...the musings of an Aussie in the Netherlands

12 March 2007

Planes, trains and automobiles

Well, just trains actually. With the beautiful spring weather we are having at the moment we were inspired to have an afternoon out yesterday at the spoorwegmuseum (train museum) in Utrecht. Bloody hell, what a crazy city to drive around in trying to find something when you don't have a proper map! Unlike inner Melbourne, a beautifully planned city on a grid pattern, most old Dutch cities just kind of grew in a haphazard way once they got too big for the old city walls that contained the original city. Utrecht (amongst other cities here!) also has a canal system which just adds to the craziness of the street pattern. Anyway, needless to say, we got a bit lost! And nobody we asked seemed to have any idea what we were talking about :-/ However, Jeroen's military skills finally came to the fore and we found it.

BUT after all that, the museum itself was a bit disappointing. There was not enough stuff to read, all the train carriages were locked so you could only "look but don't touch", and the whole place was full of nerdy model train collectors due to some special weekend exposition. Despite that we had a nice afternoon out and the sun shone brightly. To be honest my favourite part of the museum were the toilets! They were modelled after those of an 1800s station - lots of beautifully patterned ceramic tiles and shiny woodwork.

Alli xxx

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

What do you mean by Jeroen's military skills?? He never told you about the night in the woods?

8:55 pm

 
Blogger Alli :-) said...

haha - yes, I have heard that story. His skills definately work better in the daylight ;-))

1:03 pm

 

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home