Part 4: Utrecht and Amersfoort
An Uncanny Paradise
This leads me to the next section of the trip, my journey through the Netherlands. As mentioned, my arrival was a hectic one. The Dutch transportation system has not impressed me so far (I’m writing this part while still in Utrecht). While it’s spotlessly clean, generally on time, and pretty convenient, it doesn’t measure up to German and Austrian systems. The frequencies are pretty bad for trains and buses, and there’s a distinct lack of systems like subways or streetcars. Moreover, their payment system is beyond comprehension. You have to literally buy a card for 10 euros and then load at least 20 euros on it to ride. If you don’t have at least 20 euros on the card, you can’t ride. So for a tourist, to ride Dutch transit, you have to throw 30 euros down the drain. Ridiculous. It’s actually super discouraging, almost like the Dutch don’t want any non-locals using their system (save this thought for later- I’ll come back to it at the end of the Easter break series).
My first day in the Netherlands was spent near the Dutch city of Amersfoort. It’s a spectacular medieval city with wonderful pedestrian promenades, an imposing 15th-century bell tower, and, like everywhere in the Netherlands, a patchwork of canals. Then there are the bike paths and lanes. They are absolutely everywhere, and I mean literally everywhere. I knew this already based on many YouTube videos I had seen about cycling in the Netherlands. It's actually because of these that I decided to travel to the Netherlands and specifically the area around Utrecht. They didn’t disappoint. The cycling infrastructure here isn’t just first-class, it's beyond anything I’ve ever seen. In a way, and I’m sure this is intentional, the Netherlands makes up for its lack of public transportation and easy car travel through its unbelievable network of bike paths. They’re wide, beautiful (almost always in immaculate condition), and treated like roads. Every train station has racks upon racks of bikes, as does every restaurant, hotel, and even doctor's office.
Most importantly, it’s predictable. I rented a bike on my first day there (as I’ve done every day while here) and quickly learned how to use the system within an hour or two. I find this funny because one of the biggest recurring complaints from American tourists that I’ve heard in regard to the Netherlands is that “I was almost hit by a bike” or something along those lines. There is some merit to this (I'll get to that later), but for the most part, I think this sentiment comes from the fact that Americans (and most tourists) just don't rent bikes in the Netherlands. I can’t imagine a trip to the Netherlands without renting a bike, but then again, maybe it's for the best that tourists usually don’t try.
Ok, ready for a quick segway into infrastructure planning? Let’s go!
Predictability is something that I’ve begun to really appreciate when it comes to infrastructure planning, especially cycling. Austria might be the most unpredictable cycling environment I’ve ever been in. It’s really fortunate I know German because there have been multiple times where signs have said *danger* up ahead, purely in German. One time (I remember this vividly), I was cycling on a bike path south of Vienna, and a sign up ahead said, “Head danger.” About 10 seconds later, I came across an underpass with a clearance that meant I had to duck almost all the way to my bars. What if someone doesn’t know German, do they just clip their head on a concrete viaduct? I would not, and I cannot emphasize this enough, ride a bike in Vienna, unless you can read German. Sometimes it's just comical. It’s something that legitimately shocked me here in Vienna. They have a lot more cycling infrastructure than the US, but it’s just thrown up out of nowhere. I know this will be a surprise, but the US federal guidelines for cycling infrastructure (which guide most projects nowadays) are BETTER than the Austrian ones. The most modern cycling infrastructure in the US is better than the stuff they build in Austria. But, they build a lot more mediocre stuff in Vienna and Austria.
The Netherlands, on the other hand, is beautifully predictable. Everything makes sense, and the infrastructure connects seamlessly. There are distance and location signs everywhere, probably because the Dutch consider cycling the main transportation mode (cars are second). Every Dutch neighborhood is built around a walkable pedestrian center, usually with little to no car traffic. Then bike paths and shared streets extend from the center into walkable neighborhoods. The newest Dutch neighborhoods are simply works of art. They have paths with street lighting along all of their canals. A brand-new school in the center, with a meandering public park attached. The neighborhood grocery store is a two-minute cycle trip away. Honestly, it's one of the most unbelievable things I’ve ever seen.
