Haarlem is a relative old city in Holland. First settled in the tenth century, it was called Harulahem, meaning something as the place build on sand. Back then, Holland was far more watery then it is now and Haarlem was positioned on a strategic place between mores and streams that would someday form the haarlemmermeer, now a polder.

From the eleventh century till the thirteenth century, Haarlem was the seat of Government of the graaf (duke) of Holland. Haarlemn got City rights in 1245 and is after Dordrecht the oldest city in Holland proper. In these times the mythical war between Amsterdam and Haarlem is placed, that is described by Vondel in his Gijsbrechts, losely based on the battle of Troy.

When the Dutch rose against the Spansish, Haarlem took the site of the Geuzen. After a month like siege, the city fell to the Spanish in 1573. Over 2000 civilians, soldiers and protestant clergy where drowned in the Spaarne.

In the seventeenth century, Haarlem became a center of Art, with painters like Frans Hals, Jacob van Ruisdael, Philps Wouverman, Adriaen van Ostade and the architect Lieven de Key, who build a lot of buildings here. As metropole Haarlem had since long lost its leading role to Amsterdam. During the French occupation, it was briefly the capital of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, but this could not stop its relative decline.

Because Haarlem missed out on most of the industrial innovations of the 19th and 20th centuries, it kept a lot of character and is a very nice city to walk around and spent some time.