Amsterdam (Rough Guide) - Martin Dunford [92]
Day-trips from the city | Alkmaar |
The Town
Even if you’ve only come here for the cheese market, it’s well worth seeing something of the rest of the town before you leave. On the main square, the Waag (Weighing House) was originally a chapel – hence the imposing tower – dedicated to the Holy Ghost, but was converted and given its delightful east gable shortly after the town’s famous victory against the Spanish. The gable is an ostentatious Dutch Renaissance affair bedecked with allegorical figures and decorated with the town’s militant coat of arms. The Waag holds the VVV(see "Arrival and information") and the Hollands Kaasmuseum (April–Oct Mon–Sat 10am–4pm; €3; www.kaasmuseum.nl), with displays on – predictably enough – the history of cheese, cheese-making equipment and the like. At the far end of the Waagplein, the Biermuseum de Boom (Mon–Sat 1–4pm; €3.50), above the De Boom bar, has three floors devoted to the art of making and distributing beer – no great shakes, but no worse than the cheese museum. In the other direction, at the south end of Mient, the open-air Vismarkt (Fish Market) marks the start of the Verdronkenoord canal, whose attractive medley of facades and gables leads east to the spindly Accijenstoren (Excise Tower), part harbour master’s office, part fortification, built in 1622 during the long struggle with Spain. Turn left at the tower along Bierkade and you’ll soon reach Luttik Oudorp, another attractive corner of the old centre, its slender canal jammed with antique barges.
One block south of the Waag, pedestrianized Langestraat is Alkmaar’s main and mundane shopping street, whose only notable building is the Stadhuis, a florid edifice, half of which (the Langestraat side) dates from the early sixteenth century. At the west end of Langestraat lurks St Laurenskerk (early April to early Sept Fri 10am–5pm; June–Aug also Tues–Sat 10am–5pm, Sun noon–5pm; €3), a de-sanctified Gothic church of the late fifteenth century whose pride and joy is its organ, commissioned at the suggestion of the diplomat and political bigwig Constantijn Huygens in 1645. The case was designed by Jacob van Campen, the architect who was later to design Amsterdam’s town hall (see "From Town Hall to Royal Palace"), and decorated with paintings by Caesar van Everdingen (1617–78). The artist’s seamless brushstrokes – not to mention his willingness to kowtow to the tastes of the burgeoning middle class – were to make Everdingen a wealthy man. In the apse is the tomb containing the intestines of the energetic Count Floris V of Holland (1254–96), who improved the region’s sea defences, succoured the poor and did much to establish the independence of the towns hereabouts, until his untimely demise at the hands of his own nobles; the rest of him ended up in Rijnsburg, near Leiden. Nowadays the church hosts exhibitions and Friday lunchtime and Wednesday evening organ concerts during summer.
Across from the church, Alkmaar’s cultural centre holds a theatre, offices and a mildly diverting local museum, the Stedelijk Museum (Tues–Sun 10am–5pm; €6; www.stedelijkmuseumalkmaar.nl), whose three floors focus on the history of the town. Well displayed, but almost entirely labelled in Dutch only, the collection has a short film on the history of the town (in English), and paintings, maps and models of Alkmaar during its glory years in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.