We arrived in Maastricht 6:00 Sunday evening after a 2.5 hour train ride from Amsterdam. It's a much smaller, quieter city than Amsterdam - cobblestones, church bells and an ancient Roman wall. Our hotel is centrally located in one of the city squares and there is a lot of good eating and shopping nearby. Let me repeat: Shopping. And eating. I am in European heaven. The hotel itself is old and a little funky. There are two doors to our room - a bright red door without a lock and then a step forward to a white door with a lock that leads into the room. Our key is old-fashioned, like skeleton key old fashioned. Oh, and the carpet is different on each floor and crazy. And the toilet is super weird. That's all.
We had dinner at one of the nearby cafes. I had something called vuurlees, which the menu loosely translated as "meat in vinegar". Um, yikes. It turned out to be chunks of stew meat in what tasted a lot like barbecue sauce. It came with a side of french fries but ketchup was an additional order that cost .65 cents. (Charging for a squirt of ketchup is an odious practice that needs to go away forever!) Ryan had a mouthwatering steak in a mushroom cream sauce. Then we devoured a Belgian waffle with homemade vanilla ice cream and a warm cherry sauce.
Today we wandered around the city - had a late breakfast, a long walk near parts of the ancient wall, a cozy lunch and some shopping near the hotel. There's an old cathedral that's now a beautiful bookstore and there are many of the same clothing and shoe stores that I've seen in Eindhoven and Amsterdam - de Bijenkorf, V&D, Hema, Van Dalen, H&M. On a random note: there's also a Body Shop.
Tomorrow is open for whatever, possibly a climb up a church tower, a tour of a mill/bakery and maybe more traditional Dutch food? More travelogues on the way.
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