Cheese Market, tourist attraction in Alkmaar, Netherlands

Cheese Market is a weekly outdoor trading event in Alkmaar, Netherlands, held on a central square near the old weighing house. Rows of round cheeses lie on the ground while carriers in white clothes and colored hats move them on wooden stretchers between traders.

Alkmaar received the right to weigh and trade cheese in the 1300s, and the market grew steadily as a center for dairy from the surrounding countryside. Over the following centuries it became a fixed weekly event, keeping its guild-based organization alive through periods of major change in the city around it.

The cheese carriers still work in guilds, wearing straw hats marked with colors that show which team they belong to. Visitors can watch the old bargaining custom of clapping hands to agree on a price, a direct reminder of how deals were made long before written contracts became common.

Find a spot along the edge of the square before the opening bell so you can see the carriers walk without pushing through dense crowds. The ground is flat and paved, which makes moving around easier for visitors with strollers or wheelchairs, though busy corners can feel tight.

Every load on a carrier's stretcher holds eight cheeses, and each one weighs about thirteen kilos, so two people move more than one hundred kilos at a time. They walk with a short swaying step on purpose, because a steady rhythm keeps the wooden bar from bouncing and the cheese from falling.