We are taking a walk through the Old Town with one of Utrecht’s best local tour guides, Gitte Rosendahl, who tells us about quality of life, the urban setting, canals, buildings, economy and some history. The city center is small enough that you could just wander around on your own without any particular plan but it always helps to have a guide like Gitte, a graduate of Utrecht University specializing in cultural geography. He works with the Visitor Information Office, which you can contact for a similar tour.
All of the following information is told to us by Gitte:
QUALITY OF LIFE, AND ECONOMY:
I think in my opinion it’s a good city to live in because it’s not that big, and it has a nice atmosphere, a lot of history and that’s of course what I like, and when you need something well you can buy it, it’s everywhere. I like to show people the atmosphere, especially in the Old City. So come to Utrecht and see and feel this unique atmosphere in the heart of Holland. It’s beautiful. Enjoy it.
Utrecht is also the heart of the country so it’s important with lots of connections, motorways, train stations and so on. From here it’s easy to reach every part of the country. The economy is growing quite well here at the moment. We are very close to Amsterdam, very close to all our cities because Holland is such a small country. Everything is easy to reach by train, by car, and even by a bicycle of course.
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The bicycle, that’s the most important way of transport in Holland. We have 17 million people but over 20 million bicycles -- short distances, a flat country, so it’s a favorite way of transport of the Dutch and maybe it has to do something with how the Dutch feel in general, because we belong to the top-10 for quality of life, most lucky people in the world, and I’m one of them.
But of course there are two sides of the of the coin, you can say. We do have people that are less educated, or people from abroad that have to try to find a place in our society and that’s always difficult. Our language difficult to learn by foreigners.. But when you’re able to integrate, you have your place, your work and education as well, then you have a lot of possibilities.
Our education system is okay to develop yourself. There are lots of possibilities to do for work and learning and so on. Of course we have our troubles because Europe isn’t leading anymore in the world. Other countries are coming up and we have to follow that change, and that’s quite difficult, but I think we know how to deal with that.
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We are famous because of our agricultural products as one of the number-five countries in the world of export all over the world. We have our manufacturing, although that’s less than let’s say 50 years ago because the wages are so high, so lots of manufacturing has gone to other countries where it’s cheaper to produce them. We also have our national trade centers. People show their projects here, people from everywhere come to see them. We have lots of conferences.
There are also a lot of jobs in services here and we have our transport, because we have a large harbor, Europe’s biggest harbor in nearby Rotterdam. A lot of products have to be transported all over the continent and that’s partly done by the Dutch truckers, so that’s also an important way of making money in this country.
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We are here along the main canal, Oudegracht, in the former trading heart of Utrecht. Here great money was made centuries ago and there were sailing boats laying here and they brought in their trading goods, and they were loaded and unloaded here on these platforms, and these cellars behind the doors, they were used to store the goods.
This whole construction of these cellars, on the level under the street, and under the houses is unique in the world. We have a few kilometers of it on both sides of the Oude and the Neue Gracht, and maybe one day they will be placed on the World Heritage list of UNESCO. They’re talking about it for years already, so maybe it will happen, and you will find them nowhere else in the world.
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The cellars are now restaurants and here on the former loading and unloading platforms there are terraces with a great atmosphere and beautiful weather. Hundreds of people are sitting here having their food and drinks and enjoying the nice atmosphere of Utrecht.
In Utrecht the quiet areas and the busy areas are very close together, and when you walk just a few hundred meters, you are in total silence in an area like this. Trading time is over here because the train took over the long distance transport and the trucks took over the short distance transport, so no trading boats anymore here.
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Here we have our shops, restaurants cafés and public areas, and it’s always busy, bicycles everywhere of course, and a lot of pedestrians, for example, it’s not allowed to be here with the car. A part of the old historical heart is car-free you can say. So it’s easy to walk, easy to cycle, but always busy, especially in weather like this.
The Dutch are friendly, and it has to do our history I think, because we needed to cooperate in early ages. We had the trouble with water. We had all polders (swampy fields), you have to trust your neighbor, you have to talk with him. And now we are a densely crowded country, 17 million people on such a small piece of earth.
When you’re on a small part of such a small part of the world like Holland with so many people you have to be sociable, you have to talk with people, you have to adapt. The Dutch are sociable, and it has to do with so many people on such a small piece of earth. You have to understand each other because everyone needs his own part of the country, in his own piece of space. You have to be tolerant because we are with so many people.
