Day 20 – Friday 10 June 2016

Another great breakfast at our hotel before starting our walking tour of old Maastricht, right outside our hotel on the riverbank. Maastricht is the oldest continually habited town in the Netherlands. The first point of interest was outside our hotel, the site of the first Roman bridge built across the Maas River in the 1st century AD, apparently it was originally a fording point as it was very shallow. Not now as there are countless motorised barges travelling up & downriver all the time. After the Roman bridge was destroyed, a stone bridge, the Sint Servaasbrug was constructed in the 13^th century, the oldest bridge in the Netherlands & is still used today as a pedestrian & cycle bridge. It is in an amazing condition. We walked across it into the old town full of medieval buildings & narrow cobblestone streets. Our guide Tilly was very informative & funny as we strolled the streets. Maastricht was waking up, the streets were nearly empty when we started our walk, the shops opened at 10 am. One of the stone buildings we passed was built in 1616, there were lots of others of similar vintage, or older.

We then strolled to the old city walls & the town gates, built in 1229 & known as Helpoort (hellsgate in English). This was another gate that had an ability to pour burning hot oil down onto attackers at the gate. We followed the old wall around, passing the house that Andre Rieu lived in as a boy, saw the remains of an old nunnery that someone has converted to a house, then back into the town again, passing by the remains of the old Roman wall that is still standing. There are certainly some beautiful old buildings in Maastricht. There are around 50 old churches in town, apparently the old Dutch were very religious in times past. With the decline in religion some of the churches have been re-used for other purposes, we saw one being used as a large bookstore. The churches are being used but not allowed to be altered, just in case religion will become popular again.

The flower mill & its water wheel is still working, water is still turning the wheel & bread is still being made in the bakery. Out & past some more imposing old churches & down some more narrow streets before coming to the main market square. This square is dominated by the large town hall smack in the middle of it. Today was market day so the square was packed with stallholders selling their wares, mainly fruit & vegetables, we started to walk through the market but the crowd was too large so we left quietly. We left there then walked through some more quaint old streets before coming to the large square that Andre Rieu plays his concerts in. This square is dominated by two large churches in one corner, both different faiths but so close to each other. One church has its tower painted red, originally it was ox blood. There is rivalry between the two churches & the small gap between them is called purgatory as each of the churches is considered representing heaven by its followers & the other representing hell. Our walking tour ended in this large square so we started to wander back slowly to our hotel, stopping to buy a 500 gm punnet of fresh & very tasty strawberries for 2 Euro & enjoying a wander through different parts of the old town & crossing the river on the new bridge.

We departed for Amsterdam at 12.30pm, with Piero our driver doing another excellent job navigating his way through the tight streets. The Autobahn drive was interrupted by backed up traffic from an accident, once passed that we made good time. The Dutch countryside is very flat, no hills nor mountains & is very green with long lush pastures everywhere, separated by drainage ditches. We crossed 2 rivers that were in flood, one an arm of the Rhine River & could see where the floodwaters had reached earlier in the week before starting to subside. We reached Amsterdam around 4.30pm & managed to get to our rooms around 5pm. Off to dinner at 6.15pm to a Restaurant in the city where we sat in a back room (very rustic) all together at a long table, all 20 of us. The food was absolutely delicious, starting with salmon wrapped is seaweed then crumbed & fried, followed by a skewer of different marinated meats finishing with a delicious gelato & cream dessert. Another great dinner.

We walked back home from the restaurant along the canals & down some narrow streets, it was very busy & there were people everywhere, Amsterdam was humming with activity. Some cafes we walked past has an overpowering smell of marijuana being smoked, some of the shopfronts we passed had young ladies offering their services under red lights. We passed another Insight Tour Group also out walking & their Tour Director was Brad, the person who was our Tour Director around Europe 5 years ago. It is a very small world indeed, we stopped, shook hands & chatted briefly before moving on & back to our hotel by 10pm. It is still broad daylight.

One thing about this European trip our clothes are shrinking even the ones we haven’t washed.