Utrecht; Saturday, 08 August, 2020

Breakfast at the hotel was still a buffet – but it was no longer help-yourself, instead the chef was behind Perspex serving everyone from the buffet counter! After breakfast I headed out of the hotel and wandered over to the bus station on the opposite side of the railway station to pick up the museum bus. This is a regular public bus service that just happens to run in a loop round the city centre taking in most of the main museums. Thankfully, for my benefit, roadworks in the city meant that it had to make a detour off of its normal route taking it even closer to my first stop of the morning that it normally would, the Spoorwegmuseum (Dutch Railway Museum).

The museum is housed in a former grand station, located on the edge of the city. Over time the Centraal station took more prominence and this station, whilst still grand, became a quiet backwater and was eventually closed to normal traffic. Eventually it was turned into the country’s railway museum, though still being connected to the rail network it is now served by a shuttle train that runs from Centraal station to the museum when it’s open – though I only found that out once I’d gotten to the museum!

I spent a long time wandering round the museum and it’s various exhibits. The main hall of the museum is used for rotating exhibitions and the display that was on when I visited was dedicated to food on trains, from the grand dining carriages of Pullman and Wagon Lits down to café cars and even a Belgium Bar Disco carriage that included a tiny – and I suspect quite jolty – dance floor.

I managed to time my visit perfectly and I finished looking round the museum just in time to catch the train from the centre of the museum site back to Centraal station. From there I walked, in air-conditioned coolness, through the big shopping centre over to the old town and on to the cathedral.

I had a look around the cathedral, which is a weirdly shaped building, until you realise that there is a large chunk missing. In storms in the 17th century one whole section of the nave from the central cross to the cathedral tower collapsed and has never been rebuilt. Where the central cross should be there’s now a giant wall across the east-west transept forming the outer wall of the cathedral leaving the cathedral tower standing by itself on the other side of the square.

Having looked round the cathedral I quickly popped into the tourist information centre to exchange my eTicket for the evening tour up the cathedral tower for the actual ticket and to get instructions on where to meet. I then headed back through town to the old canal and to the ticket office of the local company offering canal tours to exchange that eTicket for a tour ticket.

I’d booked onto a 90 minute tour of the canals, that took in the main old canal and the outer canal that follows the line of the old city fortifications, forming an almost complete moat around the centre of the city. The tour was very interesting with a small group of passengers and a captain who was giving out lots of additional information to that on the pre-recorded commentary (it helped that all the guests spoke English, so there was lots of time in the gaps where the Dutch, French and German commentary would be broadcast.)

Tour completed I headed over to one of the cafes by the side of the canal for a very late lunch and then went for a bit more of a wander through the old town. I was booked onto a evening tour up the cathedral tower, and as I had a bit of time to spare, and was dripping sweat from walking round in the baking heat, I headed back to the hotel to have a quick shower and change of clothes before heading back out for a dinner in a restaurant beneath the Domtoren.

My tour up the cathedral tower was at 20:30 which meant by the time we reached the top it would be perfect timing to get some views of the city and surrounding countryside bathed in the last light of the day. It’s possible to take an hour long tour up the inside of the tower during the day. The tour includes 465 steps to the top – and hopefully the same number back down. In the evening you can take the much more sedate lift tour, that utilises the builders lifts strapped to the side of the scaffolding to ascend to the top of the tower and take in the views.

The views were indeed impressive – coupled with the clear evening and the sunset it meant it was possible to make out the towers and skyscrapers of Amsterdam on the horizon. After some time taking photos we all had to get back into the lift and descend back down to street level. Back down on the ground I had a bit more of a wander through the old town in the last light of the day, before heading back to the hotel and turning in for the night.