The Netherlands – Utrecht

If you arrive in Utrecht by train, you will have to walk through a shopping centre in order to get to the old town, but do keep going as Utrecht is a wonderful place to visit.

This is another Dutch town that is extremely pleasant to walk around, along tree-lined streets with a canal on one side with occasional bridges across it, and neat, orderly, well-cared-for houses on the other.

The highest point in Utrecht is the 112-metre high Domtoren, the tallest church tower in the whole country. Visitors will notice that the tower is no longer connected to its church as the tower survived a violent storm in 1674 but the connecting nave did not. The rest of the church has survived in good condition.

Utrecht has a number of lovely museums. One is dedicated to Gerrit Rietveld the De Stijl designer whose designs favoured simplicity and geometrical lines and planes. Another museum is dedicated to the De Stijl painter Piet Mondriaan and includes a reconstruction of his self-designed five-sided studio. The Museum Speelklok is full of musical clocks, street organs, and musical boxes. The convent named after St Catherine of Alexandria houses mediaeval paintings and sculptures as does the Centraal Museum, opposite to which is the Miffy Museum (Nijntje Museum) dedicated to a rabbit called Miffy, the creation of Dick Bruna via a series of children’s picture books. These museums will have something for everyone.