Day 9 - The day we saw a tower...and a duck!
Today was a transit day from Gouda to Utrecht. We rolled through the Dutch countryside, marvelling at the fields and the polders as we went. The scenery is really like it all came out of a storybook! The green, the cows, the fields, and the rich blue sky are nearly straight out one of those children's golden books! Our distance today was 42 km and they all went down so quickly, we hardly noticed them go by.
We stopped for lunch in a city called Woerden, which houses a beautiful church and an ACTUAL castle, Kasteel Woerden. We took pictured of both after grabbing a bite to eat at a local Doener kebap shop/halaal butchery. It's Sunday in a European country, and that means basically NOTHING is open. I realize this may be a foreign concept to most Americans so: basically most shops, restaurants, stores, etc are closed on Sundays. Sundays are for family and church. Need to go shopping on a Sunday? Forget it! You should have gone yesterday! Everything is closed. You'll find a few lotto places open for an emergency, and you'll be able to find a few coffee shops, cafes, and food to go spots. That's just how it works. I think it's a wonderful system. People are out recreating and visiting relatives today. They are drinking wine on their decks and doing outdoor chores. They are taking the day to make sure their lives are in harmony with their environment.
While in Woerden we noticed a GIANT blow up duck in the pond next to the castle moat. It turns out that this is "Woerdy" the Woerden duck, of course. He's just chilling out there on a dock, wearing his Fonzy get-up without the leather jacket and giving a thumbs up. "Aaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyy!"
We walked into Woerden after slurping down some delicious doener kebab and got a look at the church square. There is a curious memorial to printers that we took a picture of for later inspection, and there were cafes around the square open. We capped off our stay in Woerden with a delicious coffee and got back on the way to Utrecht.
We could tell that we were nearing the city of Utrecht as the nature faded slowly into the horizon behind us. We crossed the Rhine river and found our hotel in short fashion. We are holed up in a hotel right over near the central train station, which is currently under renovation. We are centrally located, but it's challenging to get around with the construction going on. Jessi and I made our way into the old city for the evening. Utrecht is very very old. It was first settled by the Romans as a frontier forts. They named it Traiectum or "River Crossing" for its place along the Rhine river. The Roman name carried over into the Dutch language as "trecht" (crossing) and the "U" from "uu" became an "overcrossing," hence: the name Utrecht. During the Holy Roman Empire, it was the prince-bishopric of a region, ruled over by the Catholic bishops. Utrecht was and is a religious capital in the Netherlands. After the time of the Holy Roman Empire (short period for Utrecht) a secular government supplanted the bishop and religious leaders. Utrecht has thrived and sprawled.
Some remnants of ages past remain in the city. Most notable among them is the Dom Tor (Cathedral Tower). The people in Utrecht built a large tower with carrilon with the intention of connecting it to the nearby cathedral as the corning achievement of the cathedral They did so, but it was knocked down by a tornado before it was completed, seperating the tower from the cathedral. A sign from their god maybe? it was decided to leave the tower as is. According to a story I heard, homosexual men met in the rubble of the cathedral portion, and some were caught and prosecuted under ancient and hateful laws. Today, there is a memorial to those men in the place where the rubble once lay.
There are also traces of the original Roman fort, which are under ground and may be explored....any day other than Sunday. So, we missed that unfortunately.
We found the Academy of Engineers for the University of Utrecht, which has a really awesome spherical monument in front of it called "Sol." The monument represents one billionth of the size of the sun and was installed in 1993.
Jessi and I wandered around the city and found an ancient looking water tower, which resembled a fairy-tale castle tower in the middle of town. It sits right in the middle of a street and is being converted into office/living space currently. One or two people live inside right now.
We wandered back to the Oudegracht (old canal) and found a lovely Pannekoeken (pancake) restaurant down on the bottom level of the medieval canal. We had an absolutely lovely dinner of pancakes and Dutch beer and then walked back to the hotel to turn in for the big ride tomorrow! Tomorrow we're looking forward to our stop in Amersfoort, where the medieval town walls still stand!
