Fun Things to Do in Utrecht Province: 4 Day Trips

The 4 best day trips in Utrecht province are Woerden for cheese, Spakenburg for the botter fleet, Amersfoort for the medieval gates and the Mondriaan house, and Castle De Haar for the largest country house in the Netherlands. All four sit within 45 minutes of Utrecht city, and any two of them make a weekend.

Utrecht Region is the smallest of the Dutch provinces by area and the densest in day trips because of it. I did these four over four days at the invitation of the Utrecht Region tourist board, driving between them, and every one of them works as a stand-alone trip from Utrecht, Amsterdam or the Netherlands generally.

1. Things to do in Woerden

Woerden is the cheese town of Utrecht province, and its Saturday-morning farmers’ cheese market on the Kerkplein has been running since 1825. The heritage route, the working cheese warehouse and the windmill fill a full day between them.

Walk Woerden’s heritage photo route

Woerden’s heritage photo route strings the town’s monuments into one walk, and Beleef Woerden publishes it as a photography heritage route you can follow on a phone. Start on the Kerkplein, the church square, and work outwards.

The stops that reward a pause are listed below, in walking order.

1. City Hotel Woerden, in an 18th-century building on the Kerkplein that once stored military equipment. Walk in for a coffee and look at the interior.
2. The Cheese Bell, also on the Kerkplein, placed in 1925 for the centenary of the Woerden cheese market. It was a working noticeboard as well as a monument: the day’s cheese volume and price were written on it.
3. The Petrus Tower, the church tower on the square. It is 203 steps to the top and you can only climb it on a guided tour, which runs on the second and fourth Saturday of the month.
4. The city museum, whose facade with its red shutters is worth the look even if you do not go in.
5. The Gildepoortje, a small guild gateway at Havenstraat 1a, which is easy to walk past entirely. I did.
6. The former barracks, dating from 1790 and now full of places to eat, with the square in front of it working as one enormous terrace in good weather.
7. Mill De Windhond, “The Greyhound”, from 1755, restored in 1984 and still milling. Entry is free. It sells its own flour when it is working on Fridays and on Saturdays between 10.30am and 4pm, and a guide will take you round on Wednesday afternoons between 2pm and 4pm.
8. The former convent, now an arts centre and music school, with the only theatre in the Netherlands built in a former convent garden.
9. St Bonaventura church, which needs the far side of the street to be seen properly.
10. Woerden Castle’s entrance gate, across the street again. The castle itself is now an events venue for weddings and conferences rather than a museum.

From the castle the Rijnstraat takes you back into the shopping streets.

Have a Cheese Experience at the Kaaspakhuis

The Kaaspakhuis is the last working cheese warehouse in the Netherlands that takes visitors, and its Cheese Experience is the single most interesting hour in Woerden. A guide takes you through how Dutch cheese is made now, including a look inside a modern factory through VR glasses, and the visit ends with a tasting of farmhouse cheeses and a local drink.

The best part is upstairs. You put on a white coat and hat and go into the ripening hall, where 60 tonnes of cheese sits on racks. Ask to lift one, watch an expert turn one, then stand on the cheese scale downstairs, which tells you your weight in cheeses. I came out between three and four. Groups can book a build-your-own-cheese workshop, and if you come on a Friday the cheesemaker is working in the building while you are in it.

The Kaaspakhuis opens Monday to Saturday from 10am to 5pm, with Sundays by arrangement. Check the current session times before you travel, because the tour runs to a schedule rather than on demand.

Coffee at OOK and lunch at Bistronoom

OOK is a cookshop, gift shop and coffee bar in one, and it has moved. It spent years split across the Rijnstraat and the Voorstraat with the coffee bar on the Rijnstraat side and a terrace built from wooden pallets; since November 2023 it has been at Voorstraat 17. An older guide sending you to the Rijnstraat entrance will not find it. The cappuccino is soft and the cakes on the counter are the thing I regret not ordering.

Bistronoom, at Kruittorenweg 13 by the old barracks, is Woerden’s best restaurant and has been going for a decade. It runs from quick local plates to full gastronomy, cooks with regional produce and some from its own garden, and has a long drinks list that talked me out of my usual sparkling water and into a ginger mocktail. The service is unusually attentive: every table carries a handwritten welcome note along the lines of “lucky you, this is your table”.

How to get to Woerden

Woerden is on the direct line between Utrecht Centraal and Leiden, so it is 15 minutes from Utrecht by train, and the station is a five-minute walk from the Kerkplein. Driving, the paid underground Parking Castellum sits under the centre.

You can compare train timetables and fares within Europe in one search, and if you are flying in, check Trip.com for flight options into Amsterdam or Eindhoven.

