Utrecht is more than its Dom Tower and canals. This guide follows a quieter line through the city, from faith to learning to modern design: St Catherine's Cathedral, the Museum Catharijneconvent beside it, University Hall on the Domplein, the Centraal Museum and the Rietveld Schröder House. Together they show how a city of bishops became a city of students and, in the 20th century, of bold architecture.
St Catherine's Cathedral
St Catherine's Cathedral, the Catharijnekerk, began as the church of a Carmelite friary founded in 1456. After 1529 the Knights Hospitaller took over the building work, and the church was completed in the middle of the 16th century. From 1580 it was used by a Protestant congregation, but in 1815 it returned to Catholic hands, and since 1853 it has been the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Utrecht, the mother church of Roman Catholics in the Netherlands. It is one of the stops on our scavenger hunt.
Its present front is younger than it looks. From 1898 the architect Alfred Tepe lengthened the church by one bay to the west and rebuilt the facade as a copy of the old one, and in 1900 he added a tower modelled on the tower of the town hall in Kampen. In 2018 the parish announced plans to close the church for financial reasons, but in 2019 Cardinal Willem Eijk reversed the decision, and it remains the archdiocese's cathedral.
- The reliquary under the main altar, which holds relics of St Willibrord, the Northumbrian monk who was consecrated bishop in 695, is counted as the first bishop of Utrecht and is the patron saint of the Benelux countries.
- The tower on the west front, the part of the church added in 1900, and the long church behind it.
Museum Catharijneconvent
The former St Catherine's convent next to the cathedral has held the Museum Catharijneconvent since it was founded in 1979. The address is Lange Nieuwstraat 38. It is the national museum of religious art and culture, and it tells the story of Christianity in the Netherlands, Catholic and Protestant, and its influence on Dutch society, through religious art and objects. It is not a stop on our scavenger hunt, but it pairs naturally with the cathedral next door.
University Hall
University Hall, the Academiegebouw, stands on the Domplein next to the Dom Church and is the ceremonial building of Utrecht University, which was founded on 26 March 1636. The main building facing the square is a 19th-century addition, but at its core is the old chapter house of the cathedral, the hall where the canons of the Dom once met. Today it is the university's Aula, its ceremonial hall, used for academic ceremonies. University Hall is one of the stops on our scavenger hunt.
The chapter house has a place in Dutch history: on 23 January 1579 the Union of Utrecht was signed there. The treaty bound Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht and other provinces together against Spain and is seen as the foundation of the Dutch Republic; it also promised freedom of personal belief, unusual for its time. The university made history too. In 1636, its first year, Anna Maria van Schurman, born in Cologne in 1607, became the first woman to study at a Dutch university. Women could not formally enrol, so she followed lectures from behind a screen, out of sight of the male students. She knew fourteen languages and was also a painter and engraver.
- Look for the little gateway between the Dom Church and University Hall, which leads through to the cloister behind them.
The Centraal Museum
The Centraal Museum, founded in 1838, is the city museum of Utrecht and is housed in a former medieval monastery on the Nicolaaskerkhof. It is especially strong on the painters of Utrecht. It also owns and runs the Rietveld Schröder House, and across the street is the Miffy Museum, devoted to Dick Bruna, the Utrecht illustrator who created Miffy (Nijntje in Dutch). It is not on our scavenger hunt route.
- The Utrecht Caravaggisti, Gerard van Honthorst and Hendrick ter Brugghen, who studied Caravaggio's work in Rome and brought his strong light and shadow back to Utrecht, and the largest collection of paintings by Joachim Wtewael anywhere.
- The Utrecht Ship, a vessel about a thousand years old that was found in the city in 1930.
The Rietveld Schröder House
The Rietveld Schröder House, at Prins Hendriklaan 50, was built in 1924 by the furniture maker and architect Gerrit Rietveld for Truus Schröder-Schräder and her three children. It is one of the best-known buildings of De Stijl, the Dutch movement of straight lines, flat planes and primary colours, and from outside it looks like one of Mondrian's paintings turned into a house. UNESCO made it a World Heritage Site in 2000.
Inside, the upper floor has almost no fixed walls. Sliding and revolving panels let the family open it into one large space or divide it into separate rooms, an idea that was radical in the 1920s. The house is run by the Centraal Museum and can be visited inside; it lies outside the old centre, so check visiting arrangements before you go. It is not on our scavenger hunt route.
- Look for the way the balconies, window frames and wall planes seem to slide past each other, picked out in red, yellow, blue, black, white and grey.
How to see them in one walk
Start at University Hall on the Domplein, and walk through the little gateway beside it to the cloister. From there head south along the Lange Nieuwstraat to the Museum Catharijneconvent and St Catherine's Cathedral, which stand side by side. Continue south to the Nicolaaskerkhof for the Centraal Museum, with the Miffy Museum across the street. Keep the Rietveld Schröder House for the end, and take a bus or a bike out to Prins Hendriklaan on the eastern side of the city.
See Utrecht with World City Trail
Our Utrecht scavenger hunt turns the old town into a game you play on your phone. The route links 10 stops, starting at the Oude Mannen en Vrouwenhuis and finishing at the Jewish Monument, and University Hall and St Catherine's Cathedral are both stops, along with Museum Speelklok, the Oudegracht, the Dom Church, the Dom Tower, Het Utrechts Archief Expo and De Letters van Utrecht. At each stop you solve a puzzle and learn a story, at your own pace.
There is also a self-guided walking tour and an outdoor escape game in Utrecht, for people who prefer a different format.
Play the Utrecht scavenger hunt →
Take the self-guided walking tour of Utrecht →
Play the outdoor escape game in Utrecht →
Facts checked in October 2026.