We built our cities on a human scale, compact, because we needed every square meter, not like Singapore or the Chinese style or something like that. The Dutch like the way they have built for centuries, and when you use everything very accurate, well-planned, you can build on a human scale in such a small part of the world, and accommodate such a lot of people.
I think that the Dutch are agreeable because it also has to do with the way of transport, and everything is close by here. You use a bicycle or walk, you meet people, you see people, you greet people, or you’re walking, or you take a bus, so you’re constantly surrounded by people.
I think in some other countries you have a lot of space, you have big gardens and your neighbor is always far away and you need a car for transport because the distances are too big to cycle, but in a car you are isolated. So we have short distances, you can walk and take your bicycle, you always meet people, and I’m sure it has to do with sociability.
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Now we are standing on the Dom square and this is in fact the place where it all started almost 2000 years ago because the Romans built their fortification on this spot, and they stayed for about 250 years. The first church in this area of Europe was built here by Saint Willibrord in 695, and from here the Roman Catholic religion was spread.
There were always churches standing in this location since the first one of Willibrord and the church that is here now is famous, first of all because of the tower but also because of what happened to the building. Here you see the remaining part of the church and the choir. They started to build it 1254, and when the choir was finished, the bishop ordered to build the tower, which was built from 1320 until 1382, all by hand in only 62 years. Try to realize, it is 112 meters and 32 centimeters high, and it’s the tallest church tower in The Netherlands.
Around 75,000 people from all over the world climb the 465 steps to a level of 95 meters, and they have a great view over the heart of the country. After the tower, they continued with the transept, and when the transept was finished, they started to build the nave. The church was completed in 1525. It was the cathedra, the seat of the bishop, the Cathedral of Utrecht, the main church, the pride of the city.
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But something terrible happened on 1 August, 1674. A big, big storm came from the north of France over this country. Probably the worst storm ever in this part of Europe. A tornado, a small tornado, but a tornado, hit the nave of the church and the whole building collapsed. The tower, the transept and the and the choir survived, but the nave was broken to pieces. The ruins were laying here for about 150 years. They were taken away in 1826 and since then we have a Dom Square, now the heart of lots of cultural events in the city.
The Academy Building is also there, which was a gift of the community of Utrecht. It was given in the 1880s and it was built here and there was a lot of struggle about this building because it’s in the neo-Renaissance style and it’s close to the Dom Tower and the Dom Church. These are famous buildings in true Gothic style. So after the struggle they ordered, “Well, let’s build it” and it was finished in 1892. In those days it was the main office of the University. Almost everything happened here. Nowadays we have thousands of students, so this is more a representative building.
There are graduations here almost every day. When important people visit Utrecht, sometimes kings or queens, and they visit the University they come to this building. I was graduated in the Academy Building, studying human geography.
Utrecht is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands, founded in March 1636. It started as a small University, of course. Not everybody could go to university, only the people in a high-rank and social life, you can say. And only for men, of course. But the University of Utrecht has grown into two big ones, and to a very famous one in our days, world-famous.
(Walking one block over) We’re standing here at the Neu Gracht, the New Canal. We also have the Oude Gracht, that’s the old one, but this one was built around the year 1400 in the late Middle Ages. . In those days there were hardly any people living in this area. All through the ages of the 1400s houses were built, and this was always the area of the inner city for the more wealthy people, because this canal is quiet.
The trade heart was the Oude Gracht. There the ships came in, they were loaded and unloaded, horses and carriages, people working, lots of noise. The tradesmen made his money on the Oude Gracht, the Old Canal, but he bought the house here, because here it was quiet. Quiet, as it is still now in our time, no shops, no restaurants, hardly any traffic, only some people living here, schools, University, the church has main buildings here and it’s always quiet like this at this moment.
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You can rent a kayak or a pedal boat or an electric boat and you can sail through the canals here, a very popular thing to do. It’s quiet because it’s not allowed to come here with your motor vessel. This is all a protected area, so you can only go here with something floating, without a motor.
This water here is only 15 centimeters deep so it’s only for recreation. But you see the Oude Gracht, that’s two meters deep. That’s for the big boats in the early days, and also nowadays.
So you have a private ship going coming to Utrecht, you will sail over the Oude Gracht, not allowed here. This is all protected, and this all has to stay protected and quiet.
