Thoughts about Holland vol.10.
2006.08.05
Utrecht - De Kerkenstad
Hello, as you see I became a real pro of publishing pictures, Picasa is a smart program I can only recommend ;)
Yesterday I was going to Utrecht, fourth biggest city in NL. Here for the first time I really felt that this is a big city despite the old small traditional houses. Somehow the canals and the streets are wider, therefore you have some space and of course more light is able to reach through the narrowly built houses.
Amazing, because Utrecht also was within an hour reach by train, so by this time you get the picture that everything is REALLY close to each other.
The train station (rather ugly I would say.... it could catch up with some nice Hungarian mature socialist design..) is just connected to an enourmous shopping mall. Wow that is a big one! Imagine something like Shopping City Süd in Vienna, but in the center of the city. I almost felt like at Schiphol....tall lounges, huge stores..
After a long walk I could get out of the mall, and saw the shopping streets and the usual saturday market, here really saturday is shopping day. The streets were crowded, everyone was out to do shopping or just to have lunch or a coffee at the canal, since the weather today was really nice, not rainy at all. I really fancy the crowd, for this moment I was so grateful to see people. Suddenly I felt alive, just like at the carneval. By this time I think I really start to miss the big city which I am used to. The busy city inspires me a lot.
The canals in Utrecht are very special because they have two levels. In the past when they built the big dykes the level of the water suddenly dropped and the embankments of the river were too high. So they started to build an additional embankment just right under the other one. Imagine the same as in Budapest but in a really small and narrow edition. (see everything is realative...Utrecht is huge compared to Delft, but a small twon compered to Budapest) So the lower embankment is full of nice restaurants and cafés, and there were all busy!! There are also some specialty coffee or tea stores downstairs, even hairdresser and others. And what is more, what I really really liked is that the inner city is full with trees!!! Their shadow was refreshing in the sun. (although have to admit that this probably doesn't happen too often...so I guess they protect from the rain)
They call Utrecht Kerkenstad, which means the city of churches. Certainly as walking through the inner city once in a while I bumped into a church, and could not even follow which one is which. I took a closer look at the Janskerk, the biggest one, with the tall bell tower (Domtoren). I wanted to go up the tower but they were a lot of people the and I wa not sure if it was so extremely special and different from other church towers, so I skipped that. (I think I saw and climbed quite a few church towers ...)
Instead I was really curious to see the Rietveld Schröder Huis. Gerrit Rietveld was a dutch architect, and he is famous for the red-blue chair, and the zig-zag chair. He designed this house for a friend of his, a rich widow at the edge of the city in the 20s. Apart from the extremely simplistic appearance of the house there are sooo many small details which make the house livable. It was always altered whenever the lady had a new wish to make it more comfortable. The basic idea is somewhere the same as at the Casa Battló in Barcelona. But what a difference the appearance! Here you can always be busy with transforming the house, which is definitely good, always adjust it to your needs. Otherwise it was surprising how small the house was. I have always thought is as somehow bigger. This was a really exciting tour! ANd besides that I was more than pleased about the service I got for my 13euro ticket. (Casa Battló price.. :) ) Here there was a student reduction!!! The ticket was actually a combi ticket for the Centraal Museum (which keeps the biggest collection of Rietveld furniture in the world) and the Rietveld house. Moreover I was invited to have a cup of coffee in the bar of the museum. (luckily an Italian one..) AND there was a shuttle bus with tour guide to the Rietveld house, because it is located in the outer districts.
Nice day... and for a while this was my last weekend alone :)))) next weekend my parents are coming, after that Adri is going to drop by from Düsseldorf, and in the end of August Kristóf is also coming over!! Really cool, I am sooo much looking forward to speed up my life here! Already planning what to do and where to go:))
But that's it for now, I have a lot to do.
Take care, the best.
puszi
J
2006.08.05
Utrecht - De Kerkenstad
Hello, as you see I became a real pro of publishing pictures, Picasa is a smart program I can only recommend ;)
Yesterday I was going to Utrecht, fourth biggest city in NL. Here for the first time I really felt that this is a big city despite the old small traditional houses. Somehow the canals and the streets are wider, therefore you have some space and of course more light is able to reach through the narrowly built houses.
Amazing, because Utrecht also was within an hour reach by train, so by this time you get the picture that everything is REALLY close to each other.
The train station (rather ugly I would say.... it could catch up with some nice Hungarian mature socialist design..) is just connected to an enourmous shopping mall. Wow that is a big one! Imagine something like Shopping City Süd in Vienna, but in the center of the city. I almost felt like at Schiphol....tall lounges, huge stores..
After a long walk I could get out of the mall, and saw the shopping streets and the usual saturday market, here really saturday is shopping day. The streets were crowded, everyone was out to do shopping or just to have lunch or a coffee at the canal, since the weather today was really nice, not rainy at all. I really fancy the crowd, for this moment I was so grateful to see people. Suddenly I felt alive, just like at the carneval. By this time I think I really start to miss the big city which I am used to. The busy city inspires me a lot.
The canals in Utrecht are very special because they have two levels. In the past when they built the big dykes the level of the water suddenly dropped and the embankments of the river were too high. So they started to build an additional embankment just right under the other one. Imagine the same as in Budapest but in a really small and narrow edition. (see everything is realative...Utrecht is huge compared to Delft, but a small twon compered to Budapest) So the lower embankment is full of nice restaurants and cafés, and there were all busy!! There are also some specialty coffee or tea stores downstairs, even hairdresser and others. And what is more, what I really really liked is that the inner city is full with trees!!! Their shadow was refreshing in the sun. (although have to admit that this probably doesn't happen too often...so I guess they protect from the rain)
They call Utrecht Kerkenstad, which means the city of churches. Certainly as walking through the inner city once in a while I bumped into a church, and could not even follow which one is which. I took a closer look at the Janskerk, the biggest one, with the tall bell tower (Domtoren). I wanted to go up the tower but they were a lot of people the and I wa not sure if it was so extremely special and different from other church towers, so I skipped that. (I think I saw and climbed quite a few church towers ...)
Instead I was really curious to see the Rietveld Schröder Huis. Gerrit Rietveld was a dutch architect, and he is famous for the red-blue chair, and the zig-zag chair. He designed this house for a friend of his, a rich widow at the edge of the city in the 20s. Apart from the extremely simplistic appearance of the house there are sooo many small details which make the house livable. It was always altered whenever the lady had a new wish to make it more comfortable. The basic idea is somewhere the same as at the Casa Battló in Barcelona. But what a difference the appearance! Here you can always be busy with transforming the house, which is definitely good, always adjust it to your needs. Otherwise it was surprising how small the house was. I have always thought is as somehow bigger. This was a really exciting tour! ANd besides that I was more than pleased about the service I got for my 13euro ticket. (Casa Battló price.. :) ) Here there was a student reduction!!! The ticket was actually a combi ticket for the Centraal Museum (which keeps the biggest collection of Rietveld furniture in the world) and the Rietveld house. Moreover I was invited to have a cup of coffee in the bar of the museum. (luckily an Italian one..) AND there was a shuttle bus with tour guide to the Rietveld house, because it is located in the outer districts.
Nice day... and for a while this was my last weekend alone :)))) next weekend my parents are coming, after that Adri is going to drop by from Düsseldorf, and in the end of August Kristóf is also coming over!! Really cool, I am sooo much looking forward to speed up my life here! Already planning what to do and where to go:))
But that's it for now, I have a lot to do.
Take care, the best.
puszi
J
posted by Juli at 9:57 AM
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