Maastricht

What's this? A third country in one day? Yes, after a really pleasant bus ride through the Limburg countryside, I arrived in the very pretty university city of Maastricht in the Netherlands!

To be totally honest, I've done nothing remotely intellectual or cultural here, just wandered around taking in the sights and sounds of the city while narrowly avoiding being hit by cyclists - always a sure sign you're in the Netherlands!

I'd been expecting this city to feel a little less Dutch - in the 1830s, when Belgium broke away from the Netherlands, Limburg was originally part of the nascent Belgium, which made sense given its predominantly Catholic demographics. However during the peace negotiations leading up to the First Treaty of London, two-thirds of Luxembourg was handed to Belgium and, in exchange for King-Grand Duke William I giving up this territory, the Dutch king was granted half of Limburg which became a part of the German Confederation. This was a personal union and so this part of the world did not officially merge into the Netherlands until the 1860s. So in short, during the 19th century this city was Dutch, then Belgian, then German and then Dutch again. It was also this Treaty of London which signed up the UK to be a guarantor of Belgian neutrality, which in 1914 resulted in Britain being dragged into the First World War.

Regardless of this history, Maastricht does feel very Dutch. Putting aside the overwhelming abundance of bicycles, I think the key contrast is the lack of that somewhat awkward bilingualism that I've seen so far in Antwerp and Brussels. In Aachen this morning I knew to say "guten morgen", "bitte" and "danke" and here in Maastricht I have no hesitation in saying "hallo", "alsjeblieft" and "dank u wel". All the signs are monolingual as well. However, in Belgium I'm a bit more hesitant and I've seen others on trains defaulting to English when speaking to strangers, and the signs all tend to show 4 languages - Dutch, French, German and English.

But to conclude on Maastricht, this is a delightful little Dutch city, cyclists are everywhere, the people here feel a little less tall than in Amsterdam, and I think I'm a little jealous of the people who chose to study here for university.Read more