Say ‘Cheese’!

Our final foreign foray of the Wheely Amazing Gap Year was to The Netherlands. It was a shorter trip, being just over a week long, but we had lots to pack in.

We took the Shuttle from Folkestone, as we had on our Europe adventure before Christmas. It is so convenient and much easier to have the car packed with everything we need. As before, we stayed in the Premier Inn near the terminal so we could catch an early train the next morning and get on our way.

Our route took us across the north of France into Belgium where we found a small town called Beveren to break the journey. Here we had a meal followed by a stroll in the park around one of Beveren’s three castles.

As we set off again, the sat nav informed us that we had another two and a half hours driving time, meaning we should get to the youth hostel in Alkmaar at about 4.30pm. Unfortunately it was unaware of the huge volume of traffic choking the Dutch motorways. Soon after we crossed the border the roads became increasingly busy, often slowing to a crawl and sometimes stationary. The cause, we discovered later, was an important football game (if there is such a thing) being played in Alkmaar. When we finally got off the motorway, we had to negotiate hundreds of cyclists and pedestrians making their way to the match. As a result it was 6.30pm when we arrived at King’s Inn Youth Hostel and found it was on a narrow street where we could only stop briefly to unload. We were grateful to a member of staff who came to help. Racheal’s tea was already an hour late and I had to find somewhere to park the car. Eventually it ended up in a disabled parking space on the street where I could leave it until 9am the next day.

The hostel had a cafe at the front with small dormitories and private hostel rooms behind. The layout felt a bit prison-like, though there was a friendly atmosphere. We had sole use of a ground floor, four bedded room which had a bunk and two single beds, an en suite shower room, but no window. There wasn’t enough room for Racheal’s changing table, meaning we had to use her bed to wash her and do all personal care, but everything else fitted neatly with a bit of organisation. There was a small kitchenette in a corridor off the common room which was useful for washing up, making hot drinks and breakfast, but not for cooking meals.

Having arrived on a Thursday, it was the weekly cheese market on our first full day in Alkmaar. Although on a much smaller scale nowadays, everything is done in the traditional way. I was last here around 25 years ago when a friend and I were on a cycling tour of the Netherlands. I’m sure it wasn’t as crowded then, but on this visit it was impossible to move for tourists crammed into the square, around the barriers erected so that the market staff could safely perform their tasks. We battled our way along one side, with no chance of seeing anything except a few stalls around the edge. Eventually we managed to get to the weighing tower which also housed the cheese museum and shop. We were able to go inside and I asked if there was an accessible viewing area. We were ushered into the cordoned area where we could sit with Racheal to watch the proceedings. There was lots for her to listen to and even some cheese to smell too! After an hour of being entertained by the cheese carriers’ funny run, the ladies in costume and the cheese inspector explaining what to look for in a good cheese, we set off to explore the rest of the old city. As we left we had a good view of the boats bringing the cheese to the market.

Our walk took us down narrow streets, alongside the network of canals, past more market stalls including a clog maker, to the windmill.

We also spent some time looking around the church which was a very agreeable blend of old and modern.

We had intended to visit the Cheese Museum while we were at the cheese market , but it was so busy we decided to put it off until later in the week. In the end, we actually visited it the morning of our last day in Alkmaar. It was a fairly small museum on the first and second floor of the historic weigh house, accessed by a lift. Here we learned about the history of the cheese market, cheese manufacturing and its importance to the region. We were also able to see the weighing room close-up which had been impossible while the market was in progress.

As there was nowhere to cook in the hostel, our Netherlands trip was more expensive than some of our other adventures, but it was only for a week! We look for reasonably priced places to eat out, but not junk food. After our first day of wandering around the old city, in the evening, we crossed the North Holland Canal and found a restaurant overlooking the water and Alkmaar’s tiny ‘beach’. A lovely sunset rounded off our first full day nicely.