Gouda
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Leaving Dordrecht, we eased our way into the very busy waterway towards Rotterdam with a massive amount of activity around us until we turned off for Gouda (a Dutch city south of Amsterdam in the province of South Holland known for its namesake cheese and seasonal cheese market.) Along the way we encountered some of our biggest commercials yet – one being a pusher with two rows of three barges ahead of it – and then, to our surprise, what appeared to be Noah’s Ark, sporting a giraffe at both bow and stern moored up along the riverbank.
Then it was a fairly sedate passage until we hit Gouda where we found a mooring on the river close to the town centre (just getting in before a yacht which then ended rafted up to us for the night). The mooring was next to the lock going into the town, not too expensive and with water and electricity included (although the electric didn’t actually work), and as we finished roping up, along came the lock-keeper, Robert, to chat and find out what our plans were, and he gave us lots of tips and good advice on places to visit in Gouda and on our travels.
We spent the next few hours strolling around the area – the old barges in the nearby marina, the town square and the shops.
Our first morning in Gouda coincided with the weekly Cheese Market and its ceremony of the cheese market auction, so obviously we had to go along to check it all out and to buy some of the local cheeses, and of course to sample them. It was all very colourful and there were lots of visitors to the town enjoying the spectacle.
The main church was magnificent (on the outside, we didn’t go in this one), and there were a lot of interesting shops, sculptures and various oddities around and about.
We had arranged to join a walking tour in the afternoon to showcase the town, but as it turned out it wasn’t what we had expected and we ducked out after an hour or so and went back to the boat. A little while later Robert came along and asked if we would like to see how the lock was closed down for the night, and to watch the flood barriers being put in place, and then he invited us along to a bar nearby for drinks and food – a nice evening sat outside with the dogs overlooking the old barges at the end of a pleasantly warm sunny day.
And that was the end of another interesting day in yet another town in Holland!
