Utrecht February 2011

I’ve always felt a bit guilty about Holland.  

I’ve had it on my ‘been to’ list for years, but I think that was as a result of going to a Sunday market somewhere just on the Dutch side of the Holland-Germany border many years ago. (So long ago that it was actually the Holland-West Germany border)

A meeting of the IMS Global Learning Consortium finally provided the excuse to properly add the country to my list.

Flying into Amsterdam Schiphol let me see how well joined up the air and rail network is in Holland – about 20 minutes from getting off the plane to stepping onto the train.  Later reflection made me think about the complexities of not only combining this with roads and motorways, which many countries do, and with lots of waterways which is a bit more unusual.

Utrecht is a lovely small city, particularly the old part along each side of the canal.  The canal provides a very easy reference point for navigation, whenever you get lost just head back towards the canal.

Despite the need to spend a lot of the time in meetings (always the drawback of work trips), I did get a brief chance to wander around with a camera.  Pictures below.

At the end of the trip, I completely overlooked the efficiency of the Dutch rail network so I wound up getting to the airport far too early.  This gave me plenty of time to visit the branch of the Rijksmuseum in the airport (splendid idea – don’t recall seeing a branch of the National Gallery or the Tate anywhere in LHR T5).  And having done that I was able to tweet about it via the free wi-fi (again - don’t recall seeing any free wi-fi at Heathrow).

Utrecht February 2011