Linda and Roxy's trip through the Netherlands & Norway

2nd post on May 5, 2024 ..... Back to the welcome page and listings for other links

Haarlem, Netherlands
We spent our first few days in the Netherlands exploring from Haarlem, a smaller town outside of Amsterdam. Harlem in the US was named after Haarlem, NL when New York was a Dutch colony, New Amsterdam. The town was once a major North Sea trading post surrounded by a wall. Cobblestone streets, narrow lanes and gabled houses remained to this day.

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We rode the train about 45 minutes to the Alkmaar Friday cheese market. Of course there is lots of shopping & food along the way to the Waagplein (Market Square).

The Alkmaar cheese market is the oldest & largest in the Netherlands. The cheese runners take 8 wheels of cheese to the scales. Each wheel weighs about 30 lbs. the 1st scale was purchased in 1365!

Setters place the cheeses in rows & then transfer them to the berries (blue sleds). Then the cheese carriers run the cheese wheels to the weigh house & then over to the wooden hand trucks.

While cheese is being hauled around, the judges approve the cheeses by beating, tasting & feeling the cheese. They cut the wheel in half & remove a sample using a special cheese drill. The smell & elasticity says something about the fat content. The hole should be perfectly distributed over the cheese.

After weighing, loaders fill carts & push them to the waiting buyer’s trucks. Remember, 30 lbs per cheese wheel! There’s actually a Cheese Carriers Guild??!! Fascinating for sure.

The cheese is transferred from the carts to racks & loaded onto semis for transport. There are 2 trucks almost filled already.

All the workers are in period costumes. These youngsters are filling insulated bags with samples of cheese, nuts, jams & and a cutting board to sell to spectators. $15 a bag, worth every cent!

Lots of cheese for sale with samples for the asking. There were many vendors…a street fair atmosphere.

We toured the De Adriaan windmill. It started life as a horse gate called the Goodwife Tower back in the middle ages. Over time, it was repurposed to be a windmill. It was a great introduction to windmills & their many uses.

We traipsed around Harlaam on a cool damp afternoon, exploring narrow cobble stone lanes. These are shared by bikes, pedestrians, cars & planters filled with beautiful flowers.

These lanes twist & turn & are filled with lots of people. Some are pedestrian only. They are well kept with lots of plants.

The bigger streets have dedicated bike lanes, no pedestrians allowed. These lanes have their own traffic signals with bike pictures. Sidewalks have signals with people pictures.