Around Gouda: too cold to cycle

April 17, 2012

WEATHER: cloudy, very windy and COLD

One look out the window in the morning at the heavy clouds and tree branches thrashing in the wind made us decide to forget the Kinderdijk windmills and stay in Gouda for the day. Our room was warm since we had kept the heat on and the bathroom door shut all night. We walked two doors down the street to the hotel proper, where a quite good buffet breakfast was laid out in the skylit bar. Once again we took advantage of the coffee machine and enjoyed our cappuccinos.

The narrowest street (among some very narrow ones) that we've found in Europe so far.

Afterwards we dressed in our warmest duds, consulted the Lonely Planet guide, and set out for the Markt, one of the largest market squares in the Netherlands (although this one is trapezoidal). The white sandstone town hall is right in the middle of the square and was built in the 15th century, when Gouda was enjoying great wealth from the cloth trade. We watched the elaborate moving figures on the carillion clock on the side of the building go through their paces when the clock struck 10, and then retreated inside, where we were quite willing to pay a euro to look around this old (warm) Gothic building which had been completely renovated in the 1600s. It was one of the few non-brick historic structures that we encountered, and until very recently was still used as the town hall.

An animated clock on the side of the town hall keeps the tourists occupied every hour.

The walls in the marriage room are covered with a 17th century tapestry, and if you look closely you can see the outline of a door.

We strolled the main shopping street which featured many familiar North American chain stores. We had seen these mall-like shopping streets in Amsterdam and Utrecht as well and found them soulless and disheartening. After lunch in a cafe on the square, we walked to the nearby Waag, a former cheese weighing-house built in 1668. Upstairs was the Kaaswaag, an interesting cheese museum where we learned how artisan cheese is made and the long history of its production in Gouda. In the 1600s, 3,000,000 rounds of Gouda cheese per year were weighed in the waag, and then shipped off down the canal to the port of Rotterdam. Later in the afternoon we found the iconic cheese shop 't Kaaswinkeltje, an amazing place to browse with lots of free samples. We wanted to spend more time walking the picturesque residential streets of Gouda, but the cold temperatures and howling winds drove us back to our hotel for a rest.

A very impressive cheese shop in the centre of Gouda.

If you look closely, you can see the old fish market which was located in the two covered areas on either side of this canal near the centre of Gouda.

We opened the door to our room, and were horrified to find the bathroom door wide open and the temperature icy cold. The radiator was still on, but was ineffective against the frigid blasts of air from the bathroom. We had to start all over again heating up the room, and Al was sneezing and felt like he was coming down with a cold. We made cups of hot tea and took advantage of the wifi until it was time to go to dinner.

The cafe Kamphuizen, was right around the corner from the hotel, with a good bar menu, and very pleasant atmosphere. We had savoury pancakes with sundried tomatoes and mozzarella, and by the time we got back to our room, it had warmed up again.

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Charmaine RuppoltBoy, that's annoying about how you had to try and keep the hotel room warm! :(
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