De Waag

De Waag or weigh house or weighing house, was historically used to control the weight of goods, and were run by local authorities to levy takes. The building, originally a chapel, was built around 1390, and converted to a municipal weigh house in 1582. It is one of the very few remaining weigh houses still in use, where the Cheese Market includes weighing demonstrations.

Beautiful old building constructed first small scale by the people of Alkmaar as a place for officially weighing economic goods, mostly brought into town by small ships. The Waag building is a National monument (Rijksmonument) listed building on the Waagplein in Alkmaar in the Netherlands. On this square Waagplein from April till the second week of September, on Fridays, the famous cheese market is held. The Dutch Cheese Museum and the tourist information Office (VVV) are also in the building. In the tower is a famous carillon weekly played by a carilloneur and also automatically by a drum chiming the quarters of the hour. There is also the famous automatic horse with knights play in the tower with an automatic trumpet player.

Lovely Building

Similar to other De Waag. Nothing extraoridary about this place.

A beautiful square in an almost debauched environment. After the first Covid wave in 2020, this square made the news when the catering industry was allowed to reopen at the beginning of the summer. In the 60s it was just as beautiful in my memory, I cycled over it on my way to a shop with party supplies at the 'Luttik Ouddorp' I thought, because in addition to party animals they also sold 'stink bombs' and they sometimes came off well only at school ... The following years the square slowly turned into a horrible 'tourist gang' and it seemed lost forever. Again and again that cheese market, the fake, the noise and beyond on other days, the entire square was naturally filled with the same uniform aluminum or imitation wicker chairs and tables, so that only the outer edges could be walked around. Mass tourism only causes pollution and misery and only generates some money as compensation and there seemed to be no end to it because money seems (too) many more important than anything else. Now the residents of the center have their square back for a year now! What a miracle ... Every now and then a bell blares across the deserted square, someone lets his dog out again, you no longer stumble over Chinese tourists who take pictures just to show where they've been, a dead end of course. I consider myself lucky. As a youth I saw the old square, experienced the steady decline for years and now enjoy the privilege at the end of my life to experience it again as it was meant to be. For a single meeting, to 'cross', to caress the retina and thus nourish the thoughts. No more careful where you walk between the 'screen viewers', peace and quiet surround the old Waag, it couldn't get any better.