Alkmaar pumpkins

We are in Alkmaar for the weekend, about 1.5hrs by train from The Hague. It's a beautiful city but what I loved about it were the quiet wee lanes connecting the busier streets. They reminded me of an area called Fittie, back home in Aberdeen. The houses in these lanes are so quaint and pretty, with lots of greenery, making some of the lanes looking like a secret garden. Anyway, it's clearly a tradition here to put some sort of pumpkin/gourd outside your door. They were everywhere...all shapes, sizes and colours...real fun to see.