I'm now thoroughly addicted to train travel; there's no other way that I've ever found to be as painless, comfortable, and efficient. It's clearly a much easier proposition in densely populated Europe, but I hope that Canada works towards this direction eventually--I know they are seriously considering a high speed line between Edmonton and Calgary.
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Utrecht is the fourth largest city in Holland (behind Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague) and may be the oldest; when you get past 500 AD, it starts getting tough to tell! It's long been the religious center of the country, with both Catholic and Protestants using it as their 'home base' for Holland.
It's also home to Utrecht University, the largest in Holland, and so has a student population of around 40,000, which represents about 1/6 of the city's total population. One more fun fact: Utrecht was one of the key cities liberated by Canadian soldiers at the end of World War 2.
Upon exiting the train station you enter a very modern and expansive shopping mall called the Hoog Catherine.
After finding your way out of the mall, you enter into the narrow and historical streets of downtown Utrecht. Both because it was a weekend and a beautiful day, the streets were packed.
Utrecht also has an extensive network of very old canals which have a lower level of wharves along them. Overall, the shopping area was an extremely enjoyable place to be, espeically if you find the streets of Amsterdam to be a bit too...hectic.
You may have noticed a tall tower in those pictures. It's Dom Tower, and it's the largest steeple in Holland.
It's part of the massive Cathedral of Saint Martin. It was orginally a Catholic church when built in 1023, then rebuilt in 1254 after a fire, but was handed over to Protestants in 1572 during the Reformation. In 1674 the huge nave collapsed, leaving the tower and the cathedral seperated, which how it remains today.
Beside the church is a miniature sculpture showing how the building once looked.
It was difficult to get a shot that gave a sense of how the two buildings sat in relation to each other. This was the best I could do.
A very nice thing about my trip was that all the churches were open inside to go look around if you paid a donation. In the Cathedral of Saint Martin, I went up the desk and politely asked if I could take pictures, and was told yes.
So, finally, here is one example of how these churches look on the inside.
There were plenty of other historical sights in the city center, so I'm going to bundle them together in a little segment called "Churches & Other Old Stuff".
As I was walking around I spotted what looked like a castle structure.
Upon further investigation, it turned out to be the town's water tower.
And finally, I spotted this odd building. It took me a while to figure out what it was, but I guess it's a headquarters for the company that builds and maintains the train tracks in Holland. Why is there is a UFO perched on their roof? Who the hell knows!
The white statue in front has a bunch of Dutch writing and the dates "1940-1945", which I guess are a pretty dead giveaway to its meaning.
This blog will fall quiet for the next four or five days because the kids are off from school and so I'm heading down south with the family to see their cottage. It's right near the ocean on a large island, and in an area of the country which is much less populated.
I've still got one more trip waiting to be chronicled though, and I'll be taking tons of pictures down there, so stay tuned...
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