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UTRECHT |
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"I groaned with the idea of living all winter in so shocking a
place", wrote Boswell in 1763, and UTRECHT , surrounded by shopping
centres and industrial developments, still promises little as you
approach. But the centre, with its distinctive sunken canals - whose
brick cellar warehouses have been converted into chic cafés and
restaurants - is one of the country's most pleasant.
The focal point is the Dom Tower , built between 1321 and 1382, which at
over 110m is the highest church tower in the country, soaring to a
delicate octagonal lantern added in 1380. A guided tour (Mon-Sat
10am-5pm, Sun noon-5pm; last entry 4pm; ¬3.40) takes you unnervingly
close to the top, from where the gap between the tower and the Gothic
Dom Kerk is most apparent. Only the eastern part of the great cathedral
remains today, the nave having collapsed in 1674. It's worth peering
inside (Mon-Fri 10/11am-4/5pm, Sat 10am-3.30pm, Sun 2-4pm; free) to get
a sense of the hangar-like space the building once had and to wander
through the Kloostergang, the fourteenth-century cloisters that link the
cathedral to the chapterhouse, now part of the university. South of the
church at Nieuwe Gracht 63, the national collection of ecclesiastical
art, the Catharijne Convent Museum (Tues-Fri 10am-5pm, Sat & Sun
11am-5pm; ¬4.50; www.catharijneconvent.nl ) has a wonderfully exhibited
mass of paintings, manuscripts and church ornaments from the ninth
century on, including work by Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Rembrandt, Hals
and, best of all, a luminously beautiful Virgin and Child by Van Cleve.
Further along, the Centraal Museum , Agnietenstraat 1 (Tues-Sun
11am-5pm; ¬6.80; www.centraalmuseum.nl ) features a good collection of
paintings by sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Utrecht artists,
including the vividly individual portraits of Van Scorel's Jerusalem
Brotherhood. The architecture of the 1920s De Stijl movement is best
demonstrated by the Rietveld-Schröder house on Prins Hendriklaan (by
appointment only; contact the Centraal Museum on tel 030/236 2310).
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