may need to cast your net wider if you are nervous about Haarlem. (I will add that I doubt you will need to "ease the trip" after Brugge and Delft. If anything, you might be craving the variety of Antwerp or even the more modest variety of Den Haag.)

Been to Haarlem many many times - don't remember any out of normal graffiti - every Dutch city has graffiti IME and about every city in Europe - Italian and British cities seem much worse than Holland.

I echo the comments that it is a nice base, with a number of things to do before or after you go to A'dam for the day (for example).
It's been a long time, but we found that weekend nights around the Haarlem square can be very noisy very late if you have a room over looking it or streets that feed into it.

Thanks for the responses so far. Perhaps I should clarify my inquiry a bit. I am not debating whether to add more time to Amsterdam. I am debating whether to skip Haarlem altogether in favor perhaps of Maastricht at the beginning of the trip, then go to Brugge and Delft and end up in Amsterdam at the end for 5 nights.

For me, alot of graffiti really impacts the "charm" of a city. It certainly did this year in Heidelberg and Vienna. So I am asking what is the current state of affairs in Haarlem? All of travel involves choices. At this stage I am not locked into Haarlem so I am trying to compare it to other options. Thanks for any opinions on this.

Three days in Haarlem with a trip to Amsterdam is about right. Haarlem sites to see include the Grote Kerk, Frans Hals museum, Adriaan Windmill, Tylers Museum, Cruquius, Corrie ten Boomhuis‎, Haarlem historical museum, and the Vishal museum. Haarlem even has weed houses and a RLD, and a nice counter-weighted lift bridge on the Spaarne River. If it is a hot day take the train over to Zandvoort for a splash in the North Sea.

The noise is at the Grote Markt due to the lively night life in cafes around the Grote Kerk, plus kids driving their brommers through the square. Avoid front facing rooms at the Carillon and Amadeus hotels. The Carlton Square hotel is in a very quiet area and only a 10 minute walk to the city center. There are a number of other centrally located hotels.

From Schiphol Airport take the Zuid Tangent bus #300 direct to Haarlem Station. You need 7 or 8 strips of a Strippenkaart which you can buy at the tourist office in Schiphol. The bus is easier than the train and takes the same time, and you get to see some of the flat Dutch countryside and a couple of villages. The Haarlem train station is a beautiful building. The taxi rank is right in front of the bus stop.

The Haarlem VVV tourist office has moved to an island in the Gedempte Oude Grachte in front of the V+D department store. Get your maps and guide books there.

Well if you judge where to visit by the amount of graffiti then cross off your list any town in Germany, Italy, Spain, the U.K., Holland, Belgium (except perhaps Bruges), France and don't ever hop any train as all along the train lines are non-stop graffitied buildings, etc.
Unfortunately graffiti has become di rigueur all over Europe, like it or not - and in many ways i rather like graffiti - when it is done well as i have seen it often in Amsterdam for instance.

Palenque: It is a question of the degree of graffiti and what it's on. When it's on beautiful old buildings, it's vandalism, period. For me, it's the same as someone vandalizing a painting in a museum. A big part of my enjoyment of Europe is seeing the architecture I can't see here. Some cities at least try to remove it and they look better for it so it's not true that all cities are created equal in this regard.

FYI - I have been to the following cities in the last 3 years which had a level of graffiti ranging from none to tolerable:
Chartres, Amboise, Blois, Rothenburg, Bad Wimpfen, Wurzburg, Salzburg, Hallstadt, Carcassone, Orange, Nimes, St. Remy, and others. I consider Paris's graffiti tolerable for a big city, while Vienna was disappointing and no, it wasn't arty, just ugly and self-indulgent. I think this issue needs to be talked about more in relation to the visitor experience. The guidebooks and glossy tourist brochures are certainly not going to.

Bottom line, I would like to reward cities that fight graffiti with my business as opposed to those that don't. Hence, my questions about Haarlem which I don't think have been directly answered yet.

PS: Palenque, if you like graffiti, I highly recommend Berlin to you(some of it actually is arty). I do wonder if down the road Notre Dame is festooned with graffiti, if you'll still like it so much.

I don't recall any graffiti in Haarlem. There may be some trackside as you enter the city by train from Amsterdam. There is plenty along the tracks entering Amsterdam.

The Haarlem train station is lovely. Very little graffiti.

Amsterdam is a city.

If i had 5 days I'd split it 2 for H and 3 for A

If you are returning to Amsterdam later in you trip then why not stay in Delft, Gouda or Leiden and explore them plus Den Haag and maybe Rotterdam. Do Haarlem then as a daytrip during your later stay in Amsterdam.

We plan to visit Haarlem and maybe take bikes to either Zaandevoort (sp?) - the beach - or ride out toward the tulips. Can anyone give an idea of long either of these rides would be and/or ease of biking?

Thank you Spaarne for your assessment. My plan is to arrive at the airport, have 3 nights in Haarlem, (so 2 days really), see Haarlem one day and go to Amsterdam the other day. Then to Brugge for 4 nights with a day trip to Ghent from there, then 3 nights in Delft with a day trip to Den Haag, back to Amsterdam for 5 nights with day trips to Edam/Marken and either Arnhem for the open-air folk museum or Enkhuizen for the open-air museum. How does this sound? Any thoughts on Arnhem vs. Enkhuizen for their folk museums?

If I do Schiphol-Haarlem-Keukenhof-Schiphol loop by bus, can I use the same OV-chipkaart as the one I use to travel within Amsterdam?