Les Flâneurs: Utrecht, another church and a canal cruise

Tuesday, May 31, 2022

Utrecht, another church and a canal cruise

31 May 2022.

After breakfast it was back to the train station. This time we were headed west to Utrecht, a trip that took us about 18 minutes. While all the stations in the Netherlands have a futuristic look to their architecture and many have some fabulous facilities, Utrecht was impressive. The station is linked directly to an incredibly spacious indoor mall in addition to several fascinating buildings. And of course there are the canals.

coming through the turnstiles at Utrecht

unclear what this is about but it caught my eye

We quickly found our way into the old part of the city -- the train stations all seem to be close to historic city centers.

Requisite canal pictures.

We popped into St. Martin's Cathedral, also known as the Domkerk. The church was partially destroyed in a storm in 1674 and never recovered its size. We were duly impressed by the cloisters, though.

From the church we made our way to the nearby tourist information office and inquired about canal cruises. They gave us directions and off we went.

While waiting for our cruise to start we sat outside a pub splitting a pint while overlooking the canal where our cruise would begin.

The audio portion of the cruise was in four languages which became a bit tiresome while our captain gave his personal anecdotes only in Dutch. It was also rather difficult to see out of the boats but it was a nice day to be on a canal in Holland!