Let’s take that successful painting by a master of light and shade, and remake it in 3D broad daylight without any color, said nobody ever except the City of Amsterdam. Dear readers, I give you The Nightwatch 3D…

… starring Dead Chicken Girl.

But that was yesterday. Today we went on a coach trip though the Dutch countryside.

Flat as a stroopwafel, cow-encumbered, goose-infested, criss-crossed with canals, and much of it below sea level. First stop was the Henri Willig Gouda factory. Gouda, you will remember is pronounced by gargling while saying HHHHHH-OW-da. The cheese was not new to us. Every street in central Amsterdam has a Henri Willig shop, and some have two or three. We did get to meet some of the cheese producers, though.

They are very proud that they now have brown Jersey cows as well as the “ordinary” black and white ones. The ordinary cattle in Holland are the breed called Holsteins in the US, Friesians in the UK, and Holstein Friesians in the ever tactful Wikipedia. Anyhow here are some of the foreign immigrants.

I liked the extra old sheep gouda and the lavender flavored gouda.

From gouda country we went to the cheese city of Edam. It’s a very small city, having purchased city status in the 14th century, and not grown much since then. The entire population of Edam would fit on a large cruise ship. I hope they don’t do that as there would be nobody left to make the cheese.

Edam has lovely waterfront homes…

… narrow streets…

… a badly proportioned church…

… and a beautiful cheese-weighing house.

The crest of Edam includes a black bull. You’d think in cheese country it would be a cow, but no, the patriarchy is firmly in control of Dutch heraldry.

I was disappointed that the whole town hadn’t been dipped in red wax. I’m thinking of starting a Gofundme to fix that.

On to the fishing village of Volendam…

…where centuries of being cut off from the mainland resulted in a local culture where window cleaning is the main leisure activity.

These days, as well as competitive OCD, the villagers also cater to visiting tourists.

We lunched on indifferent fried fish, and superb mini-waffles, hand flipped with a single pronged fork. Technically I suppose that is not so much a fork as an ex-fork. Let’s call him Spike.

Let it be known that the Dutch restore and maintain old windmills with the same passion that the British feel about old steam engines.

At the village of Zaanse Schans (apparently unpronounceable in English so they just call themselves Windmill Village) there are eight working windmills, mostly moved from other locations. They are pumping water, sawing wood, and grinding pigments and spices. This one was grinding cloves and cinnamon, so there was a great smell in there.

This one is a working sawmill. The whole of the outside is thatched.

The village also has vintage wooden buildings collected from other places and a wooden clog making factory. The machines work on a pantograph principle where one clog is used as a model for a grinding wheel and router to shape another.

In spite of the many tourists traipsing past, a mother coot fed her chicks by the side of the path.

Back to Amsterdam, then a cruise round the canals and home. What’s for dinner? Cheese.