Haarlem and St. Bavo Church

While Kaitlyn was sick (and right before Arianna and I got sick...) Arianna got to go with us to Haarlem for the first time (her first, as I love Haarlem and try and go at least once every time I'm in the Netherlands). Arianna was also lucky enough to meet Gems and David, a fact which Kaitlyn is still mad about as she didn't get to meet them! One of our stops in Haarlem was St. Bavo church which is beautiful!

A very young Mozart played on the pipe organ...built between 1735 and 1738.

Another interesting fact...The flooring of the church consists of (I believe the literature states 1500)grave sites. The one shown above states it was "Royalty"...The first time I walked through some of the really old churches in The Netherlands it kind of felt "creepy" walking over peoples graves...But that's just me. I got over it. LOL.
The Roof in the church is beautiful! and kept Arianna fascinated...

 The stained glass windows are also something to behold...

and since I only had my ipod with me, the pictures aren't the best. The wikipedia site linked above does have some pictures of the windows...

While we were there they had the open market going which was fun to walk through. and of course hubby couldn't resist the fish market and bought some mackerel and bought some. Thankfully they wrapped it well so I didn't have to smell it all day long.
We did stop at a nice restaurant and had some traditional dutch dish called Bitterballen...

Arianna even gave it a try and enjoyed it.

While walking around I found a bike basket that I loved....I wish it wasn't so expensive to get these things here in the states! I hope Gems and David had a nice time while visiting. Gems and I have known each other several years but this was the first time we'd ever been able to meet in real life. I'm so glad we got to meet up and hopefully will get to meet up with them again some time!