2. Things to do in Spakenburg

Spakenburg is a fishing village on the Eemmeer with the largest collection of botters in the world, and it is the most distinctive place in Utrecht province. A botter is the flat-bottomed wooden sailing boat the Dutch inland fleet used, and a third of every surviving botter in the Netherlands is moored here.

Walk the Museum Harbour and the new harbour

Spakenburg’s Museum Harbour is a working harbour full of historical boats rather than a display, which takes a moment to understand. The harbour dates from the 13th century and was dug for the fishing fleet. I assumed the botters were exhibits until a crew in modern clothes untied one and sailed it out, which is the moment Spakenburg makes sense.

Walk right along the Oude Haven, the old harbour, and turn left at the corner to reach the new harbour with its modern pleasure boats. Jachthaven Nieuwboer rents boats there by the hour, the day or the week, and bikes as well, which is how I got to dinner.

In summer you can sail on one of the old botters. The trips last about 90 minutes and run from May to the end of September; check spakenburg.nl for the current season’s dates and times, because the season had just closed when I arrived.

Visit Museum Spakenburg

Museum Spakenburg sits beside the Museum Harbour and the tourist office, and it is built out of the village’s own things: everything on display is authentic, from private collections or donated by families, and the museum occupies the original buildings.

The exhibition is arranged as scenes from ordinary life rather than as cases, covering school, farming, fishing, cooking and the village’s distinctive dress, which is still worn by some older women in Spakenburg. You go in and out through the café, which is worth a look on its own and serves the local cake. Volunteers will give you a tour on the spot if you ask, and you only need to ring ahead for a group.

Grand Café 033 and the little beach

Grand Café 033 has the terrace on the Spuiplein, Spakenburg’s central square, and it has been there since 2016. I had tea and a slice of Spakenburg cake, and the Earl Grey arrived as loose leaf in a removable filter with a rest for it and a biscuit on the side, which is a detail almost nobody gets right. The cake is moist and comes with whipped cream and strawberries if you ask.

For the beach, keep to the left of the old harbour instead of the right, walk out to the Eemmeer and turn left along the lake. At the far end, just before the path bends back towards the centre, there is a small sand beach the locals call “het zeetje”, the little sea. The green space along the way is the village picnic spot.

Dinner at Wieken, by the windmill

Wieken is a brasserie and grill beside the mill “De Hoop” in neighbouring Bunschoten, a five-minute bike ride or a 15-minute walk from the centre of Spakenburg, and its terrace faces west over the water, which makes it the sunset table. The mill is a replica of an 1899 original demolished in 1967, still turns on Wednesdays and Saturdays when there is wind, and sells flour from a small shop.

Wieken opens Tuesday to Saturday from 11am and closes Sunday and Monday, with the kitchen running midday to 3pm and again from 5pm. Note the name: it is Wieken rather than Bistro Wieken. I ate three courses, which I never do: grilled chicken wings in a house barbecue sauce, then shrimp with vegetables and sweet potato, then a child’s ice cream that turned out to be vanilla with whipped cream and marshmallows.

Where to stay in Spakenburg

I stayed at Hotel De Mandemaaker, which is studios in an apartment building just off the main square. Check-in happens at Restaurant De Mandemaaker across the square at Kerkstraat 103, and the studio has a bathroom, wardrobe, bed, seating area, desk and enough kitchen equipment to make your own breakfast if you would rather not order one from the restaurant.

Its position is the point. Everything in this section is within ten minutes’ walk of it.

How to get to Spakenburg

Spakenburg has no railway station. By public transport, take a train to Amersfoort Centraal and change to the bus for Bunschoten-Spakenburg, which runs into the village centre; check the current route number on 9292.nl, because the operator and the numbering have both changed since this route was first written up.

Driving, the sports centre Westmaat car park on the Westdijk is free and a short walk from the harbour.

3. Things to do in Amersfoort

Amersfoort has two medieval city walls, and the line of the first one is now a street you can walk. A morning covers the highlights and a full day is better, because the historic centre also has the province’s best independent shops and coffee bars.

Walk the historic centre

Amersfoort’s old centre is a double ring: an inner circle where the 13th-century wall stood and an outer one where the 15th-century wall replaced it. The route below does both in about two hours.

