Utrecht · Things to do

The cathedral's cloister garden beside the tower, a square of medieval arcading around a herb garden. Free to walk into and almost always empty.

A sixteenth-century bastion in the city wall turned observatory and meteorological museum, with the original telescopes still under the dome.

The national railway museum in the old Maliebaan station, with locomotives you can climb into and a special train running out to it from Utrecht Centraal.

A flat, signposted river route out of the city past country estates towards Bunnik and Wijk bij Duurstede. Easy the whole way, and the fastest escape from the centre.

The university's botanical gardens out at Utrecht Science Park, with a rock garden built into an old fortress of the Dutch Water Line.