The first page of our cursory search for “things to see in a day in Gouda” revealed a range of attractions with a total admission price of well over two hundred and fifty Euros per person. While we are the first to defend venues charging for admission to offset the cost of the the wear and tear of ancient monuments and preserving them for the enjoyment of future generations, but still, our first impression on seeing all those “entry fees” in one place made us think that the actual pronunciation of Gouda should perhaps be “Gouge-ya”.
Given the plethora of stuff to do in the town, we may be being unfair, or maybe we were the victims of some sort of AI search result scam, where the search engine has deduced that we are living on a “yacht” but without grasping the complete context of what that might mean.
As a first impression did not improve as we wandered down to the markets on this glorious Thursday morning. If Gouda was called “CheeseWorld”, it would make a passable job of filling a corner of any theme park, except that with the exception of the “free” Cheese trading reenactment in the market square each Thursday, the entry ticket into every “attraction” bore something slightly more than a nominal cost.
Despite all that, we all agreed that the “Cheesy Market reenactment” was indeed almost worth the price of admission, if for no other reason than it was very colourful and gave us the chance to sit for twenty minutes or so.
The town is actually a delightful place to hang around, and while we may not have contributed to the coffers of the museums or churches, nor to the “museum” charging to view the manufacture of Syrup Waffles, we did do our best to ensure the man selling coffee and applecake, and the lady with the cheese van would be able to put food on the table for the coming week.
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