In fact, I’d dare say that this entire country is unbelievable. I’m serious, you need to see it to believe it. Part of me can’t believe this is a real place. And I’m not just talking about cycling infrastructure or planning. Let’s separate my love for cycling out of this equation entirely. The Netherlands might be too perfect. I’d equate it to an entire country being like Winnetka. Even Barrington Hills isn’t up to Dutch standards. Literally every blade of grass seems to be perfect. Every tree is manicured, and every garden flush with blooming flowers. Every house is perched next to a quaint canal, with water flowing over the locks nearby. The driveway is a perfectly flat gravel plain. Every town has a beautiful downtown, just like Naperville. In the past two days, I’ve cycled over 80 miles and have yet to find a single section of this country that does not seem immaculate. This is truthfully the first place I’ve ever been that seems overall wealthier than the US. I don’t think its GDP per capita is as high, but being here, it sure does seem like the Dutch have a lot more money than the average US citizen. Germany and Austria are wealthy countries but don’t seem as overall wealthy as the United States. The Netherlands, on the other hand, just feels significantly wealthier and more prosperous.
Speaking honestly, it might be TOO perfect. Almost uncanny at times, if even scary. I know this sounds stupid, but I’m nearly frightened that a country like this exists. Like I don’t think it should, it's as if some ungodly freak of nature has made it possible. The Dutch themselves certainly fit this bill too. They all speak great English (even in the middle of nowhere- and trust me, I’ve gone off the tourist path) and are incredibly nice. They’re also all white. There is some diversity here, but compared to Germany it's nothing. According to official statistics, over 81% of the population is ethnic Dutch (white). It’s just eerily homogeneous, and perfect. It’s almost as if the Netherlands is propped up by some grand illusion or something. Like the Wizard of Oz. When the curtain is pulled back, what will you find?
Anyway, here’s the recap of my days spent around Utrecht and Amersfoort (I’m writing this section after returning to Vienna). On the first day, I arrived at Utrecht Central and had to navigate to my hotel through the Netherlands’ absolutely horrendous user experience of a public transit system. My hotel was a large conference center in the small town of Soesterberg, directly between Amersfoort and Utrecht. The Netherlands turned out to be extremely difficult to find Hostels, and not only difficult but very expensive. This massive conference hotel (and it was huge) seemed mostly empty and surprisingly had OK room rates when I booked it about a month and a half in advance. But I must have been the only young person in the entire building and the one with the lowest budget. When I checked in, the concierge (who spoke perfect English) was surprised I was even staying there. It turned out to be a good place to rest in the middle of a rather hectic travel experience. I think in the future, if I do more solo travel, I’ll make sure to book a hotel room for a night or two every once in a while to get some solid sleep. Staying in hostels constantly doesn’t help with getting enough rest and recuperation to continue on a weekslong expedition.
The other big perk of the hotel was its free coffee (from a coffee machine) and free cookies (they were small biscuit-like things). I think the cookies were only supposed to be a small treat for guests, but I must’ve eaten about a hundred over two days (I’m not proud of it). The Netherlands is crazy expensive with food, so I only ate out once while there. The rest of the time, I would go to any nearby grocery store and buy whatever was cheapest. Or, in the case of my hotel in Soesterberg, grab dozens of cookies to snack on throughout the day. After arriving at my hotel, I walked to the town of Soesterberg. Which, like every Dutch town, looked like Naperville. A perfectly manicured main street, a new public park, etc. The town (and my hotel) were nestled in the woods between Utrecht and Amersfoort. These woods contain one of the Netherlands' national parks, although I’d consider it only a bit better than a forest preserve back home. Soesterberg had its Easter festival going at the time of my stay. A classic carnival layout with rides and fried food, and plenty of people milling about late into the night (The sun set at 8:40 as well, and this is in early April). I walked to the nearest grocery store and bought a meal of smoked salmon, fish salad, and bread. This was a common meal for me in the Netherlands because of their amazing fish. And it's generally rather cheap, which is perfect for a traveler on a budget. The fish salads, in particular, were a favorite of mine.
