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The Times {Weekend}
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UK Saturday 19, July 2014 35 630 sq. cm ABC 393530 Daily page rate £16,645.00, scc rate £75.00 020 7782 5000
A weekend in . . . Utrecht, the Netherlands
I
t’s the city’s timepiece, its heart and the tallest church tower in the Netherlands . . . and the 14thcentury Dom Tower in Utrecht is just begging to be climbed. But first we go underground in a new archaeological attraction open this summer, DomUnder. Just over the square, in the basement of the modern UCK Arts Centre, is the cellar of the 13th-century house of the canons of the Dom (cathedral), which in turn sits on earlier history. DomUnder archaeologist Herre Wynia points at a piece of grey stone wall. “This is part of the Roman castellum, built in 43AD,” he says. “It was built to defend the Roman supply lines to their troops in Britain.” This Roman barracks was the beginning of Utrecht, although it was burnt down by rebellious locals in 69AD, creating a neatly visible dateline of black charcoal and red burnt clay. DomUnder is kept dark (for conservation reasons, but it is also adds to the atmosphere) and visitors explore by Smart Torch — a beam of light settles on a circle of metal and the torch begins to speak. “This is a bronze Roman mirror,” it says, telling one of 30 stories. After that, the tour ends with a bang with the (virtual) crashing down of the nave of the Dom in a tornado in 1674, leaving the tower and its church divided and Utrecht with an unplanned central square. Back above ground we start the 465-step climb up the 112m Dom Tower. There are plenty of stops: 10m up is the Bishop’s private chapel; at 25m the tower guards quarters; at 49m we see the giant bronze bells called Maria, Thomas, Adrianus . . . and the 8,227kg Salvator. At 70m we stop to watch the tower’s huge music-box barrel slowly turn, making the smaller bells of its automatic carillon jingle out over Utrecht as they do every
quarter of an hour. Finally we are at the top. Even in the drizzle the views are spectacular of Utrecht’s cobbled streets and medieval canals. The city is the perfect size for a weekend break. The centre is compact and largely reserved for pedestrians and bikes. It is a friendly, lively university town; ancient architecture and young people. I wander the narrow streets, enjoying the gabled façades and independent design shops, the stripey Pope’s House (built for Adrian VI, the only Dutch pope, in 1517, though he never made it home to live in it) and many ancient bridges with evocative names — Broom Bridge, Axe-maker’s Bridge and Bread Bridge. These were once Utrecht’s markets, keeping trade as close as possible to the transport system — the Old Canal which, after recent restoration, is heading for Unesco World Heritage status. The streets around it are twostorey: the dry level of merchants’ homes and contemporary shops and the water level where 12th to 14th-century wharves connect the canal to barrel-vaulted cellars some 40m under the houses. This was once an ingenious way to avoid carrying loads up to street level and then down again for storage. For some it still is. I pass a bright-red barge unloading barrels of beer to one of the many cafés and restaurants that now occupy the wharves and their cellars. The wharves are not a continuous towpath so, to explore them more easily, I hop on a tour boat. It swishes quietly past the red brick Oudean Castle (built 1275, now a restaurant); medieval firesteps — stairways that allowed a bucket line to be formed from canal to conflagration; Winkel van Sinkel, Holland’s first department store, now a grand café and nightclub; and bicycles
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