Alkmaar

Alkmaar has held a cheese market on the Waagplein since the seventeenth century and it still runs on Friday mornings from spring to autumn, in the form the guild established: the cheeses are laid out in rows, dealers test them by smell and taste and settle prices by handclap, and the carriers - members of a guild in white with coloured straw hats denoting their company - run the wheels to the weighhouse on wooden barrows at a trot. It is a demonstration now rather than commerce, and everyone knows it, but the guild and the practices are genuine. The Waag itself is a fourteenth-century chapel converted in 1582 with a carillon and mechanical figures. The town beyond the square is a good canal town with a Gothic church, the Victory of 1573 remembered - Alkmaar was the first town to repel a Spanish siege - and the Bierkade.

History

The name Alkmaar first appears in a 10th-century document, and the town was granted city rights in 1254. Its oldest part lies on an ancient sandbank a couple of metres above the land around it, which gave some protection from floods in the Middle Ages, and the polders around it are among the oldest in existence (Wikipedia, Alkmaar).

What you'll find

• The Friday cheese market - carriers running wheels on barrows to the weighhouse.
• Price by handclap - the dealers settling in the old manner on the square.
• The Waag - a fourteenth-century chapel converted in 1582, with mechanical figures.
• The 1573 siege - the first Spanish siege in Holland to be beaten off.

When to go

Friday mornings, spring to autumn. A day.

Things to know

The market is a demonstration for visitors, not a trade, and it is very crowded - arrive early for a view. It runs only on Friday mornings in season. The rest of the town is quieter and worth the time.

Nearby

The North Holland dunes are west; Hoorn and Enkhuizen are east.

Key facts