With around 25,000 visitors, Kaeskoppenstad has grown into Alkmaar’s largest event. Visitors travel through time through the monumental streets of the city center and pass rat catchers, beggars and orphans. “You walk into the sixteenth century, as it were, but with a wink,” says chairman Klaas Kirpensteijn on NH Radio.
Kaeskopstad on Saturday 3 and Sunday 4 June. The doors of d’Old City open at noon and close at 5pm. On the Waagplein you find the entrance.
To prevent crowds in the streets, the organization works with time slots. Tickets are still available. Online or at the box office in De Waag.
In Kaeskoppenstad, hundreds of actors bring the city back to earlier times, just before the Relief of Alkmaars in 1573. In a historic setting of facades, bridges and canals, you almost forget what the city will look like in 2023.
“Everything is dominated by the sixteenth century,” says Klaas Kirpensteijn, chairman of the Kaeskoppenstad foundation, on NH Radio. “The streets will be cleared of cars and scooters. Traffic signs and parking meters will be hidden to create the atmosphere of the past.”
Clothes are washed the old fashioned way, flowers are sold and every now and then a shoe shiner or beggar gets in your way. In the fishing village you walk past the wooden submarine of inventor Cornelis Drebbel and the whalers from the Rijp.
‘Dutch Hippocrates’
Once around the corner you walk past the old-fashioned hospital and the practice of physician Pieter van Foreest, also known as the ‘Dutch Hippocrates’. “He was one of the most important physicians in the Netherlands and worked with leeches, among other things.”
Klaas himself plays the role of Floris van Teylingen, mayor of Alkmaar at the time. “It will return for a while this year,” he jokes. During the opening on the Mient at 12:00, mayor Anja Schouten will briefly hand over the key to the city to Klaas.
450 years of Relief
This edition falls in a special year: it is 450 years ago that Alkmaar defeated the Spaniards. For Klaas, it is not only a jubilee year, but also his last year as chairman.
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After ten years, he thinks it’s time to hand over the baton. “I have announced that this is my last Kaeskoppenstad,” he says. “The preparation takes a lot of work every year and I’m now in my late sixties, so it’s time for some young blood.”
Proud cheese girls
The center is already looking forward to this weekend, NH radio reporter Samanta de Groot notes. “It really belongs to Alkmaar because of the past with the Spaniards,” says a woman. “The old Alkmaar must be honored.”
“My children have participated as extras for years,” another woman responds enthusiastically. “They worked their way up from beggar to cheese girl. It was really happening at our house, great.” Yet another says: “Sometimes you think: what happens to me with all those coffins. But it is really an experience. You relive old times through all kinds of different stories.”
View the 2022 compilation of media partner Alkmaar Centraal below:
Kaeskoppenstad Alkmaar 2022 – Alkmaar Central
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