It was a Sunday and the AFFR would have continued for another day, but we had to do our last leg towards Utrecht today.
As we had had enough of city traffic during the last few days, we chose a route through the green fields and along canals to breathe in the nature again that is surrounding the city of Rotterdam. It’s astonishing how close urban sprawl contrasts with wildlife closeby. Especially being in the delta of the river Rhine, with all its water arms reaching out into the landscape, our “Less-is-more-Tour” was closing the circle after being up at the source of the river Rhine at the Oberalp Pass in Switzerland.
The trees were full of ripe apples, and starlings were on their southward migration gathering at the top of the poplar trees. Autumn colours were mixing with the grey of the clouds, being lit with some patches of sunshine. Most of the time we followed a canal where golden leaves were falling from the linden trees on its mirroring water surface. Due to the Sunday many people were on their bikes along this canal, and we crossed Polsbroek and Benschop, endless villages of farmhouses on both sides of the water street. In one village they celebrated even a little festival.
This canal was directly connecting us with the outskirts of Utrecht. Being in such a typical Dutch rural area gave us the true feeling of being in the Netherlands. The only feeling which you should not have in such an endless ribbon-built village is the urge to find a place to pee, because you are always in the front yard of someone’s house and there are always people going by. I had to keep me going for at least an hour until we finally came to IJsselstein and found a toilet at a funfair.
Before Utrecht we had another unexpected discovery in the fun sector. At Nieuwegein they had built an artficial ski hill with plastic slopes. It was totally bizarre to see them skiing in the green far away from any Alps or skiable mountains. The closer we got to Utrecht I had another suspenseful thing to focus on: my tachometer. While we were approaching our meeting point with the Rotary Club of Utrecht the digits were going up, and it was exactly when reaching the address given to us that the 4.999km switched to 5000. We arrived at a place called the Biologische Moestuinwinkel, which offered organic food and groceries and had a café.
We had lunch with President Marthe F. De Vries of the Rotary Club Utrecht-West and another Rotarian friend. The wonderful organic soup was such a feast that I even had to take a food porn photo. We told them about our project, being now exactly 5.000km on our way and the tour coming here in Utrecht to an end. Being an architect I told that all I remembered from Utrecht was visiting the Rietveld Schroeder Huis in my childhood.
Marthe said we could follow her by bike and brought us to this unique house, a UNESCO world heritage since the year 2000. Only a short photo stop was possible because the museum was closed, but it was enough to get an impression of this milestone in modern architecture. It was so way ahead of its time that Gerrit Rietveld even had to draw the plans in such a manipulated way that it looked like it might have a common pitched roof, which in the end it didn’t.
We thanked Marthe for being our tour guide and said goodbye before we continued to the city centre of Utrecht. The Dom, a gothic cathedral, once was the largest church of the Netherlands, but a storm in 1674 destroyed half of it and left the tower standing separated from the rest of the building. I had the chance to enter right before they closed the church museum and was able to get a stamp in our credentials. I told them at the cashier where we came from, and the lady at the front desk was so nice to take a photo of the last time stamping on this trip.
The next architecture highlight in pure Amsterdam Style was the Louis Hartlooper Complex. It was built in 1928, originally as a police station, and after being classified as an historic monument in 1999 it was renovated and turned into an arthouse cinema complex which opened in 2004. A perfect place to meet Robert’s friend Diederik and exchange the latest news.
We checked into the NH Hotel next to the main station “Utrecht Centraal” when it was already dark, and had our next appointment with further acquaintances from the Camino, Yvonne de Groot and her husband John. We had met them for the first time at Roncesvalles and once more by coincidence at a bus stop just before Pamplona. She being a photographer could probably relate to my affinity to photo and film. So we had an intense conversation about our project and its future. They had picked a cool place for dinner, which was a former church being turned into a bar, restaurant and hotel called Bunk.
A wonderful place to celebrate our last evening of the “Less-is-more-Tour”
