Cheese Market at Alkmaar in Alkmaar

One of the first associations that people often have with the Netherlands is cheese. There are five cheese markets thriving in the country. While Woerden is a fully modern and commercial cheese market, there are four others which are considered to be reproductions of the traditional merchant cheese markets that operate very similarly to those in the Middle Ages. The markets are usually surrounded by stalls that sell various kinds of traditional Dutch items that, of course, include cheese. The city of Al kilometresaar is located 50 kilometres from Amsterdam, making it less than an hours train ride away. The cheese market at the Waagplein is one of the country’s most popular tourist attractions.

Al kilometresaar opens every Friday morning between 10am and noon, starting from the first Friday in April to the first Friday in September - perfect for those of you visiting during the summer months. The whole event takes place in front of the Medieval weighing house, which is home to the local tourist office as well as a cheese museum that is worth visiting. The market activities are explained in three main languages: Dutch, German and English, sometimes Japanese. There are four teams of cheese porters (kaasdragers) which are called vemen, and they wear different coloured straw hats - red, blue, green and yellow - in order to distinguish one team from the other. Two porters bring cheese on stretchers, weighing approximately 160 kilograms, to the weighing house (Waag). Merchants then sample the cheese and decide on the price using an old barter system called handjeklap, which literally means ‘to clap your hands’.

Actually, it is not possible to buy cheese at the market because it is only a demonstration of how these merchant’s markets operated in the past; however, you can buy cheese and other items in the nearby stalls. In the summer of 2007, a new cheese market opened in the historic town of Hoom.