“What art does — maybe what it does most completely — is tell us, make us feel that what we think we know, we don’t. There are whole worlds around us that we’ve never glimpsed.” Greil Marcus — Thursday July 2nd — —

The idea is to die young as late as possible. — Ashley Montagu — Thursday July 2nd — —

I love listening. It is one of the only spaces where you can be still and moved at the same time. — Nayyirah Waheed — Thursday July 2nd — —

Utrecht’s Finest

With the official team presentations, which will take place this evening, the Tour de France fever in our hometown Utrecht is slowly reaching a highpoint (with the tropical temperatures of recent days also playing a significant role in this development). Although the little brother of Amsterdam has gained significantly growing international attention in recent years, because of its beautiful canals and historical city center with a more laidback and less touristic atmosphere – for many people the host of the Grand Départ is still unknown territory. As we have been happily living in Utrecht for quite some years now, we teamed up with Rapha to introduce our city properly and created a little map with all of our favorite destinations when it comes to Food & Drinks, Art & Culture, Antiques & Obsessions, Fashion & Design, Markets & Flowers and Hideouts & Escapes, which we named Utrecht’s Finest. For those first getting to know Utrecht, or those who are curious what it is what makes the city special for us.

Despite being the fourth largest city in the country, with a population of a little over 300.000, Utrecht’s city centre is small enough to cross it by foot in under 15 minutes. It is small and perfectly formed, but unseen, underestimated and under-visited.

The names on the map are some of our all time favorites, which we have been mentioning over the years, like coffee champions The Village Coffee & Music, the Centraal Museum for whom we designed the ‘Blue Jeans’ exhibition in 2013, our favorite menswear store Cris, bespoke tailoring house New Tailor and as one of our favorite ‘Escapes’; the road between Amsterdam and Utrecht, being one of our favorite cycling roads.

Also very present in Utrecht in the coming days will be Rapha, for whom we redesigned their beautiful Mobile Cycle Club earlier this year – which is lovingly named ‘Franco’ – on location from today, celebrating the official presentation of Team Sky (taking place across the street in park Lepelenburg), until the first official stage on the 5th of July. The Mobile Cycle Club will be located in the little French village created on the parking space of the Spoorwegmuseum, which you will find on Maliebaanstation 16 in Utrecht. Today, Saturday and Sunday there will be rides from the Rapha Cycle Club in Amsterdam to the Mobile Cycle Club in Utrecht.

Next to the Mobile Cycle Club being present in Utrecht, Rapha also teamed up with boutique/cafe/hotel Daen’s, located in the Korte Minrebroederstraat to create another meeting place for lovers of cycling. In the store you will find signature Rapha photography, vintage bicycles by Sturm Bikes and both retro jerseys and some sweet Rapha accessories.

Whenever you are planning to visit Utrecht in the coming days, we suggest you to travel by train as we are sure it will be quite hectic on the roads and the train will be by far the most relaxing means of travel.

Find the Utrecht’s Finest map online here.

Or printed at the listed locations throughout the city.