Today's post is on today's day trip to the Alkmaar cheese market. Sometime over the next few days we will be posting photos and write ups about other recent and interesting experiences, including last weekend's trip to Paris and Brussels. Check back at a later time....
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Today was a great day! Alkmaar is about an hour and one-half train ride from Den Haag's Central Station. Niece Amy and I (Melissa) were able to catch an early morning train so that we could arrive in Alkmaar in time for the 10:00am cheese market. (Carrie couldn't join us due to her work.)
What a production! The cheese market was quite the show! Who knew there is a job called 'cheese transporter'?!?
You will see in our photos below that the cheese was stacked on the ground when we had arrived. All of the various workers were wearing different 'outfits' depending on their function. We were amazed at how many workers were involved in the process of testing and transporting the cheese.
Promptly at 10:00am the market opened with the 'cheese testers' beginning to sample random cheese wheels. They are considered to be 'cheese experts' who verify the quality of the cheese and who determine the price, per kilo, for the cheese.
While the cheese is being tested, various workers (dressed in blue tops) would begin stacking the cheese wheels onto wooden cheese carriers. The 'cheese transporters' would then carry the fully loaded wooden carriers over to the weighing house for weigh in. It was very interesting to watch this process, as the 'cheese transporters' sort of 'semi-ran' while carrying their cheese. They were actually quite entertaining!
Once the cheese had been properly weighed, the 'cheese transporters' would then transport the cheese back for loading onto empty wooden carts (by the men who wore brown tops). The wooden carts were then eventually wheeled over to a side street where multiple delivery trucks were waiting.
Somewhere in the middle of this process, a 'cheese expert' and the 'buyer' would slap hands together to signal the price per kilo that was determined by the expert.
You might ask.... Did we buy any cheese? My answer... of course we did!
After we were finished at the market and buying our cheese, we then strolled through the many meandering streets and we visited two museaums. We went to the national cheese museum and the national beer museum.... neither was very impressive. However, we did enjoy everything else that we had experienced in Alkmaar and we will definitely be back some day!
Lastly, our train ride home required a stop in Harleem where we decided to spend a little time exploring. We had heard that Harleem was a nice city and so we decided to see it for ourselves.
We saw many beautiful flowers and learned that Harleem is known as 'The City of Flowers'. It is also an old city and one that has a lot of history that the various museums and architecture will attest to. We saw one windmill that you will see in our photos.
Today was a fun day! It was fun seeing a real cheese market and exploring two neighboring cities to learn more about the rich culture and history of this very interesting country!
Enjoy the photos.
.... and a few photos from Harleem....
