Holland–Day 3, here come’s the rain….

Wednesday is cheese market day in Edam.   This is a touristic display of an old-fashioned cheese market, rather than a real event,  but it’s quite impressive.  It was quite busy,  we seem to be on the tourist trail this week.

the first thing I spotted as we entered Edam was something I really wasn’t expecting to see.

But further along, things got much more traditional.

The cheese market was in the main square, and it was very busy.  The kids were able to get to the front but I was further back,  so these are all Molly;’s photos.

They appeared to throw the cheese between one another,

then they load up a sleigh, and run around the market place, eventually bringing the cheese to rest on the scale where it is weighed.

After watching the market show for a while, we walked around Edam.  It’s a very pretty little town, but it was very very busy due to the cheese market.

We had a look in this pretty kitchen shop.  It’s a good thing we are hand luggage only,  or I would have bought a case load of pretty kitchen things.

Molly spotted some cheese for sale.

We walked around, and I took some photographs (with my phone,  my big camera was usefully back in the house)

As we left Edam, it started to rain.  So we popped back to the house to collect rain coats and my camera,  and then we went to Marken,  which is a local village on an island.  There is a causeway to get to the island.

Marken is an very traditional village.  The island was only connected to the mainland in 1957, and in the past it was prone to flooding,  so the houses were all built on stilts.  Many of these lower areas have now been filled in to create extra rooms but the main living areas are upstairs.

Unfortunately, by the time we arrived, the rain was pretty hard,   so we started with a trip to the clog factory in search of not clogs, but an umbrella.

The clog factory had many different clog products for sale,  but we resisted the urge to buy any clogs today,  although Katie did choose some clog slippers.

Purchases complete,  we walk down to the harbourside.   I was torn between taking photos and worrying about getting the camera wet,  so in the end the camera went away and I didn’t take many photos, so here is one I borrowed from the internet.  This is quite clearly not today, as the sun is shining.

We didn’t really get much of a chance to look around as it was just too wet,  so we headed straight for a restaurant, and some lunch.

Phil had a traditional uitsmijter.

I have croquettes, and the kids have toasties.

We hade quite a leisurely lunch,  hoping that the rain would stop while we ate,  but it wasn’t happening,  and we emerged into even heavier rain.

We walked further through the village, but it really was getting quite damp.

We took some shelter in a church,  and then headed back out of Marken and back to our dry car.

But first,  I had to cross this bridge!

We were very wet, and a bit cold so we headed back to our apartment to get changed and just relax for a while,  and then we met back up with Jane and the girls watched tv while I blogged.  It had been a very busy couple of days,  and they were all quite tired.

The new kitten needed to visit the vet,  so Jane & Jolanda took her to the vet,  so we could discover if it was a boy kitten, or a girl kitten.    And after the vet trip,   we went out for dinner.

We went to a pancake house called De Witte Shwaen.  We had a bit of a debate about what to order,  as they had both savoury and sweet pancakes,  and they looked quite large,  so a savoury pancake followed by a sweet one looked rather too much.

In the end, Jolanda and I decided to have a cheese fondue.  Katie, Molly and John had pancakes,  Jane had a salad and Phil had an omelette.

The fondue pot at Jolanda and I shared was absolutely enormous.  Everyone had some, and we really didn’t make a dent in it.  It was delicious but it would have served the entire table!

We had managed to save room for dessert.  I opted for a pancake with ice-cream and chocolate sauce,  Jane & Jolanda had a pancake with raisins and Katie and Phil had banana splits.

It has been a rather wet day unfortunately,  but we still managed to see a few things.  Hopefully tomorrow the sun will be out, and we can head to the beach.