From 1,000 to 900 years old, moving between Nijmegen and Utrecht (Day 18 Netherlands)

One word for the awesomeness of this day: multimodal. Heck yes, dear reader, we used several types of transportation in one day! 

We rode our countryside bikes to the train station. 
We took the Stoptrein train to (somewhere), which honestly felt more like a light rail train. We transferred in a mere 6 minutes to our train to Utrecht. 
We hauled our luggage about a half mile, a good portion of which went through a very well designed mall, to our StayOkay hostel in central Utrecht.
Then we met Ronald, who took us on a walking tour to pick up our in-city rental bikes. Y'all. Y'ALL. I was tired but also geeking out over how seamless it was! 
But wait! There's more!

We repeated a prior assignment from Copenhagen, Denmark in the new-to-us context of Utrecht, Netherlands. We followed locals on their commutes for about an hour before meeting in Wilhelmina Park to debrief. The experience was very different than anywhere in Denmark! In most of central Utrecht, people on bikes get priority. By "priority" I mean that bikers are the assumed users of the roadways. Cars are allowed in many places (most?), but secondary to bikes. Pedestrians get their own space, but they can safely walk in the road if need be (due to a delivery truck or parked bikes or what have you) because the car drivers must go slowly by design. It felt amazing to bike here, even if most commuters went much faster than me.
I'll stop here and save the deeper comparisons and observations for another post. Suffice it to say, I went to bed quite ready to rest up to enjoy learning more from Utrecht.

Next up: City-suburb-rural, a full day loop

Not-so-random pic: A view at the park. Everything all green everywhere all at once.

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