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UtrechtThe statements and opinions on this page are solely those of its authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of CouchSurfing International.
The history of Utrecht goes all the way back to the Romans. In medieval times Utrecht was the biggest city of the country. Nowadays this city has a big historic well preserved inner-city with lots of museums, monumental churches and some unique canal wharfs (Old wharfing areas along the canals). Utrecht is also known for modern architecture. Utrecht has the largest University of the country and houses around 60.000 students, including a lot of international students. The presence of the students is very well felt in the inner-city with a lot of bars, art houses, clubs and festivities all through the summer. The city has a lot of history and modern culture and a lively art galleria / theatre and music scene. It's known for it's contemporary arts, movies, musical and historic festivals. Outside of the city there is a lot of interesting nature. On the east of the city there are hilly-forests and an area with a lot of 19th century fortresses, on the north a few lakes, on the west a big area with polders and on the south some big and some smaller rivers. There are options for water recreation, biking, hiking, and even for bird lovers there are several areas worth while for spotting. From Utrecht there are good connections with the rest of the country by train or car. Amsterdam, Rotterdam and the Hague take about 40 minutes by train, all other cities in the Randstad (Amsterdam, Rotterdam & Den Haag) are less then 1 hour by train. More remote cities like Maastricht and Groningen take only 2 hours. A lot more info about travelling to Utrecht, tourist attractions, bars and restaurants can be found at Writing Travellers. Here you find a printable version of its Utrecht guide.
Meetings & eventsCS-Meetings The community in Utrecht is active and there are a lot of different meetings:
Besides this there are always other opportunities to meetup; housewarmings, festivals, concerts birthdays or just spontaneously wanting to spend a good night out in town with a nice company. If you post it in the Utrechtgroup it is very likely you'll have a good meeting. For pictures of Cs-meetings, check the CS-Utrecht Flickr-account and of course the Utrechtgroup. Other Events
Getting around
Utrecht is the train hub of the Netherlands, most Dutch cities are reachable within an hour. There are 3 smaller train stations. Check the timetables in [www.ns.nl here].
THE way to get around in Utrecht. Everyone uses bikes all the time (so be carefull for them!). Most hosts can teach you how to ride along on the back of them.
The historic centre of Utrecht is the ideal size to walk in. If you just want to stroll around and see old buildings, go to the southern part of the medieval city, this has the best unspoiled and smallscale size. If you want to go shopping, stay on the north, this is the shopping area, just next to the big shopping streets there are streets with very cool alternative shops.
There are a lot of bus lines that cover the whole of the city. Most busses run 'till after midnight. Check the bus lines in here. A routeplanner, combining different forms of public transport can be found at ov9292. There is just one small tramway in Utrecht. It goes from the station to Kanaleneiland, Nieuwegein and IJsselstein.
Not advisable in the city-centre. The centre has a lot of small and narrow roads and is made very hard to reach by the government. Parking can also be quite expensive in the centre. More environment friendly ways of transport work better in Utrecht. When visiting the centre it’s advised to park at Park and Rides around the city. For more information check this website.
Utrecht is quite friendly to hitchhikers, Utrecht is also a highway hub with good connections to Amsterdam, The Hague, Antwerp, Eindhoven, etc. Liftershalte is a wiki that provides a map with a good overview of places to catch a ride in Utrecht. Some other good spots can be found in here NecessitiesRoute
the central office Paardenveld: FoodOrganic Supermarkets: In the centre you can find them here, here, [1] and here. Restaurants and Fast Food
AccomodationUtrecht houses quite a lot of couchsurfers while Utrecht is a relatively unknown city to the tourist-crowds. Therefore it is very easy to find a couch in Utrecht. A lot of people will reply to couchrequests within a few hours.
Like everywhere, also in Utrecht couchsurfers are not evenly distributed over hosts. more experienced Cs-members mostly get the most guests. If you want to have more guests you can put your profile name here:
For lovers of nature, right outside Utrecht, in a beautiful area with a river and forest there is also a hostel situated in a beautiful countryhouse.
When you've found out Utrecht is so cool that you actually want to live there, watch out; due to the popularity of the city housing is expensive and hard to find. Insane prices are being payd for rent.
