We are continuing our look at the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands.
In this episode were going to bring you in a couple of the really great museums, show
you a few other smaller museums, and into the big church, the Grote Kerk, at the end
of the show.
In two other episodes about Haarlem we've already taken you to the main market square
and up and down the shopping streets and pedestrian lanes.
This segment is dedicated to the museums.
Coming up were going to walk you over to the Tylers Museum, which is the oldest in the
country, with a variety of exhibits including natural history, technology, and fine arts.
But first we'll start out with the Frans Hals Museum, one of the top attractions of Haarlem.
The museum is located in the old part of town in a building that dates back to 1609 and
was originally a retirement home for single old men.
Inside are works by many other Haarlem artists of the 17th century.
Several stately rooms saved from torn down houses have been partially reconstructed from
other Haarlem locations with period furniture and decor.
Of course the main attraction are the paintings – 16 of them by Frans Hals, who lived most
of his life in Haarlem, between 1616 and 1664, keeping very busy creating many individual
portraits, and especially famous for the large group ensembles.
In this principle room it seems like you have entered a great banquet hall divided up in
different tables.
And as you walk in it seems all the guests have turned around to look at you.
There are groups of officers and administrators of the hospital, life-sized, some of them
seated with faces turned to the spectator as if posing for a photograph, some standing,
all splendidly decorated.
Hals was the master of showing emotional expression in faces.
You really feel as if you know these people, as if you'd met them before.
This truth of expression and the jovial character, and the ample rich costumes of the 16th century
make it seem like you're really looking at the Holland of 300 years ago – as if you're
a watching historical play, not just an art gallery.
The solo portraits are equally powerful as the groups.
A new multimedia exhibit immerses you in nearly all of his paintings.
The museum has a collection of over 750 works, most of them by artists from Haarlem, and
especially from the first half of the 17th century.
They say that over 100,000 paintings were created in Haarlem at that time, and more
work from that period has survived in Haarlem than from any other Dutch city.
A big painting by Peter Bruegel is accompanied by a fascinating multimedia kiosk that drills
down and shows you the different parts of the painting in detail.
The piece illustrates 100 different proverb such as don't count your chickens before they're
hatched.
You go back and forth from the painting to the touchscreen in this interactive method
and decode the symbolism.
Such as, that's how the cards fall.
The museum has an admirably varied collection, including some decorative arts, and the genre
paintings, and sculpture, there's a little dolls house with the intricate rooms – so
it's quite a great experience.
The municipal art collection first got started back in the 1750s and was relocated to this
building in 1913.
Half a block away down the same street you'll find the Haarlem Museum which is a display
of the history of the city.
It's a small museum.
So it's really quite easy to walk through it in 20 minutes, and is especially convenient
if you have purchased the museum card.
It only costs about €60 and it will admit you to nearly every museum in the country,
and it's good for a month and.
With that card you wouldn't hesitate to go into a little museum like this history museum,
which you might otherwise be reluctant to pay for.
For example, that same card will get us into the Tylers Museum where we are going next,
located along the Spaarne River quite close to the central square.
Typical drawbridge, good for a scenic break on the bank.
This row of old buildings along the waterfront leads us to the front entrance of the Tylers
Museum with a Baroque façade in the Viennese style.
It's a popular museum for families with a varied collection that goes well beyond just
fine art.
This is the oldest historical museum in the Netherlands and the interior retains that
very old-fashioned feeling, like stepping back into 1778 when it was established.
Right away upon entering the first room you'll notice these display cases with that original
feeling.
The room is mostly fossils and bones of old creatures, including some remnants of early
human and prehuman, and the first example ever found of the Archaeopteryx, a flying
dinosaur.
Next we enter a room filled with the variety of scientific instruments including what had
been the world's largest electrostatic generator from the 18th century, old telescopes, microscopes,
recording devices, telephones, whatnot.
A small darkened room showcases luminescent minerals.
Then we get to the most famous gallery in the museum.
It's the Oval Room that dates back to its founding in the late 1700s with mineral displays
in the center and all around it, scientific instruments from the 18th century.
The room was designed for research and study with scientific experiments conducted here,
and public demonstrations held – in the upper level archives and a library.