1. The Church of Our Lady, whose tower is the geographical centre point of the Netherlands, and the Breestraat running down from it to the water.
2. The Monnikendam, a water gate on the inner canal that once regulated levels.
3. Muurhuizen, “wall houses”, the half-circle street built from the bricks of the demolished first city wall in the 15th century. The wall came down because a bigger one had gone up further out.
4. The Kamperbinnenpoort, a gate from the second half of the 13th century that survived being largely demolished twice, in the 16th and 19th centuries. The city wanted it gone; the national government paid to restore it instead.
5. De Armen de Poth courtyard, founded early in the 16th century when the Brotherhood of the Holy Ghost moved in. “Poth” was the food they handed out to the poor, and free bread was still distributed here weekly until 1975. The old bread oven was restored in 2018. The courtyard is still run by the College of Regents, which is what the Brotherhood renamed itself in the 18th century.
6. The Dreyershofje, a second and quieter courtyard whose houses were built for artists who were not making money.
7. The Koppelpoort, the one to see if you only see one. It is a combined land and water gate completed around 1450, and it needed at least 12 men walking a treadwheel to raise and lower it every morning and evening. Pierre Cuypers restored it in 1885 and 1886 and altered the structure while he was at it; the 1996 restoration was more careful with the original material.
8. The Eemplein, finished in 2012 as a second centre outside the walls. Leave through the Koppelpoort, take the footpath under the railway bridge and cross the pedestrian bridge. The square holds the kAde arts centre, the library, the regional archive, an art school, an architecture forum, a cinema, a supermarket and places to eat.

Visit the Mondriaanhuis

The Mondriaanhuis is the actual house Piet Mondriaan was born in, and it tells his life and the development of his work chronologically, room by room. You get paintings, photographs, books, 3D projections and film.

Two rooms make the visit. One is a full-scale recreation of Mondriaan’s Paris apartment, which shows how he applied the same thinking to furniture, walls and colour blocks as to canvas. The other is the workshop, which has a sound device that turns touch panels into music, built around the fact that Mondriaan was a serious jazz enthusiast. There is a café and a shop.

Coffee at Livingstone and lunch at Brood & Zoets

Livingstone is a travel-themed coffee bar near the Eemplein, small downstairs with a few work tables and some salvaged aeroplane seats, and more room upstairs. The menu is coffee plus light food, with cakes on the counter. I had a large cappuccino and a bowl of thick yoghurt with cruesli, nuts and cinnamon apple, and the coffee was genuinely unlike anything I had drunk before. Ask what they are pouring, because they do not publish it. Order the cheesecake brownie if you have room, which after the yoghurt I did not.

Brood & Zoets, “Bread & Sweets”, is a few metres from the Mondriaanhuis and does sandwiches, quiches, soup and cakes, with a vintage interior and tables outside. I had their mix, a small glass of soup with the quiche of the day. The soup was good, the quiche was fine, and the side salad was a nice touch. Service was quick, which mattered because I had a castle to get to.

How to get to Amersfoort

Amersfoort Centraal is a major junction with direct trains from Utrecht (about 15 minutes), Amsterdam, Zwolle, Apeldoorn and Deventer, and the historic centre is a ten-minute walk from it. Driving, the Q-Park St. Jorisplein car park is the closest paid parking to the old town.

4. Visit Castle De Haar

Castle De Haar at Haarzuilens is the largest country house in the Netherlands and the province’s one unmissable building. Pierre Cuypers, the same architect who restored Amersfoort’s Koppelpoort, was commissioned by Baron and Baroness van Zuylen to turn a medieval ruin into a comfortable and historically convincing second home, and Hendrik Copijn laid out the park and gardens around it across almost 55 hectares (136 acres).

Tickets and prices

A combined castle and park ticket costs €17.00 for an adult (about $20, £15) and €11.00 for a child aged 4 to 12, with under-4s free. A park-only ticket is cheaper, and parking is €7.50 a day (about $8.70, £6.40), which can be added to an online ticket, bought at the entrance building, or paid at the barrier by card as you leave. The original €16.00 and €5.00 figures are out of date.

At that price, plan enough time to use it. I saw the castle and the whole park in about two hours and I was rushing and alone, which makes me faster than most.

Inside the castle

The castle is a self-guided route from room to room, and a guided tour is optional rather than required. Each room has a printed information board, there are attendants to ask, and an audio guide is available.

Reading everything takes about an hour; walking it without reading takes half that. The house is in exceptional condition and it gives you a clear view of the society that gathered here. One reservation: many rooms are dressed with mannequins, and I found they made it harder rather than easier to imagine the place in use.

The park and gardens

The park is the better half of the ticket, and the rose garden is the best of the park because it frames the castle across the moat. Children will prefer the picnic area beside the deer park.

Paths and lanes lead past the Serpentine River, the Covered Bridge, the Maze and the Grand Canal, which is laid out on the same axial logic as Versailles and looks it. Allow two hours minimum, three if you are picnicking.

