Smith's Journeys

We were invited by a lovely Dutch couple, who had been following us on our blog, to spend a few days in Utrecth in the Netherlands with them. This time in Utrecth was one of those connections you couldn’t plan.

Pieter and Loes picked us up from the bus station at about 9.30 on Thursday night. They made us feel welcome from the moment we met them.

We borrowed Pieter and Loes bikes to go and explore Utrecht.

We love the City. There were more cyclists than pedestrians and very few cars in the city centre.We had coffee in a little coffee shop called Blackbird. It sold vintage bikes as well as very nice coffee.  This was followed by lunch at what we thought was a small café, but once inside it had a lovely internal courtyard garden. The next day we hopped on a bus to the railway station and took the train through to Amsterdam.
In its own way, it was a larger version of Utrecht only a lot more crowded with busloads of tourist .
We did a boat cruise on the canals before heading to the Rijk Gallery. We spent several hours there before having to leave at closing time.

We still had time for Ann to do a little shopping: both actual and window 

The next day Pieter and Loes took us through to Elburg over the dikes and polders, which is the reclaimed land. After a very nice lunch, we went to see a sand sculpture display. This was a mind-blowing experience. The detail in each of the sculptures captured the expressions of the person they were representing and the size of these structures made out of sand had to be seen to be believed.

We returned to Paris and spent our last day enjoying the sights in the warm weather and again the food in a pavement restaurant.
We wandered beside the Seine enjoying the river before heading back to Versailles to pack.

Cheers