alkmaar is a tourist attraction cum laude. we residents learn to avoid the city centre on high-season fridays: the cheese market brings coachloads of visitors and a sense of displacement in one's own hometown. the main street resounds with exclamations in every language except dutch.
but now, in this long approach to spring, the cobblestoned streets are deliciously empty. and, on a chilly sunday afternoon, we walk softly in order to hear the echoes from the gables and the hourly carillon from the tower of the weighing house.
nice.
ReplyDeleteI remember cheese, in gouda.. all staked up on things that looked like flat boats, suspended to be carried by two...
(I was a nine year old tourist!)