Good luck! Nightlife  Since Utrecht is a city with a lot of cultural and artistic students there are always special things going on. For a actual view of nightlife in Utrecht you should always check the [www.uitloper.nl Uitloper], which is a weekly guide containing the movie schedule, concerts and other nightlife-events. The paper version is available in most bars (check close to the exit or around the toilet area, it's a long folded piece of paper usually in a stand hanging on the wall). It's Of course you could check the [www.uitloper.nl website] in advance (click Podia for nightlife events). Bars Bars can be found all around the city centre, some popular bars are in crowded nightlife locations like Neude, Nobelstraat and het Wed, best spots are less easy to find. The bars below are places where you'll have a big chance to meet other couchsurfers:
For the program of all the cinema's look here
All the concert halls mentioned above have good nights with dj's in a lot of different, mostly alternative, styles. DJ's with a more popular / commercial style are mentioned below:
Very close to Heerenplein are several bars on the Nobelstraat like De Kneus, Het Pandje and De Zotte. They can be pretty crowded and stay open till very late. Sights and activities Monuments
Shopping  A lot of Dutch people know Utrecht as a good city to shop in, for a big deal this is caused by 'Hoog Catharijne'; the big shopping mall around the train station which all people from Utrecht claim never to go to, but is always crowded. Best places for shopping are to be found outside of Hoog Catharijne. Keep an eye out for the small streets just next to the big shopping streets.
Musea Utrecht hasn't got the impressive big museums that Amsterdam offers, but still a lot of nice ones that are worth to visit.
Tourist Info
Background History Romans The history of Utrecht goes back to the Romans. In those days the river Rhine was kind of a natural nothern barrier for the roman empire. The place where Utrecht is situated was located at a bend in the Rhine which was relatively easy to cross. Therefore on 47 AD the Romans built a fortress and called it 'Trajectum' (=crossing). The name Trajectum evolved into Utrecht. When the romans left northern Europe hardly anything was left in Utrecht.
 In 670 Saint Willibrord arrived in Utrecht. He built a church on the former ground of the Roman castellum, dedicated to Saint Martin. This chuch evolved to the present Dom Church. Utrecht became a centre of Baptisement and got filled with a lot of churches and monestries. The citizens had to protect themselves against invasions of the vikings on several occasions. Long after the treat of the Vikings, in 1122 Utrecht was granted city rights (among them the right to build a city wall). Utrecht was one of the first Dutch cities who got city rights. The walled city was relatively big because there were a lot of monastries around Utrecht who also wanted to be within the city wall. At the end of the middle ages Utrecht was one of the biggest cities in the Netherlands. Like all big cities the city tried to impress other with building a big cathedral. In Utrecht people started with it in 1254, and built on till 1517. At the end of the middle ages the economy of Utrecht started to decline. The water level was more and more controlled in the west of the Netherlands and was lowered to be able to reclaim more land from the sea. In Utrecht this meant the level of the canals lowered to. People in Utrecht had to build warfs at the new water level. Cities in the west had a better position for the more and more internationalising trade and took over the position of Utrecht.
The role of Utrecht as religieus centre changed quite a lot in this period. Although there was a freedom of thought in the Netherlands, it was not allowed anymore to practice Catholicism. The country was gouverned by protestants, although there were still a lot of Catholics everywhere. Utrecht was a city full of Catholics, but mainly under protestant rule. The Protestants liked to insult the Catholics. They for instance put a monument of sea hero Michiel de Ruijter on the most sacred place of the (very Catholic looking) Dom church. The Domchurch had a hard time in this period. This already started around 1500 during the rise of the Protestantism. Suddenly building big and expensive churches was not that popular anymore. It got quite hard to gain enough money to finish the church. The builders saved money on the construction. The connection of the chuch and tower was done in aquite poor way. So poor that a storm in 1674 was able to destroy the middle part. The protestant government didn't really care and left the pieces laying on the ground, so a big part of the church became a ruin. A big scandal appeared on this spot in 1730, the authorities found out that the ruins had turned in to a meeting place for gays. After that the ruins were turned into an empty squire. This and other affairs concerning gays were the reason for a big inquisition against gays. Nowadays there is a stone an the Domsquire in which the local government tells that now gay people in Utrecht shouldn't be scared anymore to be persecuted. The city became so famous for this affair that Utrechtenaar (= to be from Utrecht) became synonymous for being gay. Nowadays people from Utrecht still refer themselves not as Utrechtenaar, but as Utrechter. During the whole period of the Dutch republic Utrecht hardly developed. Around 1800 the cities was hardly bigger than 300 years before. Only around the 'bemuurde weerd' people were living outside of the city walls from the middle ages. Utrecht hardly profited from the huge wheath in the west in the so called 'Golden age of the Netherlands'. The only nearby influence were all the country-houses rich people from Amsterdam built in the period along the Vecht, on the north of Utrecht.
