Soon in Haarlem!

Bonjour à tous,

We (my wife and myself) are moving to the Netherlands in October/November if everything goes smooth.
We like the Ocean (coming from Nantes/France) and are strongly considering Haarlem to become our next city ;-)
Is somebody there to help us with the questions below :
-best neighbourhood to recommend (or not).
-we would like to buy a house/appartment. any recommendation of things to do or not to do here ? we don't speak dutch at all...
-quality of the public transportation (I will work close to the Amsterdam Arena and will travel via Shiphol almost every week)
-necessity/complexity of having a car in the Netherlands
-nightlife in Haarlem (restaurants/bars/concerts - we are not really night clubbers but love music)
-price of the wine (I am French so I REALLY have to ask that ;-))
-all advices or mistakes not to make would be great.

We speak French, English and can communicate in Spanish w/o any problem.

Thank you all!

Brunis

Hola¡
We are a spanish-italian family and we just moved in haarlem four month ago.
This is beautiful city! Close to the airport, beach and amsterdam... Look in pararius.nl to find an appartment or house to rent. We live in the center close to train station and is really good conected.
We have a little boy so we are not very into night life but we also love bars with live music and I saw a couple of irsh bars which looks great 😉
For any info you can contact me to my email: ******************
Have a really nice day!

Moderated by Priscilla 8 years ago
Reason : Do not post your personal contact details on a public forum for your own security

hi Brunis, are you settled yet? Haarlem is a lovely city, especially if you are located within the city centre. It is small, yes, but you will find everything in here, restaurants, bars... there are plenty. As for live music there are a few venues, I guess the most popular is Stiels (blues, jazz..). I quite like the museums here, De Hallen is great and Frans Hals is also quite good. Every Saturday there is the open market by the grote kerk, which is amazing to walk around testing the cheese and all the treats they have while you are on your way to get some breakfast.

Transportation you can easily get to the Arena and Airport by train and by bus. The intercity takes you to Amsterdam in only 12 minutes. Make sure you apply for a abonnement for your ovchipkaart to travel with discount. Trains they come quite often, you won't have any problem moving around without the car. There's always the possibility to rent the Green Wheels if you happen to need a car.

Wine. I would say you can find decent wine starting from €7. Cheaper than that, only in Albert Heijn. By the way, there are a few wine shops around the city.

I love Haarlem Noord the best

Hello,

I see your post now and noticed that you wrote it 2 years ago, so I can just hope the thread is not yet closed.
I will be moving to Netherlands, most likely Haarlem at the beginning of next year and I would like to ask you how is the life there? How do you find it? All the advises you asked for I would like to ask you too :)
Have 2 small daughters, 2 and 5 years old.
Thanks a lot
Anita

welcome to dutch city ABN city