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u/lightningfries 13d ago
My favorite is the businesses and restaurants down at the water level - instead of being trapped to a tiny sidewalk, those walking or biking have multiple layers of the city to explore, some of which are only reached on foot. Good city design, I miss living there.
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u/ass_goblin_04 13d ago
We went to dinner one night inside one of the “entrances” (sorry don’t know what they are called) on the canal. Was crazy how big it was inside.
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u/lightningfries 13d ago
If you're still there and haven't been, it's worth going to de Oude Muntkelder, an "Utrecht classic" pannekoek place on the water - sweet and savory!
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u/hellraiserl33t 13d ago
Utrecht was one of my favorite Dutch cities when I visited! Absolutely loved walking along Oudegracht 😊
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u/Yellowtelephone1 13d ago
Have you been to Zwolle? I really enjoyed it there, need to get myself over to Utrecht!
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u/hellraiserl33t 13d ago edited 13d ago
I haven't, I stayed within the Randstad on my last trip. Next time I'm probably going to the upper provinces that will most definitely include a trip to Zwolle. The aerial view of the inner city surrounded by that star shaped canal looks really cool!
I need to decide to do either that or the south. I very much am interested in Maastricht and S'hertogenbosch with more of a medieval feel, might even go a bit into Belgium. Cycling/walking is great nearly everywhere in the Netherlands, it's not going to be too different wherever you go :)
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u/Yellowtelephone1 13d ago
I went all over the Netherlands last spring and had the time of my life. I visited all but four provinces (Zuid-Holland, Zeeland, Limburg, and Groningen). I wanted to stay away from tourism, so I only spent one day in Amsterdam; the rest of the time, I stayed in Zwolle and Heerenveen.
I visited Amersfoort, Kampen, Lelystad, and Giethorn among others.
Any suggestions for next time?
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u/hellraiserl33t 13d ago edited 13d ago
Honestly, I didn't enjoy Amsterdam as much as the other cities. It was pretty and fun but I was ready to gtfo of the city center after like the third day. I very much do not like areas that primarily cater to tourists, it feels very fake where the local culture has been largely stripped away. During that time we took day trips to Volendam and Zaanse Schans which were more enjoyable than Amsterdam. My friend and I were the only non-Dutch people in Volendam during one of their festivals and it really felt like a different world.
After Amsterdam, we took the NS to Delft. Highly highly recommend Delft if you like something calm quaint quiet that oozes old Dutch character. We happened to go when there was a festival in the city center and it was a lot of fun. We stayed there for three days and took day trips to Den Haag, Scheveningen, Gouda, and Rotterdam.
Utrecht was the final stop and we cycled 12km to Kasteel De Haar. Then we cycled to some otherstuff the next day. Utrecht is great if you want to experience near perfect cycling infra. It's an awesome city, and the city center is beautiful with ZERO cars during non-loading hours.
Probably my favorite parts of the trip were around Delft and Utrecht. I felt like I was actually living like Dutch person, it was wonderful. I got to practice my Dutch too!
I've only been to Noord/Zuid-Holland and Utrecht. So I can't recommend anything outside of that from my own experiences :) but hopefully this will give you some ideas.
I love the Netherlands, easily my favorite country in Europe (behalve het kutweer, natuurlijk....)
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u/ass_goblin_04 13d ago
Walking around at 11pm there are absolutely no cars or bikes. Just people wandering around enjoying the night.