A curate's egg of a day

Utrecht is really a very nice city. We walked to the centre, which is not very far from where we are moored for a couple of nights (we did end up having to pay for both mooring and electricity, but not very much and it is worth it). The city is dominated by the immensely high Dom tower:

You can pay to climb the 465 stairs to get to see the view from the top, but we decided to pass on that this time. As we wandered, we were amused to see a very professional garbage collecting boat on the canal that goes right through the centre, along which we will be passing tomorrow:

Also this Dutch take on the Lady Godiva story (perhaps)

And a stall possibly specializing in cocktails – Bloody Mary anyone?

However our main aim in the morning was to visit the Rietveld Schröderhuis, which as everyone knows, of course, is a UNESCO World Heritage site; a house designed by famed Dutch architect and furniture designer Gerrit Rietveld. 

However our efforts turned up certain failings in the Utrecht city tourist information  system. First, the official tourist map indicated a walk of 10 minute: actually it took half an hour, with intermittent showers along the way. Second, the official brochure didn’t mention that you have to make a reservation to visit the house. You can’t just walk in off the street as we did.  Unfortunately there were no free slots for a long time, so after photographing a cabinet full of models of the Rietveld furniture …

… and watching a rather uninspiring video seated on excruciatingly uncomfortable Rietveld chairs, we headed back to the centre, this time by bus. We then lunched at a pleasant café, and walked down to the Centraal Museum, which is supposedly the best in town, and is also quite close to our mooring. However, maybe because we have been seeing too many great museums and galleries on this trip, but this time we were definitely underwhelmed, though we did enjoy seeing some original Rietveld chairs ...

... and trying out some replicas, though they were not all particularly comfortable. We also enjoyed a large and intricate doll’s house – every room furnished and peopled:

Then it was back to the boat to recover from our exertions and make contact with Lesley and Ethan, and arrange to rendezvous tomorrow. We will aim to moor in the marina right outside their hotel at Loosdrecht.