The following day, I rented a bike from my hotel and traveled to Amersfoort nearby. I needed to do my laundry that day because I was about halfway through my journey. To my surprise, the hotel didn’t have any laundry facilities. That meant I had to load all of my clothes into my backpack, bike the 25 minutes to the laundromat in Amersfoort, do my laundry, and then bike back to the hotel with my clean clothes. I didn’t mind it too much because along the road to Soesterberg were some of the most incredible houses. Modern villas and old-timey manors mixed together, probably all worth multi-million euros. In Amersfoort, I biked around the city for a bit before parking my bike and deciding to go on a tour of the city’s bell tower. It’s a massive structure, built in the late 1400s. It’s part of a series of Dutch bell towers, one in Utrecht and another pair in Amsterdam. On a clear day, you can see them all (sadly I did not have a super clear day). The tour was entirely in Dutch, so I didn’t get much out of it. Although I generally could kinda figure out what was going on. Dutch is a related language to German, so I sometimes know what’s being said- but it’s really hard. The bell tower has no elevator (of course), so to get to the top we had to ascend a few hundred windy, time-weathered steps. While up there, we were able to listen to the bells ring out their chime, which is SO much louder when you’re right next to them. Now you may be asking, where’s the church to go along with the bell tower? Well, that actually blew up during the Dutch war for independence. The Dutch protestant rebels decided to store munitions in the old gothic cathedral (I think we can see where this is going). They lit on fire, and the entire cathedral blew up. Now there’s a nice pedestrian plaza there, with restaurants set up on the perimeter.
After the bell tower tour, I walked to the main square to visit the Easter Market. It was a lively market with plenty of free snacks (my main reason for going there as per usual). Amersfoort was probably the prettiest Dutch city I visited and the one with the fewest international tourists. It still was flush with rich Dutch locals, though. Like every Dutch city, its main pedestrian street was lined with expensive name brands. Fashion, technology, a really expensive cycling shop, etc. After walking around the old town, I got back on my bike and decided to formulate the goal of reaching the old shores of the sea. The north sea at one time went all the way inland towards just north of Amersfoort. But over time, the Dutch have tamed the vast sea and created a series of enormous freshwater lakes (I’ve put a map of the Netherlands below to illustrate this).
Onetime coastal towns are now dozens of miles from any saltwater port. Yet, the remains of the old dikes designed to hold back the ocean are still visible. So from Amersfoort, I traveled to Nijkerk, and then from Nijkerk north to what I had believed to be a nice inland beach (where the sea once stopped). There I planned to eat a small snack and turn around. Once I reached the beach, however, I quickly realized it was a nude beach. After a moment of embarrassment, I turned around and continued cycling to a spot overlooking the river/canal where I resigned to eat.
My way back to my hotel was a hilarious disaster. Upon reentering Nijkerk I was thrown into the city’s annual Easter half-marathon. It reminded me vividly of when we were caught as a family in a cycling race in Utah (but without altitude sickness problems later). I literally couldn’t escape the town without running back into the race or getting yelled at by a race coordinator for biking on the race path (which was the main cycle route to Amersfoort). Eventually, after a choice swear or two at the predicament I found myself in, I forced myself to go back the way I came and around Nijkerk, instead of through it. A pretty big detour that left me exhausted by the time I returned to the hotel. A ride of around 50 miles by bike for one day and all on an upright Dutch bike.
