Alkmaar exists in the tourist mind as one thing: the Friday morning cheese market on Waagplein, April to September, 10am to 1pm, where men in white uniforms and coloured hats haul wooden sledges of gouda for the benefit of a thousand phone cameras. It is genuinely photogenic and completely staged — the actual cheese trade moved to industrial parks decades ago. Come for it, but do not build a trip around it. By 1:15pm the square is empty and the town returns to being a pleasant small Dutch place.
The rest of Alkmaar is a modest canal town with a decent beer museum (De Boom, in an old brewery on Houttil), the Grote Kerk with its 17th-century organ, and streets called Mient and Fnidsen that lean picturesquely. Nightlife is one main street, Laat, with student bars that close around 2am on weekends. This suits a one- or two-night stopover between Amsterdam and the northern coast, not a week. If you are here on a Tuesday in November there is genuinely nothing to do.
Where to stay in Alkmaar
The compact centre inside the ring canal is your only sensible option — anything within five minutes of Waagplein. Grand Hotel Alkmaar area and hotels on Voordam get you canal views for $90-$140. Budget options near the station (a 12-minute walk from Waagplein) drop to $65-$85 but you cross a dull road to get in. Avoid Friday nights in cheese-market season if you want a quiet room; central hotels fill by Wednesday.
Hotels in Alkmaar
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Things to do in Alkmaar
- Friday morning cheese marketWaagplein, April to first Friday of September, 10am-1pm. Free. Arrive by 9:30am for a spot at the front near the Waag building. The cheese museum upstairs is $6 and worth 45 minutes.
- Beer museum De BoomHouttil 1, in a working small brewery. $8 entry includes a tasting. Wed-Sun, closes 4pm. The brown café attached serves the beer downstairs until 11pm — better than the museum itself.
- Grote Sint LaurenskerkKoorstraat 2, free entry, one of the finest late-Gothic churches in Holland. Organ recitals most Saturdays at 12pm in summer. Look up at the painted vaulted ceiling — restored in the 1980s but the pigments are original recipes.
- Canal boat from MientGrachtenrondvaart Alkmaar leaves from Mient bridge every 30 minutes, April-October. $12 for 45 minutes. Small covered boats, no groups over 20. Better than the Amsterdam version — actual canals, no traffic.
Getting there & around
Start at Waagplein, follow Verdronkenoord east along the canal past the leaning houses, cross at the Kwakelbrug, follow Bierkade back west, cut through the Hof van Sonoy almshouse (open daytime, free), and return via Fnidsen — narrow, cobbled, lined with antique shops that close at 5pm.
Intercity trains from Amsterdam Centraal take 32 minutes and run every 15 minutes until midnight, $8.50. From Schiphol, 50 minutes with a change at Amsterdam Sloterdijk. The centre is a 12-minute walk from the station down Stationsweg. Buses inside town are pointless — the centre is 700 metres across. Bike rental at OV-fiets in the station is $5 a day and useful for reaching the Zaanse Schans area if you are chaining day trips.
Questions answered
Is the cheese market a tourist trap?
Yes and also a good time. It is not a working market — it is a re-enactment of one, run since the 1930s for tourism. But the guild costumes and traditions are real and it is free. Treat it as street theatre, not commerce. Buy actual cheese at the Willem cheese shop on Magdalenenstraat, not the market stalls.
Worth staying overnight or just a day trip from Amsterdam?
Day trip if you are only here for the cheese market — the 8:30am train from Amsterdam gets you there in time. Overnight only if you want to bike the polder landscape west of town or continue north to Hoorn and Enkhuizen the next morning.
Nearby areas
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