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A One Week Bike Trip in Holland

Day 5 - From Gouda to Utrecht

Stocking up on fruit, Oudewater

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Since we had a relatively short ride to Utrecht, we stopped in Oudewater to see a big church I remembered reading about. We found the VVV (there are signs to the VVV offices when one enters a town) and got a map of the area between Gouda and Utrecht (f7.95), then rode over to the church, but it was closed because of some big event - camera crews were setting up outside the church when we arrived. The VVV office had recommended a scenic route on back roads which we took, stopping along the way to eat the fruit we had purchased in Oudewater (f3.90). The back road route was indeed very good, with little to no traffic. We eventually reconnected with a bike path and arrived at the VVV office in Utrecht about 2 PM.

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Waiting to find a place to stay, Utrecht

Now we had a problem. There was some big field hockey tournament in town and everything was booked solid. The VVV office found us some rooms for about f250.00 per night, and we debated between paying that or heading East to Amserfoort, about 20 miles away. I called the tourist office there, but only got a list of numbers that I could call to try to find a vacancy. Since I had used up the phone card in calling the tourist office, I decided that I would give the VVV office another try before buying another card and calling the places in Amserfoort.

The people in the VVV office were very helpful, but they had no pensions or Bed and Breakfast establishments on their list, only hotels, which were expensive. After discussing options with the lady in the office for a long time, she did spot a hotel, the Het Vetchtse Park, at the very bottom of her list that had no indication of whether or not it had any vacancies. A phone call by the office did confirm there was a vacancy, and the price was much better (f115.00 plus tax plus VVV booking fee = f124.00). The hotel must not have paid to join the Chamber of Commerce or something., to end up where it was on the list of available hotels.

A great hotel in Utrecht

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After buying a phone card (f10), taking the address and directions with us we found the hotel a few kilometers north of downtown (maybe it had vacancies since it was some distance from activities). The hotel looked to be a old converted mansion, sitting on the river, on a large wooded lot, next to a park. It looked better than many higher priced hotels. It even had a large, wide staircase to the upper level.

After resting up a bit, we hopped on the bikes, sans panniers, and headed for town to eat. The road we took into town proper was lined with what looked like low-income housing developments. Without the weight of the panniers, I felt like I could really haul, and we got into town very quickly. I did feel somewhat conspicuous in town, since I wore my helmet everywhere (Matt seldom wears anything but a baseball cap), but what the heck, who cares what people think.

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Canal in Utrecht

We strolled along what looks much like the San Antonio River Walk, picked out a place after looking at several menus, and ordered Mexican food. We almost got up and left after a half-hour because no one had come to take our order. As we were preparing to leave, we were caught by the hostess and persuaded to stay with a bribe of a free beer. The dinner, when it did come, was not bad (f50.00). After dinner, we walked around the town a little bit, took some pictures, extracted some money from an ATM machine, then about 9 PM (still light out) returned to our hotel to write notes, plan our route for the next day and wash some clothes.

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