Castle de Haar/Utrecht

Last night Kelly, Danielle (Kelly's roommate), Stefan, and I explored the area around Centraal Station (including the red light district). We stopped by a couple bars, but discovered everything was much pricier downtown. It seems the farther from Centraal you get, the cheaper food and drink gets. At one point we noticed a serious cluster of about 50 swans and at least 75 ducks in a 100 foot stretch of canal. It wasn't very clear why they were all clustered in such a small area. No one seemed to be feeding them, and they kind of just swam around aimlessly in circles. On the walk back to our rooms (buses and trams stop running at midnight even on weekends) we had our first pommfrites with fritsaus, which is essentially french fries with a mayonnaise type dipping sauce. It is a very popular Dutch snack. It is quite good and a great late night snack!

Today we took a bus to the outskirts of Amsterdam and visited a fairly modern castle, Castle de Haar (pictured below).

 It was originally built in the 15th century, but has been destroyed, rebuilt, and renovated many times over the centuries. They are just finishing the most recent renovation which was started 10 years ago. It was one of the first castles in the Netherlands to have electricity and a central steam heating (installed in the 18th century). Its most recent incarnation was designed by the same architect who designed Centraal Station in Amsterdam.

After a brief tour of the castle we headed to Utrecht, one of the Netherlands largest cities, where we got a  Dutch pancake lunch. Dutch pancakes are delicious and huge! They are somewhere between American pancakes and crepes. They are thicker than crepes, but very rich and eggy like crepes. Traditionally they are made with either cheese, bacon, or apples baked into the pancake and eaten with powdered sugar and a delicious syrup that tastes like a mixture of maple syrup and molasses. I got the cheese, which was delicious, but the apple ones also looked very good.

After our pancakes we had sometime to explore the downtown area. One unique thing about Utrecht is it's canal system which is slightly different from most Dutch cities. In most cities the canals are a few feet below the street level. In Utrecht the residents built piers and warfs along the canal at the level of the canal to make unloading goods easier. On top of these piers and wharfs they built warehouses, and on top of the warehouses are the main streets. Many of the old warehouses have now been turned into cafes and restaurants. This creates a very pleasant two tiered walking area along the canal. Kelly and I plan to go back in the spring when there are boats that go through the canals with live musicians and singers serenading the guests at the restaurants and cafes along the canal.