Our house is a 4-floor city-house (150 m2), within 10 minutes walk from the centre and railway-station of Haarlem. It's a new-built house (2008) in a modern style, as well the outside as inside.The ground floor contains the kitchen, fully equipped with steam- and normal- micowave oven, dish-washer, fridge etc.You can also eat there. The first floor is the living room with television, dvd-player, wireless soundsystem and a large dinnertable.On this floor is our terrace with a lot of green plants in pots (do need some water in summer!) The second floor has a master-bedroom with a lits-jumeaux bed, a second bedroom with a 140x200 bed. On this floor is also the bathroom with seperate bath and shower and a double wash-table. You find a seperate space with washing-machine and dryer there. The third floor is one roof-room with a terrace where there is a lot of sun. We do have some art-works (paintings and ceramics) ands lots of books (mainly dutch), cd's and dvd's. There are no children-things since our daughters are grown up already. We do have some bikes of course as the Netherlands is a biking-coutry!

Our house is part of a neighbourhood called "Droste-quarter" Once there was a still famous chocolate factory here. One part of that still exists and is transferred to appartments.The quarter is located at the east bank of the river Spaarne wich crosses Haarlem. Our house is not directly located on the river bank but 60m away. In the street no cars are allowed.
The centre of Haarlem is about 10 min by foot. There are still a lot of 16th and 17th century buildings like The big or St Bavo-church, the city-hall, many museums (e.g Frans Hals and Teylers, the oldest public museum in the world), some canals. There are some nice old market squares where you can do open-air shopping on several days a week. You find a lot of shops and restaurants, cafe's with terraces.
The beach and sea at Zandvoort or Bloemendaal is 15 min away by car, or by train (10 min) or bike (35 min through the dunes!) The easiest way to go to Amsterdam is by train (8 times per hour, 15 min to Amsterdam Central Station) Leiden, The Hague and Rotterdam are also within half an hour to one hour travelling, by direct train.

We are bound to school holidays, that means this year (2013) in summer from 3 aug-26 aug. We put in some preferences here but other suggestions are welcome!

We like to see the "normal " life there and become more or less part of it. On the other hand we also like the sea and beach or the countryside. Our most ideal holidays is a combination of city, sea an nice weather.
In europe we can travel by car! We are open to any destination around the world.

We are a couple in the fifties of our life. We have two grown-up daughters who both live, study and work in Amsterdam. She, Loes, is a teacher of drama on a university of higher professional education and also yoga-teacher and coach. He, Hans is an graduated health-scientist now working in the field of medical emergency and disaster-management at a regional health service. We do like theatre, arts, reading good books, newspapers and magazines. We also like to see other city's and countries.

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