Utrecht
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Utrecht is the 4th city of the Netherlands, with close to 300.000 inhabitants. It's positioned right in the centre and has the biggest railway-hub of the country.
Utrecht is a historic city. the history goes all the way back to the Romans. In medieval time Utrecht was the biggest city of the country. Nowadays this city has a big historic inner-city with lots of monumental churches and some unique canals (the city it trying to get them on the world heritage list). Utrecht is also known for modern architecture. There are also some modernist and Postmodernist landmarks in Utrecht.
Since Utrecht has the largest University of the country the city houses around 60.000 students and is known as a university city. The international University College gives the city also an international feel. The presence of the students is very well felt in the inner-city with a lot of bars, arthouses, clubs and festivities all through the summer. If you like to go out, Utrecht has a very historic / medieval city-centre with serveral worth while museums. The city has a lot of history and modern culture and a lively art gallerie / theatre and music scene. It's known for it's contemporary arts, movies, musical and historic festivals.
Outside of the city there is a lot of interesting nature. On the east of the city there are hilly-forests and an area with a lot of 19th century fortresses, on the north a few big lakes, on the west a big area with polders and on the south some big and some smaller rivers. There are options for water recreation, biking, hiking, and even for bird lovers there are several areas worth while for spotting.
From Utrecht there are good connections with the rest of the country by train or car. Amsterdam, Rotterdam and the Hague take about 40 minutes by train, all other cities in the Randstad are less then 1 hour by train. More remote cities like Maastricht and Groningen take only 2 hours.
A lot more info about travelling to Utrecht, tourist attractions, bars and restaurants can be found at Writing Travellers. Here you find a printable version of its Utrecht guide.
Contents |
Meetings & events
CS-Meetings
There is a monthly meeting every last friday of the month in cafe Averechts Besides that there a allways a lot of other meetings sceduled like gamesmeetings, going to concerts, birthdays, just hanging out in bars without a particular reason and of course the notorious Gigswapping and Midsummernight. Utrecht has a big and active group of couchsurfers. If you post you'll be in a bar, big chance a lot of people will show up. For more info check the Utrecht group.
For pictures of Cs-meetings, check the CS-Utrecht Flickr-account
Other Events
- Cultural sundays, every now and then the municipality fills the sunday with nice free cultural events, check the link for when and where.
- Every friday: skeelering/skating event in summer, from the Jaarbeursplein: u-skateparade.nl/ Skating and skeelering are really good around Utrecht, because of te smooth bikepaths, a lot of them seperate from the main road / car lanes.
- sept 1 De Beschaving, popmusic and more
- sept 14 Utrecht Uitfeest, the opening of the cultural season
- sept 24 - okt 3 The Dutch movie festival
- autumn 2008 Popronde, free concerts all around the city
- november 2008 Smartlappen festival, a festival full of typical Dutch 'teajerkers'
- feb. 2009 Mooie woorden, liturature festival
- 2nd easterday: the Jaarbeursmarathon
- April 29 and April 30: Queensnight and Queensday: the whole country goes orange in the celebration of the birthday of the Queen. Utrecht is allways very crowded, filled with a 2nd hands market, funfair, a lot of concerts, and people in orange going crazy.
- May 5 Liberation day, music and more
- Spring 2009 tweetakt festival, an experimental theaterfestival for young theatermakers
- Spring 2009 Springdance festival, a festival of dance-preformance
- Spring 2009 Bluesroute Utrecht
- Spring 2009 Impakt festival
- Spring 2009 The Theater [www.festivalaandewerf.nl/ festival 'aan de werf']
- Spring 2009 Counter Culture, a free festival with underground culture
- June 2009 Midzomergracht, a midsummergayfestival on the canal
- summer 2009 The Parade, an outside theater-circus
- summer 2009 Musical Boatparade, a sunday filled with music played from boats in the canals of Utrecht.
- summer 2009 Summer Darkness, a 3-day festival throughout the whole city about gothic music and lifestyle.
Getting around
Train
Utrecht is the trainhub of the Netherlands, most Dutch cities are reachable within on hour. There are 3 smaller trainstations. Check the timetables in [www.ns.nl here].
