As the guidebooks hinted, Maastricht is different from the other parts of Holland that we have seen. It's hilly for one. The city is more cosmopolitan, yet it's very old. The women especially were dressed quite nicely - certainly more stylish than what we see in Delft. There were very few bicycles (relatively), though there were bike paths just like the rest of Holland. Even around the university, there were fewer bicycles than we see in Northern Holland. Walking around the student area for the University of Maastricht was neat. My sister took a summer course there through Indiana University back in 1992. We enjoyed sitting at the administration building looking at this guard house knowing that Aunt Julie probably walked or biked right by where we sat! Pretty cool to think about. The neat thing about old cities is that there are always nice little gardens or alcoves with something fun to see in places that you don't expect. We saw a little patio with this dramatic statue and wall with ivy just between two buildings. If we had looked left instead of right, we would have missed it. Every street has building with interesting gables, sculptures, ironwork, or painting.
Maastricht was pretty slow and less crowded than we expected. It was a Tuesday. Thought maybe because over a half-million people were about to descend on Valkenburg 20 km away for the tour. Who knows? At one of the squares, this tour group drove by on their automatic scooters. Pretty crazy. They looked a little awkward for stopping and balancing at sites.
posted by Whitney @ 1:26 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home