Netherlands Day 9 - de Haar Castle

We rented bikes and visited some of the sites around Utrecht.  Our first stop was at the very impressive Castle de Haar.  Some form of a castle has existed since the mid 1300s while the current form is mostly due to a restoration in 1892.  We spent quite a while walking around the enormous castle grounds and rejuvenating ourselves with an ice cream.

Eventually we left the castle and headed to the much smaller Zuylen castle.  Unfortunately by the time we arrived the grounds were closing and we were only able to get a view from the outside.  It was an impressive place though a much smaller building and property. 

We worked our way back into town and stopped to visit, again from the outside, the unesco world heritage, Rietveld Schröder House.  This house built in 1921 was one of the first of the modern movement and to this day would easily fit in with the houses of modern Scandanavian design.  It was one of the first houses to uses movable interior walls allowing the family to have a larger living space during the day and private bedrooms at night. 

We wrapped up the day walking around the central part of the town.