Langos via leipzig: Tulips and cheese as in the days of yore

We came to Holland for tulips for Miss Bec, but the fields even this early in May were virtually finished, cut surgically clean. April has evidently been 'so mild', we’re told, a good omen for a fine summer, it seems.

Thank god for Keukenhof Gardens, then. Which are the largest and most famous tulip gardens in the world, and when we visited they still had every imaginable tulip variety that a girl could wish for. Curly kale edges, pristine elegant stiff petals, and the double leaf and variegated varieties.

Imagine a massive many-faceted Japanese garden filled with every kind of perfectly formed azalea, tulip, hyacinth, and any other pretty spring bulb that takes your fancy. Add lawn and water sculptures, sun dappled lakes rippling with white swans paddling after crumbs, themed gardens and picture postcard prettiness, and you have a super tourist magnet. Keukenhof.

Extremely pretty, beautifully maintained, and well worth the trek around many acres of floral land. We went for just an hour, but we stayed for most of a day.

We also came to Holland for the cheese, and our most pressing need when we drove off the ferry at the Hook was to make the early-next-morning cheese market at Alkmaar in Holland’s Northlands.

This market is famous worldwide as it reflects its medieval Dutch traditions. Not much different today. So, of course, hundreds of tourists were there, as at Keukenhof. But again, so worth the effort.

Cheese makers, since medieval days, have brought their small, mostly semi-hard cows-milk, fresh wheels of cheese to market at Alkmaar either via canal boats, horse and cart, or loaded on their backs.

The cheeses are laid out in neat piles in the main market square, haggled over by merchants until a price is agreed, carried then in wooden sleds to the weighing master for assessment, transferred then to the buyer’s carts for loading and dispersal.

All this haggling, colour and movement was enacted at Alkmaar while we watched and when the business of selling was done a large clock tower in the market square set up an amazing peal of carillons while we partook of a demitasse of delicious espresso in a character-filled pub with ancient worn wooden tables. As in days of yore.