# Everywhere I've been... from best to worst!



## AUTOTHRILL (Dec 12, 2009)

absolutely stunning. utrecht is so beautiful. how can you have any qualms with it at all! as jane said it looks so liveable! a dense, varied centre, and gorgeous, spacious suburbs. so leafy, and those sunken canals are to die for. love the big trees growing out of the wharves. when i visited Amsterdam, i have to say the Netherlands impressed me more than any nation ive ever visited. everything was so meticulously smart, and everyone was incredibly helpful and friendly. utrecht and leiden to me seem (especially the latter) to be a mini amsterdam, although i guess this must irritate the dutch forumers not from the capital aha. the buildings are just so consistently beautiful! Were utrecht in the uk, itd be up there with york and bath for sure.


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## christos-greece (Feb 19, 2008)

Indeed once again, very nice new photos; well done :cheers:


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## Hardcore Terrorist (Jul 28, 2010)

^^Thanks Christos



AUTOTHRILL said:


> absolutely stunning. utrecht is so beautiful. how can you have any qualms with it at all! as jane said it looks so liveable! a dense, varied centre, and gorgeous, spacious suburbs. so leafy, and those sunken canals are to die for. love the big trees growing out of the wharves. when i visited Amsterdam, i have to say the Netherlands impressed me more than any nation ive ever visited. everything was so meticulously smart, and everyone was incredibly helpful and friendly. utrecht and leiden to me seem (especially the latter) to be a mini amsterdam, although i guess this must irritate the dutch forumers not from the capital aha. the buildings are just so consistently beautiful! Were utrecht in the uk, itd be up there with york and bath for sure.


I obviously agree with you, as Utrecht shares the second place on this list with great cities like Barcelona, Berlin and Budapest. I lived there for 26 years, and I never tired of it

But having lived there that long, I know also it well enough to have some criticism - and that is that Utrecht's beauty, atmosphere, location and livability have become its weakness, as they have made it so popular with citizens & businesses alike that anyone who can't afford it is pushed out*. IMO this has definitely had an impact on the variation of people, shops, nightlife and possible places to live in the city. This is especially the case for the older neighbourhoods. To boot, some people go to live in the centre and immediately start complaining about - and trying to close down - the neighbouring coffeeshop/homeless shelter/loitering youth etc which was there long before them (well obviously not the same loitering youth).

Of course some things are a matter of taste too: many people think the tidiness of the Netherlands is great, while I still think it is nice, but nonetheless a bit uniform.

If you liked Utrecht, a whole ream of Dutch provincial towns which I'm sure you'll like too are coming up on #3 and #4**. I actually think many of these towns are architecturally more varied than Amsterdam, though Amsterdam has other things that make it unique. 

*Though I can understand that Utrecht might still seem relatively cheap for someone from the UK.

** If I don't get round to posting soon, I'll already recommend Den Bosch ('s-Hertogenbosch), Deventer, Roermond and also some smaller towns like Gorinchem, Zaltbommel, Naarden, Schoonhoven, Zutphen...)


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