The following day I left the huge conference hotel and traveled by bus to my hostel on the outskirts of Utrecht. This hostel might be the prettiest I’ve ever stayed in and in the prettiest setting. It’s an old country manor in Utrecht’s massive manor/garden park on the edge of the city (near the small town of Bunnik). It was definitely a hostel in an old manor, though. There wasn’t much in the way of modern comforts like electrical outlets (only two in a room with eight beds). That day in Utrecht, I went on another long bike ride with a rented bike from the hostel (it was also pretty terrible). I biked around the national park between Utrecht and Amersfoort, as well as the ever-wealthy Dutch countryside. Perfect farms with a massive house equipped with solar panels- check. Huge fenced estate with two dozy dogs snoozing in the lawn- check. Rural roads lined with a perfect line of trees on either side- check. Town centers out of some immaculate design booklet- check. Castle gardens manicured to perfection- check.
Along the ride, I decided to stop by the monument to the Battle of Austerlitz, directly outside the town of the same name. The famous battle of Austerlitz was actually not fought here but instead in modern-day Czechia. The monument was constructed by Napoleon's army before their departure toward Austria. I expected to find a sobering war memorial there but instead found an entire Napoleonic-themed fairground complete with people dressed in early 19th-century uniforms. The pyramid itself had a four Euro entrance fee to walk up to the top, which I declined to do. That was a common issue in the Netherlands for me. Most of the museums are very high priced and do not include a student discount, as is common in Germany and Austria. So a lot of my time in the Netherlands was spent outside biking around, hiking, walking through towns, or spending time on the beach rather than at attractions or museums. After another day of exhausting bike riding (This time I really was absolutely exhausted), I spent the evening eating another meal of Dutch food. This time trying the Dutch specialty of liver pate. The Dutch love their ground-up meats, especially liver pate. I’m not the biggest fan, but you can’t beat the price of 50 cents for a literal log of the stuff.
The following day I spent time around the city of Utrecht. I biked into the city in the morning and into its famous three-story underground bike parking garage. Before then being yelled at by some Dutch worker there for not checking in and out of the garage correctly. Anyway. . . that same day I rented a kayak and kayaked around the city’s canals for an hour or two. I’d definitely recommend something like this if anyone ever goes to the Netherlands. Paddling the canals gives a cool lower perspective of a city. You also get to say hi to the dozens of pigeons roosting underneath the bridges, and ask them politely not to take a dump on you!
Kayaking the canals
My final day in Utrecht was spent once again on a long bike ride. This time with the goal of seeing the fairytale castle of De Haar. Along the way, I cycled through the newest neighborhoods of Utrecht. They really are something to behold. Absolutely perfect houses, amazing urban plazas, and brand-new train stations. There are even multi-million euro houseboats lining the canals.
The castle itself is probably the coolest I’ve ever seen. It looked like something right out of King Arthur. It’s actually a rather modern building, built in 1892 partially from the Rothschilds fortune. Here are a ton of photos below.
Along the way back to my hostel, I passed by more perfect Dutch towns and countryside estates (which I think are basically once every half-mile in the Netherlands). By the time I got into downtown Utrecht, it was around five in the afternoon. Rush hour. It was absolutely insane. Even for an experienced cyclist like me, I was downright pretty scared of the whole experience. Literally, thousands of people cycling, everyone going in different directions, and an annoying amount of people not signaling when turning. I guess it’d be like driving the Kennedy, but if all the lane markings suddenly disappeared (then again some drivers already drive that way).
And less you think that this system works flawlessly because the Dutch are just better cyclists and more adapted to it, no. On my way back to my hostel I witnessed a tram run full-steam into a guy on a motorbike. Fortunately he didn't get sucked under the tram (I don't even want to imagine what that would be like), but the cruch of his motorbike under the front of the tram still sits vividly with me. He didn't pay attention to the crossing guard (which isn't uncommon here) and paid for it. He got up and walked away, but only after suffering a serious concussion, I'd say. After traversing through rush hour in Utrecht, I collapsed into bed to wake up the next day and take the train to my second-to-final destination: Haarlem. We’ll end the Journey to the Sea series with one final post about Haarlem and Amsterdam, and the return journey.
