Maastricht, N.L.

There´s a large public parking garage below the square next to the two cathedrals... forget the name of the square off-hand. My impression of Maastricht was that its a fairly typical small Dutch city, but without usual canals. Pleasant enough for a day, but not much more. BTW, over the border in Belgium, near Genk, there´s a great outdoor folk museum at Bokrijk. EDIT: The name of the square is Keiser Karelplein. I don´t remember specifically if this is the case in Maastricht, but usually in European cities, there´s a series of signs that direct you to public parking garages, with the name of a nearby location and the number of remaining empty spots for each garage. Just follow the signs with a big "P" on them.

It's a definitely possibility. Here is an excerpt from a trip report I wrote about a visit there in fall 2009. "Maastricht is a charming small city in a southern pocket of the Netherlands well and truly sandwiched between Belgium and Germany. Mr. DangerGirl and I jogged along the river Maas several mornings and one day he ran to the Belgian border. The city has Roman origins; there are excavated ruins in the basement of the Derlon and remnants of city walls from various centuries throughout Maastricht. We had a tour of the city hall, which is decorated with fabulous tapestries and paintings of allegorical representations of the city's history. (Sorry, I honestly don't know if they regularly give tours or if this was a special arrangement by my FIL's friend.) There are many pedestrian-only or pedestrian-friendly shopping streets between the river and the other two main town squares." How long are you staying, and will you have a car? I ask because Maastricht is charming but not large. We stayed there for several days because of a family event but you will want to make some day trips if you are there more than a couple of nights. Some of our group did a day trip by train to Aachen. We also visited the American Cemetery at Margraten which is very nice but similar to others in northern France.

We loved Maastricht. We stayed in Aachen as the hotels were too expensive for us in Maastricht. There are caves just outside of town where American soldiers, Jews and others hid to excape the Nazis during WW2. We took a boat on the River Maas to the caves. VERY interesting! Enjoy!

Thank you for the replys, we have rearranged our itinary because friends of ours really recommeded the town. We are traveling through the western countries for a month via a rental car. We will be going from Troisvierges, Luxembourg on the way to Brugge, Belgium and will only stay one night in Maastricht. The travel time will only be a few hours on the day we arrive and then only a few hours from there to Brugge.

In that case you are probably fine where you are. Maybe budget for a cab back from dinner somewhere in the old town after an afternoon of wandering the pedestrian-only cobbled streets.

How was public parking in the "old" town, I'm sure I can find that out at the Kasteel Vaeshartelt that we are staying at.

Good info there already. Yup, go downstairs for the car park. Yup, go to Aachen. (while there can you get me another hand-made brush and a kilo of Printen, and drop it all off please?) Yup, you can even overlook the Spa Francochamps F1 track near Spa. That's where the term "Spa" came from. I completely agree with the comment that its like any small Dutch city, with no canals. We liked it but spent most of our time in Aachen and the countryside. Also a half day at the spa Thermae 2000 half way to Aachen near Valkenburg is guaranteed to cook any stress away. Enjoy your journey in the Dutch "mountains".

Hope you have a wonderful time. Maastricht is the home of Andre Rieu and it is known for its many bell towers. One of his concerts was filmed there-was on PBS several years ago.

THANK YOU AGAIN EVERYONE, WE ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO A GREAT TRIP!