Bike
THE way to get around in Utrecht. Everyone uses bikes all the time (so be carefull for them!). Most hosts can teach you how to ride along on the back on them.
- A good way to see Utrecht is to rent a bike. All the guarded bikestands around the trainstation also rent bikes for around 7 euro's a day. Outside the trainstation you can rent bikes in here and here.
- Good bikeroutes through the province of Utrecht can be found in knooppuntenplanner, it is in Dutch but not hard to understand.
- Don't forget to lock your bike, stealing of bikes is a big problem throughout the Netherlands.
Walking
The historic centre of Utrecht is the ideal size to walk in. If you just want to stroll around and see old buildings, go to the southern part of the medieval city, this has the best onspoiled and smallscale size. If you want to go shopping, stay on the north, this is the shopping area, just next to the big shopping streets there are streets with very cool alternative shops.
Bus
There are a lot of buslines that cover the whole of the city. Most busses run 'till after midnight. Check the buslines in here.
Tram
There is just one small tramway in Utrecht. It goes from the station to Kanaleneiland, Nieuwegein and IJsselstein.
Car
Not advisable in the city-centre. The centre has a lot of small and narrow roads and is made very hard to reach by the government. Parking can also be quite expensive in the centre. More environmentfriendly ways of transport work better in Utrecht.
Hitchhiking
Utrecht is quite friendly to hitchhikers, Utrecht is also a highway hub with good connections to Amsterdam, The Hague, Antwerp, Eindhoven, etc, some good spots can be found in here
Necessities
Route
- On the trainstation you can find blue computer that can print out routes for free
- There are several maps of Utrecht availeble at bookstores and tourist offices, sadly free maps are really hard to find.
Internetcafe's
- In the multicultural area's jus outside of the centre there are a lot of phonehouses that also provide cheap internetservice (about 1 euro an hour). Several can be found on the Damstraat and Amsterdamsestraatweg.
- WZZRD: an gaming basement right in the centre
police
the central office Paardenveld:
food
Organic
supermarkets:
In the centre you can find them here, here, [1] and here.
Restaurants and Fast Food
- In the Donkerstraat you find a bar with good quality fruitshakes and other organic snacks.
- De oude Muntkelder: for the typical Dutch pancakes
- Theehuis Rhijauwen, you can eat pancakes in here on a beautifull natural area, close to the university and just next to the youth hostel of stayokay. The restaurant is a perfect option when you go canooing on the 'Kromme Rijn'.
- Ekko has a very well priced vegetarian menu on thursday and friday, reservations are needed
- Olivier: a big Belgian bar in an old Church. Allthough it is big it is also really popular so it can be really crowded. For just drinking a beer it is mostly to crowded.
- De Werfkring, a nice vegetarian restaurant down by the canal.
accomodation
Utrecht houses quite a lot of couchsurfers while Utrecht is a relatively unknown city to the tourist-crowds. Therefore it is very easy to find a couch in Utrecht. A lot of people will reply to couchrequests within a few hours.
want more guests?
Like everywhere, also in Utrecht couchsurfers are not evenly distributed over hosts. more experienced Cs-members mostly get the most guests. If you want to have more guests you can put your profilename here:
Let's say you cannot find a couch in Utrecht (we are talking theoreticly here), this is the best option to go to:
Strowis
For lovers of nature, right outside Utrecht, in a beautifull area with a river and forest there is also a hostel situated in a beautifull countryhouse.
Permanent accomodation
When you've found out Utrecht is so cool that you actually want to live there, watch out; due to the popularity of the city housing is expensive and hard to find. Insane prices are being payd for rent.
- More info about housing for Utrecht University students can be found in here. This site is provided by Utrecht University and it has some practical informations about visas, residence permits, accomodation...whatever you want
- The SSHU is a social housing organisation that provides so called 'short stay solutions'. They own several buildings in the city where they house mostly students. Opions on them change, but they are mostly the only option.
- The Utrecht group could help finding a room, but there is no garantee.
