Gemeente De Bilt

Utrecht 4-6 June.
Flew in from Heathrow on the 4th arrived in Schipol airport (Amsterdam) and had the most fun queuing in immigration for 1hr.

Took the intercity direct to Utrecht from the airport (took some snapshots of power lines obviously) after semi working out the trains i was retrospectively hit with the shock that nothing is in English its all Dutch (surprise surprise). I thought thered be some English signs but no... all Dutch unfortunately for me.

First things first after checking into my hostel i hired a little push bike to get around. Why walk when i can ride? I did a lap of the city aimlessly sightseeing. It took me a couple of minutes to figure out the cycling customs of the Dutch. I head to robert gelato which apparently won the 2019 world gelato championship and have some hazelnut and vanilla gelato. Which was nice but not "world champion" gelato sadly (4th picture). Still getting accustomed to the timezones doing a full 180 so i wander around the canals a bit and then head back to my room asleep by 7pm, rough night awake at 2am suffering from feelings of "what the fuck am i going to do with myself for 1 month alone but in the crowd." Luckily some calls home and to special people i figure out the key is to actually talk to people, do walking tours in each city and make an effort to go to places where you can talk to other solo travellers.

The next day i do a tour of the dom tower, Utrechts pride and joy standing 112.34m tall (nothing in the city is allowed to be taller than it) climbing 465 steps to the top of which were very steep and basically no surface area for the modern mans foot. Was quite cool my first experience of a gothic cathedral and something built before 1770. The dom tower was built in 1321-1382, giving an impressive view, here i also learned from the tour guide that the Dutch apparently really like Aussies. After this i do a free walking tour of utrecht which a lovely scholarly man ran and it was actually really good.

Here i learnt some of the history of utrecht.
- For example Utrecht means bend in the river and is where the romans established there barracks as the river slows at the bend and is easier to unload boats, also a good defensive position.
- The Dom Tower garden has a marijuana plant (2nd picture)
- The arches of the garden in the dom cathedral were the same ones used in the harry potter films (3rd picture)
- The stonework for the garden was perfomed by slaves and as an act of rebellion the slaves worked ropes into the structure (5th picture) so that if the ropes were removed the structural integrity of the arch would fail. This was quite a powerful symbol for anti slavery and was considered for amnesty international
- Dom tower has a lot of bells, they ring the heavy large bells for sad events. And the smaller ones for happy celebrations (6th picture)
- Theres a mall next to utrecht central station called lady catherine mall. This area was originally a castle/fort built and controlled by the spanish and they would extort the shipping lane (pay us a fee or we'll shoot you) and gave holland a bad rep internationally. After a while the spanish left and de-occupied the castle. Lady catherine the mayor at the time then decread that any person that built there home from the materials of the fort would be completely tax free (she wanted people to tear it down cost free for her). Moving along to the 8th picture, this is a store built from that forts materials and it is apparently a complete front, the stores never opened instead a car dealer runs a import export business from the 2nd floor and has been doing so tax free for nearly 50 years. In 2019 they got taken to court by the government over it and in 2021 it was ruled that "a promise made is a promise kept" and they won! Be interesting to see what the property sells for with rules like such attached to it

Did a canal cruise which was pretty shit. Some local kid spat on the boat from a bridge and it got all over the person next to me

Utrecht very cycleable very nice, be a great place to live, not very touristy.Read more