My sister and I decided to travel across Utrecht for four days. We chose our trip to Utrecht quite randomly just by looking through pictures the search engine showed us. But once there it’s easy to fall in love with the city. Here’s why:
A biker’s paradise!?
‘Utrecht fietsstad’, a recent documentary on how the city of Utrecht took measures to become the largest cycling city in the World, is breathtaking. If the immense number of 12.500 bicycle storages in World’s biggest parking lot doesn’t amaze you, I have some other crazy facts. In 2018, Utrecht possessed 45 km of bicycle paths and had 33.000 cyclists biking along the busiest bicycle route every day. So instead of looking out for cars, you can be knocked over by bicyclists and to cross bicycle intersections is just hard! But hey, it’s good for the planet!
Botanical University Garden
One of the oldest botanical university gardens in the Netherlands is the Utrecht University Botanic Garden created in 1639. Although the oldest botanic plantations for medical knowledge were located closer to the city centre, the biggest part now lies outside the city centre.
We spend most of the time in the Kassencomplex (cause it was too cold in the morning) and the rock garden. The rock garden is located on a little island which feels like a small desert world on its own. You can walk on the winding stone paths between the pine trees. Little salamanders crawl upon and between the rocks and the flowering plants, sunbathing and drifting away if you come near. Definitely worth a visit!
Location: Budapestlaan 17, Utrecht Opening hours: 1 March - 1 December: open daily from 10 – 16.30 Admission for students (with student card): €3,50
Searching for nature in the city
A green escape from the busy streets you can find on the former city enclosure. You can walk along the waterside from bastion to bastion. It’s a long walk all around the old city centre so we divided it in two days.
Vlinderhof
Besides the High Line in New York, ‘Vlinderhof’ is another design of landscape architect Piet Oudolf. In the garden 100 plant species and 15000 plants are used and a sign board tells you the name of each plant. We went in Spring but the garden is a seasonal concept. Each season has something to offer in the plant assortment.
The garden is part of the Máximapark and is pinpointed far outside the centre of Utrecht. You can take the train from Utrecht Centraal to Utrecht Terwijde (5-10 minutes) and walk to the park by foot.
There are several entrances, we took a narrow side street from ‘Alendorperweg’ and stumbled across a cable ferry with manual control!
Location: Alendorperweg 14, Utrecht (Vleuten) Opening hours: All year round Free entrance!
Virtual stargazing at the Astronomical observatory of Sonnenborgh
Because my sister and I have this weird fascination for astrology and specifically zodiacal constellations, we needed to visit the astronomical observatory and museum of Sonnenborgh.
Sonnenborgh used to play a part in defending the city as a former bastion. In the 19th century, it had no longer use as a bastion and the physicist Buys Ballot suggested the idea of building a new observatory and a meteorological institute at the top of the 16th-century bastion of Sonnenborgh. The KNMI, Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorologisch Instituut (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute) was born! On top of that, scientists here searched for answers to the question of which substances the sun consists of. This solar research led to the first solar atlases in the world.
Nowadays Sonnenborgh is open as a museum. You can make a virtual journey with a tablet through the universe. Answer questions, build rackets and liveable planets and enjoy other experiments! They also have 3 telescopes: Merz, Gala and Lunt. With the first two, you can watch the sky at night and with Lunt, you can watch the sun safely on a bright day. During a museum visit you can watch the telescopes in the domes but during Stargazing evenings and Sundays it’s possible to watch the sky through the telescopes.
Location: Zonnenburg 2, Utrecht Opening hours: Tuesday till Friday from 11 – 17, Sunday from 13 – 17 From October till March there are Stargazing evenings on Friday and Saturday nights Admission for students (with student card): €5
Accommodation, food and shops
We stayed in Stayokey Hostel which was an okey hostel! It’s in the city centre, not that expensive and cosy. They had a few basic vegan options for breakfast like soya milk.
Stayokey Hostel
Location: Neude 5, Utrecht
For food we enjoyed De Bijenkorf restaurant where we took vegan ‘kapsalon’ (literally translated as ‘hair salon’): a dish with a first layer of fries, then lettuce, union, garlic and on top vegan cheese and mayonnaise. KEEK is a sweet place for vegan cakes. At Waku Waku there are plenty of tasty vegan dishes but can be a bit busy. At Kimmade Vietnamese Food Village is the best (and first) Vietnamese food I ever had! Hidden down the stairs to the canal, in a small pimped up cellar, the colourful dishes are served with chop sticks and great beer like Tsingtao.
Location: De Bijenkorf: St Jacobsstraat 1 A, Utrecht KEEK: Twijnstraat 23, Utrecht Waku Waku: Vredenburg 28, Utrecht Kimmade Vietnamese Food Village: Mariastraat 2, Utrecht
For small, authentic and green shops, you need to be at Twijnstraat/Oudegracht (hint: this is the same street as where KEEK is located!). Shops like It all starts with a postcard, studio JUX + co., Things I Like Things I Love and art shop Swaak are great!
Kapsalon at De Bijenkorf Waku Waku
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