- There are several commercial websites that could help like kamertje.nl kamerhulp.nl and kamernet.nl. Most is in Dutch, but that doesn´t have to be hard to understand.
Good luck!
Nightlife
For a actual view of nightlife in Utrecht you should always check the [www.uitloper.nl Uitloper], which is a weekly guide containing the movie schedule, concerts and other nightlife-events. The paper version is available in most bars (check close to the exit or around the toilet area, it's a long folded piece of paper usually in a stand hanging on the wall). It's Of couse you could check the [www.uitloper.nl website] in advance (click Podia for nightlife events).
Bars
- Averechts, outside of the 'official' city centre, but still very close. It is a bar run by volunteers, which means a friendly atmosphere, good beer an fair prices. We just started to have monthly meeting in this bar, it could develop to being the Utrech Cs-zone.
- Belgie: the biggest collection of Belgian beer ever and a relax, alternative atmosphere
- Ledig Erf: The place to be on the terras when the sun shines
- Dorstig hart: a cozy place in a quiet part of the old centre, is used sevaral times for couchsurf-meetings
- Tilt: a cool place with funky music and a lot of games, is used occasionally for couchsurf-meeting
- Oude Pothuis: Live music everynight and a small restaurant in a small, old place
Concerts
- Tivoli: a lot of famous bands played here
- Ekko: for the indie-bands
- ACU: the anarchist-club with a lot of punkmusic
- SJU: a jazzclub with allways cool funkbands on friday
Cinema
- 't Hoogt: a small arthouse
- Springhaver: a arthouse with a cozy bar & restaurant
- Louis Hartloper complex: a big arthouse in a historic police office
For the program of all the cinema's look here
Clubbing
All the concerthalls mentioned above have good nights with dj's in a lot of different, mostly alternative, styles. Dj's with a more popular / commercial style are mentioned below:
- Filemon : Free entrance. Dancing on thursday, friday and saturday till late. Can be crowded and there can be a line outside! Popular music played by a DJ.
- Gras van de buren: Free entrance. Dancing on friday and saturday till late. Popular music played by a DJ.
- Dikke Dries: Free entrance. Thursday, friday and saturday from around 10 o'clock. Mostly party-music, typical dutch folk, classic oldies and popular house. If you're up for beers, singing (or shouting) along and dancing, this is good for you.
- Hofman Cafe: Right next to Filemon. Grand Cafe during daytime, dancing at night in the weekends. Try the cocktailnight (almost every Wednesday). Several cocktails for 3,50 euro's. Check the 'Agenda' section on the site to see if there's a cocktailnight and what cocktails are cheap that week.
- Havana: Right across the street from Dikke Dries. Also free entrance, dancing from around 10 o'clock. Try the cocktailbar in the back, Mojito's and Long Island Ice Teas here are pretty good (about 6 euro's).
- Heerenplein: DJ's on thursday-saturday. Mondaynight is student night with beers for only 1,25 euro. You'll need some sort of student card to get in!
Very close to Heerenplein are several bars on the Nobelstraat like De Kneus, Het Pandje and De Zotte. They can be pretty crowded and stay open till very late.
Sights and activities
Tourist spots
- The medieval historic city with a lot of churches, the unique warfs and canals and of course the big Gothic Dom church and Tower
- Musea (amongst others a trainmuseum, artmuseum, Aboriginal art museum, moneymuseum, sciencemuseum and the museum of Nijntje)
- the Gothic fake-castle de Haar and the pittoresque village of Haarzuilens
- modern architecture amongs others on de Uithof, Rietveld-schroderhuis. More about architecture in Utrecht in here
- Fortresses of the nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie
- Nature around Utrecht, like Amelisweerd (with an organic farm)
- Parks (best are: Wilhelminapark, Lepelenburg, Oog in Al and Griftpark)
more info here or at the tourist office which is located right next to the Dom-tower.
