Today we set off to Bruges in Belgium. Except when we got to the station there were no fast train tickets left and the other train would take 4 hours, arrive at midday and we’d have to leave at 3.30. Hmmm. Decided to get tickets for tomorrow. The only ones available are on the 6.15am via Brussels getting to Bruges just after 9am. Hmmm. Oh well, it will be an early start.

Instead of Bruges we went to Utrecht. (Yes it does matter if you sit in first class with a second class ticket! Being tourists we acted dumb – wasn’t an act – and he directed us out of the lovely leather seats we were enjoying!)

I’d heard Utrecht was worth a visit (from Niels I think). Well it certainly was. It was lovely. Closed, but lovely. It turns out that Utrecht opens at about 11am. Not sure where everyone is until then but they are not in the town. We had a lovely walk around. The area around the train station is very modern with a very large and new mall (closed) and a lot of redevelopment in the canals.

Then a bit further over you come to the old town and the cathedral and clock tower (under renovation) – both closed.

We found a cafe near the cathedral and ordered the Royale breakfast. By this time it was 10.30 and we were peckish. The Royale is the equivalent of the kiwi big breakfast Dutch style: croissant, baguette, bread, jam, yoghurt, salmon, capers, boiled egg, fresh squeezed orange juice and coffee.

Totally yum.

By 11 the cathedral was open. It is rather nice, especially with the a cappella (sp??) choir practising.

We had a good walk along the canals, which were by then inexplicably heaving with people all having coffee and food in the many cafes alongside.

The shops in the old part are excellent and it took some serious willpower to stay out of them. I’ve never seen so many types of sneakers in shops ever. Everyone wears sneakers of one variety or another and the range is amazing, as is the number of different stores. The clothes and other shops are also fab.

We then had a good look through the mall, which was also both open and busy. Again great shops. Just outside is a market and beside that is ‘restaurant street’ where the cafes back onto this beautiful inner courtyard garden. 

All totally lovely. We saw a sign that said something about Mozart and the neighbourhood being historic. We enjoyed wandering through.

We caught the 1.30 train back to Amsterdam and wandered through the town (inadvertently via the red light district, where stopped by the canal for a beer. That’s when we noticed we were in the red light distict!) on our way to Vondelpark. My cousin Carol had left a laptop at her hotel last September so I offered to go and see if it was still there.

Citymapper got us to Vondelpark by foot in pretty much a straight line. Strangely, Vondelpark was much busier than in the weekend.

I know it’s school holidays but it seemed like everyone who wasn’t in Utrecht was there. It was a good 3.5km walk from the city centre in warm sunshine so we were glad to drink the tea offered by the young man at the Atlas Hotel, while he went to check the lost property.

Sure enough, out he came with a laptop that had Carol Penfold’s name taped to it.

Victorious we headed across the road to a very nice pub for another beer then caught the tram back home to enjoy our paella leftovers.

Got here about half an hour before a gale and then rain!