Castle Visiting

5 more weeks! Can you see how desperate I am, counting down the days till I am back home? *grin*

My teammates and I decided to do some exploration to the castle in Maarssen, just outside Utrecht. After a quick breakfast, we headed down towards the Centraal Station to switch to bus #36 and got off at Oud-Zuilen. After almost a 10-minute walk into the village, we reached Slot Zuilen Castle.

Medieval castle

Didn't look as fascinating as what we saw in the Internet though. We didn't want to pay EUR 7 for a guided tour around the castle, so we just took some pictures and left. Well, at least we've seen a castle in Holland. Hehe..

We noticed there was a windmill not too far away from the castle. So we walked.. And walked.. And walked.. Under the hot, hot sun! The weather had been over 25 degrees this week, the hottest Holland has ever experienced in the last 100 years! We almost wanted to give up walking, it seemed so near yet so far. And so tiring! Finally we reached the windmill, which we do not know the name of it, and we saw lots of farm animals.

A picture summary of Maarssen

Couldn't help not taking the picture of the border sign between Maarssen and Utrecht. :) Oh by the way, 'Tot ziens' means 'Goodbye in Dutch. 'Doei' (pronounced as 'dui') is a slang for 'Goodbye' too. So you do "Doei, doei!" like saying "Bye bye!"

We were darn tired by the time we walked out of the village and back to the bus stop, but we were energetic once again when Phantom said that he would give us a treat in the city centre. "Red company belanja one!" So off we went, took the bus back to Utrecht, walked from the Centraal Station to the canal bridge, Oudegracht in the city centre. We hung out at the cafe by the canals, Fusto d' Oro. Ordered drinks, shared a ham pizza, basked under the sun and watched the world go by. Sat there for almost 3 hours before we decided that we were getting a bit of a sunburn. *grin*

So summery!

After that, we made a 'pledge' that we would hang out by the canals every weekend from then on. :)