Then we enter couple of rooms packed with pretty paintings, and look at how they are
stacked – multiple levels high in the old-fashioned way really fills the wall space with beautiful
things to look at.
The paintings are works from the Dutch Romantic School and the later Hague and Amsterdam schools.
And they're by major Dutch painters who you might not be familiar with, but that's kind
of liberating – you don't have to look at the label to see who painted what – just
enjoy the works in themselves.
The painting galleries were added in the 19th century to round out the collection and make
it into a temple for the muses of the arts and sciences, based on revolutionary ideals
derived from the Enlightenment, where people could discover and appreciate the complete
world.
A new wing was added to the museum in 1996 to handle special exhibits such as this display
about the works of Jan Weissenbruch.
Weissenbruch lived in the 19th century and his favorite subjects were the tranquil little
towns where he painted his cityscapes with the sharpness in which every stone stood out.
There is a tranquility here that gives his work a timeless quality.
The new wing also houses a café looking out on the scenic garden courtyard.
Well now we are taking you a few blocks over to the center of town into the Archaeology
Museum, located right on the market square.
It's a small museum with just one room and display cases around it with artifacts from
the history of Haarlem.
And they even have a little reconstruction of an archaeological dig with the pit in the
ground and the shovels buckets in the wheelbarrow.
For the kids they have a sandbox to play in and here, too, it's like a little archaeology
dig, scooping the dirt up with the trowel into the bucket.
The Archaeology Museum is in the historic Meat Market located on the famous central
market of town, the Grote Markt, which is also the location of the huge Catholic Church,
the Grote Kerk.
This impressive church has been the heart of the city and its most important landmark
for centuries.
Located right in the middle of the market square, it was built in the Gothic style of
architecture, originally as a Catholic Church between 1370 and 1520 when it was finished.
In 1559 it finally was officially named the Cathedral of the diocese of Haarlem Amsterdam,
but 20 years later it was confiscated in the name of the Protestant Reformation and it
has been a Protestant church ever since.
It's most famous feature is the huge organ that occupies nearly the entire west end of
the building.
The organ was the largest in the world when completed in 1738.
It possesses four keyboards, 64 stops, and 5000 pipes, the largest of those being 32
feet high and 15 inches wide.
It is still played today in regular concerts.
Many famous musicians played this organ, including Mendelson, Handel and the 10-year-old Mozart,
who played it in 1766.
The ceiling at the crossing is made of stone, but the rest of the roof is cedar wood, held
up by 28 high stone columns, and no flying buttresses.
The church is 460 feet long in a Latin cross layout with the tower 262 feet high.
The lower part of the church is of brick and the upper walls, of stone.
We didn't hear the big organ in our visit, but somebody was making beautiful music on
the smaller organ.
The model shows the overall design of the exterior.
The interior of this church has changed little over the years and has been maintained in
a accurate way faithful to the original design.
This brings our visit to Haarlem to an end.
We've been showing you the marketplace, the city streets, the museums in three different
movies.
Be sure to have a look for them in our travel series.
You can see it's worth spending one or two nights in this city and we have a suggestion
about a nice hotel for you.
It's the place I stayed for my 2 nights in town, but this is not a paid plug.
I never do that.
Always an honest report.
Welcome at the Hotel Lion D'Or in Haarlem, Holland.
We are located close to the station here in Haarlem, and we're right in the city center
of Haarlem so it is easy to go to the old medieval city, and to the airport, because
we have the airport shuttle stopping right in front of the hotel here.
Arriving by train carrying suitcases is very easy because this four-star hotel is right
in front of the station, and just a 10 minute walk to get into the old town.
At the end I remind you that Haarlem is only 15 minutes away from Amsterdam by train and
well worth the visit.
This is part of our series on the Netherlands in which we're taking you to many of the great
cities of this beautiful country, including several more episodes about Haarlem, with
our main episode focusing on the lovely pedestrian and shopping streets of the city.
We will also take you to that big outdoor market filled with produce, cheese, clothing
and all sorts of great stuff.
Stay tuned.
We have many more movies in our travel collection covering Europe, the Americas, Asia and other
parts of the world