A tale of cheese, a church & art

My eyes were attracted by movement in the garden. I hastily found my glasses. It was a pair of goldfinches. They’d clearly found something of interest in the cracks between the stones of the raised garden bed. I rushed to get the camera. Needless to say the moment I raised the camera to my eye they flew off. Still it was wonderful to see them. It’s put me in a good mood for the day.

Anyhow back to our Dutch adventures.  Our next visit was to Alkmaar, famed for its open air cheese market. It was our only wet day, showery rather than something that really soaked you. When we arrived the crowd around market square was several people deep, making it impossible for us sat in our chairs to see.  Our tour leader, Bev, fearlessly strode through & insisted that there should be a place for her party of wheelchair users to watch the proceedings, so we were let into the actual ring.

 

Alkmaar cheese market, the judging & haggling

Alkmaar cheese market, loading the sleds

At the market, the great cheeses, each 70-80kg in weight are laid out. They are judged for quality before being auctioned off to the retail market. Some cheese samples were brought round but I’m forced to admit my interest in Gouda & Edam cheeses is limited, even those flavoured with caraway seeds or nettle leaves for example. Once sold the cheeses are carried off, 8 at a time on sleds to the Waag (weigh-house). They then re-emerge to be taken off to the buyers’ vans. 

 

 It’s fascinating, & quite funny watching the porters in their white uniform with straw hats beribboned with the colours of whichever company they work for, running along with the cheese. They have an odd gait with hands paddling along in a distinctive fashion – it’s all supposed to make it easier to carry the great weight, personally I couldn’t help wondering if it wasn’t done for effect & our amusement.

The red company with their distinctve run, taking the cheese to the waiting vans. 

The blue company with their distinctive run, taking the cheese into the Waag

After we’d stayed a while, we decided to wander off by ourselves. We explored a bit around the canal before heading towards the church. Although the Grote Kerk or St-Laurenskerk is impressive, especially the immaculate disabled loo inside, we were not greatly excited. It’s like so many Dutch churches, rather hollow inside. We stopped to look at the organ pipes, the triptych of the Relief of Alkmaar, an event in the 17^th century Dutch War of Independence from the Spain, the 1667 ship models & the vault paintings of the Last Judgement, a copy of which was brought lower down so you could more easily see what was portrayed. However, to me, the church lacked a sense of sanctity, of the presence of God.

We wondered what to do next as we still had over an hour to wait before the coach was due to collect us. We decided in the end to try the nearby Stedelijk Museum, the municipal museum. This turned out to be the highlight of our visit to Alkmaar.

We first went around the temporary exhibition of works by Geerit van Blaaderen (1873-1935). It was fascinating to see how his artistic style changed from the sombre fairly conventional style of the late 19^th century into something glowing with light & colour after he took influence from the likes of Cezanne & Monet. He’s an artist I’d never heard of before but one I shall keep my eyes open for in the future.

We then progressed to the gallery on the Golden Age of Alkmaar, the great days of prosperity and of the Dutch East India Company. Finally we went through the section about the siege & relief of Alkmaar. The filmed actors telling the story in Dutch were fortunately subtitled in English so we were able to follow the tale. It seemed to be a tale of the Dutch being able to use their knowledge of how to control the waters with dams, canals etc. & the Spanish, unhappy away from the sun & heat of Spain & stuck in mud & rain.

We ended up rushing through this bit of the gallery as time was running out. We never got to see the Picasso gallery in our rush to get back to the coach.