I have used CloudMade OSM extracts but had some problems with them. For example, Norway was clipped too tightly, causing some roads on the west coast to disappear.
I now prefer the overpass API.
Put something like this into the query form at http://www.overpass-api.de/query_form.html
<osm-script timeout="10000" element-limit="1073741824">
<union into="_">
<bbox-query into="_" s="52.3170669250001" n="52.4027433480001" w="4.80527567900009" e="4.97793537400008"/>
<recurse from="_" into="_" type="up"/>
<recurse from="_" into="_" type="down"/>
</union>
<print from="_" limit="" mode="meta" order="id"/>
</osm-script>
Put the bounds of the area you want, in degrees, in the s, n, w and e attributes of the element.
