What’s happening Things to do & places to go

What’s happening?

March & April

THINGS TO DO & PLACES TO GO

OPEN-AIR ART

Gigantic word search puzzle

On the side wall of a house on Graafschap in the Lunetten district, you’ll see a huge word search puzzle. The mural was made by JanIsDeMan, the artist responsible for numerous other murals in Utrecht, including the now world-famous bookcase adorning a wall on the corner of Amsterdamsestraatweg and Mimosastraat. The words used in this word search puzzle come from stories told by local residents. They refer to special places in the neighbourhood, anti-squat buildings, community parties and fox hunts. You can read the stories (in Dutch) on muurschilderinglunetten.nl.

> on the side wall of Graafschap 47

ONLINE EXPERIMENTS Museum@home

The Utrecht University Museum is currently being renovated. So now that experiments inside the museum are impossible, the museum has put the instructions for all kinds of tests and experiments online so that you can do them at home. You can learn how to create the smell of swimming pool water, for example, examine microplastics or find out how to float something that would normally sink. The instructions are in Dutch, so you will need to do some translating before getting stuck in.

> Museum Online by Utrecht University Museum umu.nl/museum-online

MUST DO

Street poetry walk

From a poem on a manhole cover to verses written on walls in narrow alleyways: in Utrecht, street poetry is everywhere you look. The free street poetry app VERS will take you on a ninety-minute walk around the best poetry shared in public spaces over the past decades. Every time you stop to read a poem, you hear more about the poet, the poem, the location and the context of the poem. Download the Dutch and English version of the app in de App Store or via Google Play.

> start the route on Domplein

MUST SEE

Botanical Gardens

Once the COVID restrictions allow it, you should definitely plan an escape to the green oasis of the Botanical Gardens in Utrecht Science Park. Planted around the 19th-century Fort Hoofddijk, this is one of the oldest botanical gardens in the Netherlands. As well as checking out some rare trees, flowers and plants, from early April onwards you can go into the greenhouses and marvel at beautiful tropical butterflies. And it might not even be a major issue if the COVID restrictions meant that only a few people could go into the greenhouses at once....

> daily, Budapestlaan 17

uu.nl/en/utrecht-botanic-gardens

What’s happening?

LECTURE How our environment affects our health

Although we are living longer than ever before, are we necessarily healthier? This is the question that epidemiologist Virissa Lenters (Utrecht University) is trying to answer by decoding the exposome. This relatively new concept aims to explain all the things that people are exposed to in their lives, from cradle to grave. It includes the food that we eat, the air we breathe, the objects we touch and the psychological stress that we feel throughout our lives. How do all these factors affect our genetics? This interesting lecture from the Philosophy of Science course will be given in English and is accessible to non-students.

> 24 March, Utrecht University Hall sg.uu.nl/agenda/2021

DISCOVER THE REGION Spot the woodpecker

Woodpeckers stay close to their breeding grounds all year round. The only time that they expand their action radius is in the winter when they venture into the woods to search for food. If you’re lucky, you might spot one in the trees on the Utrechtse Heuvelrug. Staatsbosbeheer has set out a fun Woodpecker Path (Spechtenpad) in De Vuursche forest. The path is three kilometres long, so it’s perfect for kids. You can get a route map at the starting point close to Baarn: on the N415, turn off at the junction of Hilversumsestraatweg/ Hoge Vuurscheweg and take the parallel road. There’s a car park three hundred metres down this road.

> Boswachterij De Vuursche, between Baarn and Hilversum

Staatsbosbeheer.nl

March & April

LOCAL FAVOURITE Dagger Coffee

It used to be a bit of a bike ride away (Europalaan to be precise), but luckily for us, things have changed for the better: Dagger Coffee now has a branch in the centre of town. Owner Dagmar Geerlings decided to open a new coffee shop in a gorgeous, historic building in Zijdebalen, right in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. Drop in for coffee-to-go, cakes and lunch.

> Zijdenbalenstraat 2

daggercoffee.nl

MADE IN UTRECHT Siepdesign

By Manon Marijs All of the baby stuff in the Siepdesign webstore was designed and hand-made by Siep, AKA Simone Teekens. She started Siepdesign ten years ago, when she was expecting her son and her then-employer didn’t renew her contract. ‘I had plenty of time to decorate the nursery, so I made a lot of the things myself. I then came up with the idea of selling my designs online’. Items in the webstore include rattles, swaddling clothes, blankets, cuddly toys and teething rings. There’s also an Utrecht City series: blankets, T-shirts and rattles featuring the Dom Tower. Simone uses fabrics made from 100% cotton, which are lovely and soft for sensitive baby skin.

> Siepdesign products are on sale at Sproetjes en Sprietjes (Lijnmarkt), Groeten uit Utrecht (Zadelstraat) and online siepdesign.nl