Sporting activities
- Canoeing on the Kromme Rijn
For more info check here
Shopping
A lot of Dutch people know Utrecht as a good city to shop in, for a big deal this is caused by 'Hoog Catharijne'; the big shopping mall around the trainstation which all people from Utrecht claim never to go to but is allways crowded. Best places for shopping are to be found outside of Hoog Catharijne. Keep an eye out for the small streets just next to the big shopping streets.
- Oudegracht: on the southside of the Oudegracht there are a lot of shops known as geekshops (games, fantasy, comics, etc).
- Voorstraat: this street has shown a lot of development in recent years. There are a lot of interesting Vintageshops in the nowadays.
- Kanaalstraat: The centre of the multicultural district Lombok, in here you can find all the Turkish and Marrokan food you want for excellent prices
- Near Neude there is a good shop with Travelbooks
- On the Oudegracht there is a big shop with professional Hiking gear
- The biggest market is on the central square of 'Vredenburg' on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
Background
History
Romans
The history of Utrecht goes back to the Romans. In those days the river Rhine was kind of a natural nothern barrier for the roman empire. The place where Utrecht is situated was located at a bend in the Rhine which was relatively easy to cross. Therefore on 47 AD the Romans built a fortress and called it 'Trajectum' (=crossing). The name Trajectum evolved into Utrecht. When the romans left northern Europe hardly anything was left in Utrecht.
Middle ages
In 670 Saint Willibrord arrived in Utrecht. He built a church on the former ground of the roman castellum, dedicated to Saint Martin. This chuch evolved to the present Dom Church. Utrecht became a centre of Baptisement and got filled with a lot of churches and monestries. The citizens had to protect themselves against invasions of the vikings on several occasions.
Long after the treat of the vikings, in 1122 Utrecht was granted city rights (among them the right to build a citywall). Utrecht was one of the first Dutch cities who got cityrights. The walled city was relatively big because there were a lot of monestries around Utrecht who also wanted to be within the citywall.
At the end of the middle ages Utrecht was one of the biggest cities in the Netherlands. Like all big cities the city tried to impress other with building a big cathedral. In Utrecht people started with it in 1254, and built on till 1517.
At the end of the middle ages the economy of Utrecht started to decline. The water level was more and more controlled in the west of the Netherlands and was lowered to be able to reclaim more land from the sea. In Utrecht this ment the level of the canals lowered to. People in Utrecht had to build warfs at the new water level. Cities in the west had a better position for the more and more internationalising trade and took over the position of Utrecht.
The Dutch republic (1588 - 1794)
One of the starting points of the war with Spain was the treaty of Utrecht where the provinces of the North declared to stick together against the Spanish leaders. The treaty got signed in the 'Kapittelzaal' a room next to the Domchurch which is now part of the university. The economic hart of the country came more and more to Holland, especially to Amsterdam. Utrecht became a university city in 1634, the second in the Netherlands, after Leiden.
The role of Utrecht as religeus centre changed quite a lot in this period. Allthough there was a freedom of thought in the Netherlands, it was not allowed anymore to practice Catholicism. The country was gouverned by protestants, allthough there were still a lot of Catholics everywhere. Utrecht was a city full of Catholics, but mainly under protestant rule. The Protestants liked to insult the Catholics. They for instance put a monument of sea hero Michiel de Ruijter on the most sacred place of the (very Catholic looking) Domchurch.
The Domchurch had a hard time in this period. This allready started around 1500 during the rise of the protestantism. Suddenly building big and expensive churches was not that popular anymore. It got quite hard to gain enough mony to finish the church. THe builders safed money on the construction. The connection of the chuch and tower was done in aquite poor way. So poor that a storm in 1674 was able to destroy the middle part. The protestant government didn't realy care and left the pieces laying on the ground, so a big part of the chuch became a ruin. A big scandal appeared on this spot in 1730, the autorities found out that the ruins had turned in to a meeting place for gays. After that the ruins were turned into an empty squire. This and other affairs concerning gays were the reason for a big iquisition against gays. Nowadays there is a stone an the Domsquire in which the local government tells that now gay people in Utrecht shouldn't be scared anymore to be persecuted. The city became so famous for this affair that Utrechtenaar (= to be from Utrecht) became synonymous for being gay. Nowadays people from Utrecht still refer themselves not as Utrechtenaar, but as Utrechter.