How to get to Castle De Haar

Castle De Haar is easiest by car, with the paid car park directly opposite the entrance gate. By public transport the route depends entirely on the day of the week, which catches people out.

Plan the journey on 9292.nl on the day rather than trusting a fixed timetable, because bus 111 runs hourly in low season and twice hourly between Easter and the end of the summer holidays. One warning worth repeating: route planners sometimes offer the Eikslaan stop on bus 127, which is further from the castle than Brink is. Take Brink.

You can compare train timetables and fares within Europe across operators in one search.

Planning a trip round Utrecht province

Utrecht Region is compact enough that a single base works for all four of these. Utrecht city is the obvious one, with direct trains to Woerden and Amersfoort and bus 9 to Castle De Haar at weekends; Amersfoort is the better base if Spakenburg is a priority, because the village is reached from there.

The four in one route runs Woerden, Castle De Haar, Utrecht, Amersfoort, Spakenburg from west to east, and a car makes it considerably easier because Spakenburg has no station and Castle De Haar’s bus depends on the day. Compare rental car rates from Amsterdam or Eindhoven once your dates are fixed.

Utrecht province FAQ

What are the best things to do in Utrecht province?

The Cheese Experience at Woerden’s Kaaspakhuis, the botter fleet and Museum Spakenburg at Spakenburg, Amersfoort’s Koppelpoort and Mondriaanhuis, and Castle De Haar with its 55-hectare park are the four that show you most of Utrecht province. All four are day trips from Utrecht city.

How much does Castle De Haar cost?

A combined castle and park ticket costs €17.00 for an adult and €11.00 for a child aged 4 to 12, with under-4s free. A park-only ticket costs less. Parking is €7.50 a day and can be added to an online ticket or paid by card at the barrier on the way out.

Can you visit Castle De Haar by public transport?

You can, and the route changes with the day. Bus 9 runs from Utrecht Centraal straight to the castle on Saturdays, Sundays and in the summer and Christmas holidays. On other days you take the Sprinter to Vleuten and then bus 111, on Wednesdays, or bus 127 to Brink in Haarzuilens followed by a 15-minute walk.

What is Spakenburg known for?

Spakenburg is known for having the largest collection of botters in the world, the flat-bottomed wooden sailing boats of the Dutch inland fishing fleet, with roughly a third of every surviving Dutch botter moored in its harbour. It is also one of the few Dutch villages where traditional dress is still worn.

How many days do you need in Utrecht province?

Four days covers all four of these places properly, one each, which is what this trip was. Two days works if you pair Woerden with Castle De Haar and Amersfoort with Spakenburg, since those two pairs are close together.

Is Woerden worth visiting?

Woerden is worth a day if cheese interests you at all. It has the last working cheese warehouse in the Netherlands that admits visitors, a farmers’ cheese market on the Kerkplein every Saturday morning that dates from 1825, a working 1755 windmill and a heritage route that links about ten monuments in a walkable loop.

WonderfulWanderings Pro Tips

The 5 tips below come from four days in Utrecht province and from re-checking every price, opening time and bus route in 2026.

1. Castle De Haar’s bus depends on the day of the week. Bus 9 runs from Utrecht Centraal to the gate only at weekends and in the summer and Christmas holidays. Midweek you go via Vleuten on bus 111, on Wednesdays only, or on bus 127 to Brink plus a 15-minute walk. Get off at Brink, not Eikslaan, whatever a route planner suggests.
2. Castle De Haar is €17.00 an adult plus €7.50 to park, not the €16.00 and €5.00 that older guides quote. Budget two to three hours so the ticket earns itself, and add the parking to the online ticket rather than queuing at the barrier.
3. Go to Woerden’s Kaaspakhuis on a Friday. That is the day cheese is actually being made in the building while you are in it, which is a different visit from being shown the room where it happens. Opening is Monday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm.
4. OOK has moved. It is at Voorstraat 17 as of November 2023, not the Rijnstraat entrance that older Woerden guides send you to.
5. Woerden’s Petrus Tower only opens twice a month. The 203-step climb is guided-tour only, on the second and fourth Saturday of the month, so it is a date to plan the trip around rather than a thing to do on the day.

About the author. This guide is written and maintained by the Wonderful Wanderings editorial team. Wonderful Wanderings was founded in 2012 by Sofie Couwenbergh, and the first-hand notes on Woerden, Spakenburg, Amersfoort and Castle De Haar come from the four days she spent driving between them. That trip was made at the invitation of the Visit Utrecht Region tourist board; the route and the opinions are her own. The team covers the Netherlands for independent travellers, including the hotels, restaurants, museums and castles worth booking, and updates this page when prices, opening times and bus routes change.