Netherlands & Belgium 2022 - Day 4 / Alkmaar

Steps today : 23 768 / 15.25km

Our day trip today was to Alkmaar to see the Cheese Market. It's the largest one in the Netherlands and has been running for over 400 years! Despite being a little kitsch-touristy, it's legit.

Clearly, I am not the only person who wants to see the action, there are directions to the market as soon as you get off the train.

We got there just after 10AM when it's supposed to start and it was already too late. No good spots left and the crowd was 3 to 4 people deep, plus it was raining so there were umbrellas in the way marring the views even more.  I did my best to sneak around backs and over heads to get a few decent pictures. 

We watched for about 15 - 20 minutes from various points, got the gist of it all, then ducked out of the rain to get some coffee.  Boozy coffee for me...  felt appropriate given the wet drizzly weather.

We walked leisurely around town after that, crossing dot off my map.

This funny carpet caught my eye!

We wanted to visit the Church, but it was closed. No idea why.

Around noon, we stopped for lunch - nothing special. We just liked the look of the place on the bridge.

After lunch more wandering

One last drink stop before heading back to Amsterdam

Check out all the bikes at the train station!

 

We arrived back in Amsterdam around 4PM; Frank was pretty tired so went to the hotel to rest while I went to visit the Rembrandt Museum.

Nice exhibits, I enjoyed the audio guide, but if you can't do narrow steep old-timey wooden stairs you might have trouble! Thankfully that's only on the way up. The way down is a nice, wide, modern staircase... and there may have been an elevator too, I forget now.

I didn't have any ideas about where to have diner, so I made my way to Rembrandt Square about 10 minutes away since I knew there were many cafes in the area. I didn't wander for long, I saw a sign saying "Schnitzel" and I was like a fish on a hook!

It looks much bigger than it actually was, there is a mountain of fries under there and the thin Schnitzel is just resting on top. It was good, but overall the place wasn't great. Smokey, plastic wet glassware, and crazy red lighting that made my pictures look weird.

After supper, I walked back to the ferry, about a half an hour walk. 

Then back to meet up with Frank at the hotel resto. I like this picture of the hotel in the distance on walk from the ferry.

I was too full to eat, so just had a prosecco and it was AMAZING! I regret not taking a picture of the label now.

Today's maps:

Alkmaar

Amsterdam