There are two levels here, street with canal trerrace below, which is easy to explain. You have to realize that Utrecht is built above sea level. When you compare it to Amsterdam, that’s below sea level. In Amsterdam directly beside the street there is the water, but Utrecht is higher, the water is laying lower and that’s why they built this construction of two levels, which is unique in the world. There are even discussions about putting this on the World Heritage list of UNESCO. And of course it’s all monumental and it is all protected.
Besides a kayak or a pedal boat you can also make a booking on the small electric boat and only electric boat boats are allowed to be here, not with the gasoline motor or something like that because it makes too much noise, it has to be silent, and then it’s possible to go here with a boat like this. And this boat is small enough to pass in the small canal and also to pass under the lower bridges.
You can make an arrangement with a group or something or to eat or drink on board ships like this, but you can also book it individually, and you have a tour. The captain will tell you something about what’s around it, something about the history of where you are floating through, and the whole boat is made of glass so you can see every detail of the things you pass through, providing a great impression of this beautiful part of the old city.
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Utrecht was in fact founded by the Romans almost 2000 years ago in the year 47 after Christ. They came here and they built a fortification on what we now call the Dom Square. That fortification was part of the defensive line that started in Cologne in Germany and ended up at the North Sea. Romans built the fortifications on the left side of the Old River Rhine every 4 to 5 kilometers so they could easily see each other in those days.
The Romans stayed here for about 250 years and then they went back to the south because tribes of the north severely attacked them. In the ages after that it is not so sure what happened here, but very important was the year 695 because then a monk from Ireland came to the continent, Saint Willibrord.
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He built his first Roman Catholic Church here in the ruin of the Roman fortification, and from there he started to spread the Roman Catholic religion over northwestern Europe. It was the start of a great time for Utrecht, because in the centuries afterwards Utrecht developed to be the capital of the Roman Catholic Church in this part of Europe. Utrecht became very rich, very powerful.
The Bishop of Utrecht was very, very powerful, and we compare Holland from nowadays to the Middle Ages, you can say, a the third part of the country was the Bishop of the Bishop of Utrecht, so he owned a big part of the country and ruled over that.
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They built a lot of churches and monasteries and Utrecht became famous in the 14 and 15th centuries. Utrecht also started to really be a city, with city rights since 2 June, 1122, which makes Utrecht one of the oldest cities in the Netherlands., compared to Amsterdam, for example, which got city rights almost two centuries later.
Utrecht was built on the power of the Roman Catholic Church while Amsterdam was built on trade and the economy a few centuries later. So Utrecht is much older than Amsterdam.
The church ordered to develop the swamp areas all around Utrecht , especially in the west because as you know, probably, the western part of Holland is below sea level. There were a lot of swamps and they ordered to make them dry so they could use the area for cattle, for growing the different crops and so on. Before the Reformation, there were two parts of big power and big money, the church and the trade. Both were focused here because Utrecht was the biggest city in this area because of the Catholic Church. You can see that also in the preserved historical heart of the city.
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That famous time of the of the Roman Catholic religion ended in 1580, the year of the Reformation. Utrecht switched from the Catholic to the Protestant religion and it was officially not allowed to be Catholic anymore. All the power of the Catholic Church was over.
Utrecht already had the Oude Gracht, the canal, and it was on a very important trade line from Amsterdam to what we now call the Ruhrgebiet in Germany, so there was a lot of trade between those parts of Europe. Utrecht became the center of trade on the line and there was also a lot of money made by the trade.
Because of that early power of the church and our defensive line, our canals, our walls and so on, Utrecht has the biggest medieval city heart of all the cities in the Netherlands.
After the Catholic Church the trade increased, but later that trading function ended because it was taken over by Amsterdam. The main trade city in the west of Holland was Utrecht, but later Amsterdam took over and it was the time of the VOC (the Dutch East India Company) that was founded in 1603 and then the trade started between Indonesia, our colony in Asia, as you know, because the whole area of Indonesia, all those thousands of Islands were a part of Holland during three centuries. So first Utrecht and then Amsterdam took over, and Amsterdam became the world’s most powerful city trade, time of The Golden Age.
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There were three countries in the history that had world power. Nowadays, it’s a little bit over for the United States. In the 19th century of course Great Britain, and before that, that tiny small republic with only with less than a million people inhabitants.
Netherlands was the first country that ruled the world because of the trade. Brazil was a part of Holland, but we sold it to Portugal because we could make money then, and sold New York to the British. In those days the small Republic of the Netherlands was one of the world’s most powerful countries.
