The Two Saint Bavo's of Haarlem

The other day, I spent the afternoon walking around the city of Haarlem.  It is one of Holland's most important cities, located near the coast.  You get to the central part of town by walking across little bridges over the Spaarne River and various canals.

The fifteenth-century church of Old St. Bavo's dominates the Grote Markt, or market square.  You can see its gilded tower high above the other buildings as you walk into town.  A large statue of Laurens Coster, who supposedly developed movable type earlier than Gutenberg, stands in front.  Not far away you can visit Corrie ten Boom's house in the upper stories of a jewelery shop.  She and her sister courageously hid Jews during the Nazi occupation of Holland, and both were sent to a concentration camp as a result.

St. Bavo is an important patron saint in the Low Countries.  According to legend he was a wealthy aristocrat who decided to forsake his riches and devote himself to the solitary life of a hermit.  During the sixteenth century Haarlem's Calvinists destroyed the statues, stained glass, and paintings in St. Bavo's and converted the old cathedral into a Protestant church with whitewashed, image-less walls.

Rather than paintings of saints and angels inside, Old St. Bavo's has "word paintings"--wooden tablets with scriptures written in beautiful calligraphy.  It also has a magnificent organ, which is almost as grand as an altarpiece would have been!

Sometimes there are crowds of vendors in the Grote Markt square selling fruits and vegetables, flowers, clothing, and ... stroopwafels!  These wonderful Dutch treats are made on a kind of waffle iron with two wafer-like cookies sandwiched together with caramel.  It's hard to eat just one.  In fact, you often find yourself buying a pack of ten!

This is a view of other buildings lining the Grote Markt.

The streets in downtown Haarlem are really beautiful.  You feel like you are walking in a painting!

Another St. Bavo's stands on the outskirts of the city.  This is New St. Bavo's--the Catholic St. Bavo's.  It is the cathedral for Haarlem's Catholics, reconstructed nearly 400 years after the Calvinists raided the original St. Bavo's.

You can see its turquoise dome from far away--pretty spectacular against the bright blue sky.