Isaac in the gardens of De Haar

Located on the outskirts of Utrecht, De Haar is a spectacular castle and definitely worth a visit.

It’s actually not all that old by castle standards – rebuilt during the years 1892-1912 on top of some old castle ruins, it features all of the ‘modern’ amenities that make other castles jealous (electricity, running water, and central heating).

It was the classic love story – boy has castle, girl has money, boy and girl spend a lot of money on a castle. They hired famous architect Pierre Cuypers along with a small army of craftsmen to pretty much build, sculpt, and engrave everything in the castle by hand.

De Haar tower

Carly and I arrived at De Haar by first taking a train to Utrecht and then renting bikes for the short trip out west of the city. The castle is composed of a number of different buildings arranged about on a nicely landscaped plot of land, which contains a moat, gardens, and a little snack shop!

We made sure to show up in time for one of the English tours and really enjoyed the guide’s enthusiasm and entertaining stories. He told us one story about how the castle’s owners had imported over 7000 fully grown trees to landscape their ‘park’.

The line of trees being transported through the city (up to the castle) had some trouble making one of the corners, so the baroness bought up the house on the offending corner just to tear it down for her tree parade. That’s a lot of trees.