During the whole period of the Dutch republic Utrecht hardly developed. Around 1800 the cities was hardly bigger than 300 years before. Only around the 'bemuurde weerd' people were living outside of the city walls from the middle ages. Utrecht hardly profited from the huge weath in the west in the socalled 'Golden age of the Netherlands'. The only nearby influence were all the country-houses rich people from Amsterdam built in the period along the Vecht, on the north of Utrecht.
Industrialisation
In the 19th centre Utrecht started to grow again. The old city wall was removed and turned into a big romantic park. Utrecht became a centre of the Dutch railways and therefore interesting for Dutch companies. A lot of people from the poor countryside moved to Utrecht. In this period Utrecht gets diveded in rich and poor. In the middle ages the rich people were living along the rich canals and the poor on the alleyways next to them. Now the rich turned east to the higher regions, while most poor people settled on the swamplands in the west. This separation between rich and poor still largely exists.
Utrecht also became a place of militairy importance. The Dutch way of defending the country was with waterlines, pieces of land that would be flooded during invasions. In the 19th century a new waterline was created just to the east of Utrecht. The waterline was never used but it the reason that no houses were built on the far east of the city in this period. There are still a lot of fortresses on the east of Utrecht, a lot of them have cultural, artistic or touristic uses.
In the first half of the 20th centre Utrecht flourishes culturally. Utrecht was one of the leading cities of the modernist movement 'de stijl'. The Utrechter Gerrit Rietveld became very famous with his designs for, among others, chairs and houses. His 'Rietveld Schroderhouse' in Utrecht-east has entered the world heritage list.
A black page in the history of Utrecht, like most European places, is world war II. Utrecht was home to a lot of fascists. The Dutch Fascist party (NSB) had their headquarters in Utrecht on the Maliebaan.
Modernism and post-modernism
The city grew very fast after WOII. A lot of foreign workers were needed to do the dirty work. Utrecht became a multicaultural city with a lot of people from Turkey and Marokko. Modernist architects had a chance to realise a lot of their plans in the late 50s and 60s. In Kanaleneiland and Overvecht huge area's with skyscrapers appeared. These disctricts weren't very popular and slowly turned into migrant-area's. There were also a lot of plans to 'modernise' the city centre. The only part that was really built was the new trainstation with a big shopping mall. A lot of the old city was destroyed for this, even a part of the canal surrounding the medieval city. After that there was a evergrowing call to preserve what was left of the city centry. A lot of the old buildings where in decay but got renovated.
In the 60s the Dutch became a rich country. A lot of young people suddenly had money to study. The university of Utrecht turned into the biggest of the country. Utrecht became very crowded with students. all the students got a big impact on the city, Utrecht more and more turned into a culturally rich, leftish city. The university got to big for the city centre and most faculties turned to a new campus on the east of the city. After some standard modernist buildings, the university builds now mainly post-modern architectural landmarkt on the campus by famous Dutch architects like Rem Koolhaas.
A lot of ex-students stayed in Utrecht after graduation. The people from Utrecht have a relative high average education. A lot of them moved to the old 19th and early 20th century houses. Those houses were renovated and improved. Best example is the district of Lombok which was mainly inhabited with migrants, but has been Gentrified considerably. The central street of this dirstrict (Kanaalstraat) still houses mostly Turkish and Marokkan shops, but most people around are of Dutch origin.
Future
Utrecht keeps on growing and the popularity of the city makes the houses quite expensive. On the far west a new part of the called ' Leidsche Rijn' is being built. Leidsche Rijn is a combination of a lot of architectural styles and will house around 80.000 people.
Now the city is growing that much the trainstation is growing to small. The shopping-mall around it was never popular anyway. It was a political struggle of around 15 years to deceide what to do with it but now finally the work has started. It will take quite some years before the area around the trainstation will be organised again, but when it is finished there will be a new cultural music centre, all water in the canals will be back en there will be a lot of new appartment and offices around. Time will learn is Utrecht will be really betterlooking with it.
