5 places you'll probably like even though they're cheesy

This cheese is sold all over the world, but its home is the town of Gouda in the southern Netherlands. Mentioned in writing as early as 1184, it's one of the oldest varieties of cheese in the world. The yellow-colored cheese tastes creamy when young, and more intense and aromatic after two years of ageing. The name Gouda has been a protected name since 2010.

Legend has it that Marie Fontaine Harel, a farmer from the northern French village of Camembert, learned how to make this variety of cheese from a priest from the Brie area near Paris, also famous for its cheeses. When Napoleon III tasted the creamy soft cheese Marie produced, he liked it so much that he made sure it was always on his menu. "Camembert de Normandie" is a protected name, too.

Another popular Dutch cheese, Edam, from the town of the same name, is traditionally sold in round wheels covered with shiny yellow or red paraffin wax. It was particularly popular for centuries because it didn't spoil as easily as other cheeses. Cut in thin slices, Edam cheese is a standard Dutch breakfast cheese. The town itself is near a dam on the river E - thus the name Edam.

An original Emmental cheese wheel is a real heavyweight: it has a diameter of about one meter (3.28 feet) and weighs about 100 kilos (220 llbs). No other Swiss cheese goes over the counter as much as this nutty-tasting medium-hard cheese. Full of holes, it's popular far beyond its home in the Emme River valley in the Swiss canton of Berne.

Cheddar doesn't have the best of reputations, largely because it is copied vigorously all over the world - and is the cheese used to top cheeseburgers. But its history goes back to the 17th century in England, where the cheese was created in the southern village by the same name. Cheddar gets its typical bright orange color from the flavorless annatto seed.