 In the 19th centre Utrecht started to grow again. The old city wall was removed and turned into a big romantic park. Utrecht became a centre of the Dutch railways and therefore interesting for Dutch companies. A lot of people from the poor countryside moved to Utrecht. In this period Utrecht gets divided in rich and poor. In the middle ages the rich people were living along the rich canals and the poor on the alleyways next to them. Now the rich turned east to the higher regions, while most poor people settled on the swamplands in the west. This separation between rich and poor still largely exists. Utrecht also became a place of military importance. The Dutch way of defending the country was with waterlines, pieces of land that would be flooded during invasions. In the 19th century a new waterline was created just to the east of Utrecht. The waterline was never used but it the reason that no houses were built on the far east of the city in this period. There are still a lot of fortresses on the east of Utrecht, a lot of them have cultural, artistic or touristic uses. In the first half of the 20th centre Utrecht flourishes culturally. Utrecht was one of the leading cities of the modernist movement 'de stijl'. The Utrechter Gerrit Rietveld became very famous with his designs for, among others, chairs and houses. His 'Rietveld Schroderhouse' in Utrecht-east has entered the world heritage list. A black page in the history of Utrecht, like most European places, is world war II. Utrecht was home to a lot of fascists. The Dutch Fascist party (NSB) had their headquarters in Utrecht on the Maliebaan.
 The city grew very fast after WOII. A lot of foreign workers were needed to do the dirty work. Utrecht became a multicultural city with a lot of people from Turkey and Morocco. Modernist architects had a chance to realise a lot of their plans in the late 50s and 60s. In Kanaleneiland and Overvecht huge area's with skyscrapers appeared. These districts weren't very popular and slowly turned into migrant-area's. There were also a lot of plans to 'modernise' the city centre. The only part that was really built was the new train station with a big shopping mall. A lot of the old city was destroyed for this, even a part of the canal surrounding the medieval city. After that there was a ever growing call to preserve what was left of the city centre. A lot of the old buildings where in decay but got renovated. In the 60s the Dutch became a rich country. A lot of young people suddenly had money to study. The university of Utrecht turned into the biggest of the country. Utrecht became very crowded with students. all the students got a big impact on the city, Utrecht more and more turned into a culturally rich, leftish city. The university got to big for the city centre and most faculties turned to a new campus on the east of the city. After some standard modernist buildings, the university builds now mainly post-modern architectural landmarkt on the campus by famous Dutch architects like Rem Koolhaas. A lot of ex-students stayed in Utrecht after graduation. The people from Utrecht have a relative high average education. A lot of them moved to the old 19th and early 20th century houses. Those houses were renovated and improved. Best example is the district of Lombok which was mainly inhabited with migrants, but has been Gentrified considerably. The central street of this dirstrict (Kanaalstraat) still houses mostly Turkish and Marokkan shops, but most people around are of Dutch origin.
 Utrecht keeps on growing and the popularity of the city makes the houses quite expensive. On the far west a new part of the called ' Leidsche Rijn' is being built. Leidsche Rijn is a combination of a lot of architectural styles and will house around 80.000 people. Now the city is growing and more and more people from outside of Utrecht use the Utrecht train station, the train station is getting to small. The shopping-mall around it was never popular anyway. It was a political struggle of around 15 years to deceide what to do with it but now finally the work has started. It will take quite some years before the area around the train station will be organised again, but when it is finished there will be a new cultural music centre, all water in the canals will be back en there will be a lot of new apartments and offices around. Time will learn is Utrecht will really look better with it. article history edit | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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