Utrecht
A canal with cafe tables a metre above the water, and a tower left without its church
- When to go
- September 16° · 10 rainy days
- Per day
- €€€price 3 of 5
- How many days
- 1days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 34 km Amsterdam · 49 km Rotterdam
- Right now
Utrecht's Oudegracht has what Amsterdam's canals don't: two levels, the street above and the old unloading wharves below, right at the waterline. In the Middle Ages those wharves were loading platforms in front of merchants' cellars; today they hold cafe tables — you sit a metre above the canal, below a street full of cyclists.
The Dom Tower is the other thing to know. It stands 112 metres, was built between 1321 and 1382, and is the tallest church tower in the Netherlands. On the night of 1 August 1674 a tornado brought down the cathedral nave, which had never been finished, so the tower has stood apart from the choir ever since — with an empty square between them, marking where the church used to be.
Utrecht is also a student city, with a university founded in 1636, and small enough to cover on foot in an afternoon, Domplein and the Vredenburg market included.
The practical reason to consider Utrecht is where it sits. The train to Amsterdam takes twenty-seven minutes and to Rotterdam a little over half an hour, and Utrecht Centraal is the busiest station in the country, with connections in every direction. If Amsterdam is too expensive to sleep in, here you get a real city instead of a suburb, and a room that as a rule costs noticeably less.
What to see in Utrecht
The Oudegracht and its wharves
The canal through the middle of town, on two levels: street and bicycles above, wharf cafes at the waterline below with the doors of old cellars behind them. Best in the afternoon, when the sun reaches the western bank; you drink down there and walk up here.
The Dom Tower
465 steps to the top, climbed only in a guided group at the time on your ticket — arrive late and the ticket is forfeit. The tour runs about an hour, an adult ticket is €13.50, and bags go into free lockers at the bottom. On a clear day you can see both Amsterdam and Rotterdam from the top.
Domplein and the missing nave
The square between tower and cathedral is where the nave stood until the tornado took it down in 1674. Its outline is marked in the paving, so in a few steps you cross what used to be the inside of a church.
The Miffy Museum
A museum for the rabbit Dick Bruna drew in 1955, who is to the Netherlands roughly what Mickey Mouse is elsewhere. It's built for under-sixes, with rooms you walk into and touch — one of the few museums in the country where that's the whole point.
Castle De Haar
The largest castle in the Netherlands, rebuilt in exhaustive detail by Pierre Cuypers between 1892 and 1912, with a park around it. It stands in Haarzuilens, west of the city; the gardens keep their own hours and can be walked without going inside the castle.
Two things you probably did not know
The Dom Tower is the tallest church tower in the Netherlands at 112 metres. The nave behind it collapsed in a storm in 1674 and was never rebuilt, so the tower still stands apart from the rest of the church, with an empty square between.
Utrecht has canals with wharves below street level, at the water's edge, where warehouses used to be. Today they hold cafe terraces; it is the only canal of that two-level kind in the country.
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