It's easy to get the wrong impression of Utrecht. The train station is adjacent to the largest mall in the country and you have to make your make through a mass of stores and throngs of people to get to the town. The center of town is a bustling place, built around canals, but if you take a wrong turn, as I did, you can easily find yourself in the residential part of the city with nothing much to look at and no map to find your way around. It was fine though. I needed a nice long walk after spending a few days on a bike around Amsterdam.

The problem, well, not really a problem, but how I got so off course, was that I was looking for a tower which Utrecht it famous (see above). except I didn't know what to look for so I just headed out for the first tower I saw which turned out not to be the famous Dom Tower, the tallest in Holland, but something else, some closed museum, with an implossibly long and unpronouncable Dutch name. Because of that, I basically circumnambulated the town, again, which is fine, because I saw parts of the city that I'm sure very few tourists see. Interesting. Yes. Mindblowing. Not so much.

I wound my way through city streets and parks and canals and finally found the Dom Tower. It's not too hard since It looms over the town in the way only a massive Gothic tower can.

I finally understood why my friend Cathy, who lived in Utrecht for some time, suggested that I visit. Around the real center of the city (not the part near the train station, which is nice, but not the same) there is so much activity. Long summer days bring the Dutch out in droves. They are picnicing in the park, sunning themselves in outdoor cafes, shopping in clever boutiques and riding their bikes all over the place. The houses along the canal that runs perpendicular to the tower have basements that open out to the terrace along the water. Families are having dinner, friends are barbequing, people are hanging out, cats are strolling around. The street above is lined with shops and restaurants and there is so much bicycle traffic it's hard to fathom for someone who comes from a car culture.

And there are gorgeous women everywhere. That is, if you're into the tall, blond blue-eyed, well built norse goddess type. And they seem so down to earth. How hard can it be to approach a beautiful who is cycling around town? It's impossible to imagine a Parisian girl doing the same thing. Too fragile. Too particular. Too high-maintanence.

And towering above it all is the ever present Dom. Truly spectacular with gothic spires and peaked archways. You can climb the 450 odd steps to the top, but only when it's open. I arrived too late. The view must be unbelievable. Looking down on the structure of the town, the buildings that wind in circles around the canals, the open squares filled with cafes tables. I'll have to go back the next time I visit Holland.

I would have liked to just sit in a cafe, have a beer or a glass of savignon blanc and just take in the scene, but I have such a problem doing that. I have the hardest time just relaxing when I'm in a new place. I feel compelled to see every inch of it and drive myself to walk almost continually. It's madness, I know, but it's been my modus opernadi for years and unless I consciously stop and force myself to sit I'm like a perpetual motion machine.

I finally gave in around 7 in evening, still very light since darkness falls in the Dutch summer around 11 or so. I found a greek cafe on the tiny road that runs under the Dom, bought a souvlaki and sat under the tower, watching the cycle traffic whiz by, girls who look like Uma Thurman talking on cell phones walking by with the Tower, wrapped in crenallations and spires above it all.

Then it was time to head back to the train station, back through the mall for the 1/2 hour train back to Amsterdam. I rode my bike from the Centraal Station, up through the center of town, people everywhere. Utrecht is a sleepy town in comparison. Emerryville is a morgue. I rode past the Rijsmuseum and into the Vondelpark where every inch of sun drecnched grass was occupied by picnicers drinking rose and enjoying the fleeting Dutch summer. What a great place this is.