The City of Utrecht and the Highest Church Tower in the Netherlands

One thing that I truly miss about my former home in California is the proximity to hills and mountains and the beautiful views they offer to those willing to climb them.  I loved trekking up into the hills above my home in Berkeley and looking out on a clear day over the City of Berkeley, the San Francisco Bay, and the City of San Francisco beyond that.  I miss the drive along the Big Sur coast and taking in a scenic ocean vista from atop a sea cliff. I miss the excellent views from the mountains bordering the Yosemite Valley and the San Joaquin Valley.

View from Sentinel Dome, Yosemite National Park, California

By contrast, the Netherlands is almost completely flat.  There are no sweeping mountain views here. There are a few very gently sloping hills in some parts of the country, but the topography just does not approach the heights to which I was accustomed in California.

So, to fulfill my need to observe the world from higher elevations, I must utilize human-made perches in the form of the giant church towers sprinkled throughout the Netherlands. This brings me to the subject of this post: the City of Utrecht and the Domtoren.

Utrecht's Domtoren: the highest church tower in the Netherlands

The City of Utrecht is home to the Domtoren, the highest church tower in all of the Netherlands. If you climb to its highest viewpoint, which is over 900 meters above Utrecht, you can get a pretty good view of the city and beyond. Last weekend, I visited Utrecht with a group of friends and climbed the Domtoren after taking a lovely tour around the city and visiting its many other beautiful sights, including the Oude Gracht canal and Utrecht's many churches and gardens

The view of Utrecht from the Domtoren. No mountains here, but it's beautiful despite its lack of topography.

Here are some more photos from my day in Utrecht....

The Saturday flower market:

Flowers for sale

In and around the Dom Church:

Cathedral of St. Martin and Domtoren

Inside the garden at the Cathedral of St. Martin

Entrance to cloister

Garden at Cathedral of St. Martin

Views along the Oudegracht, one of the main canals in Utrecht:

 

This part of the Oudegracht corresponds to a former fork of the River Rhine

Old churches, repurposed:

This was a church, but now it's Café Olivier with an excellent Belgian beer menu.

This church has been converted to apartment units.

Here's a close-up of the "for sale" sign.

More scenes around Utrecht:

Anne Frank monument

Utrecht University Hall in Dom Square

Typical Dutch streetscape, with the exception of the UFO crashing into ProRail headquarters