Maastricht

Maastricht

There is so much to be discovered here. How I would love to stroll the halls of the Louvre and visit the many museums in this corner of Europe. I still plan on visiting the Van Gogh museum of course, have to be true to my bucket list, but for the most part I've had to abandon/postpone my plans of cultural excursions due to the fact that my kids are only 2 and 3 years old, have a great need for movement, and really just don't care about museums. I remember not caring about them either until I was about 16 years old or so, I think. As a compromise I decided (in behalf of my children, so I compromised by myself, ha) that we would go see great places and make finding fun fountains and playgrounds our mission. The kids like fountains, and they are happy when they get to play. I get to see a bit of the city. It's a good thing that so many places in Europe are like a open air historical museums anyway. That was certainly the case with Maastricht. We arrived early-ish this Saturday morning and parked right outside the market square. On our way to the market there was a toy store with a life size teddy bear outside the door. Drawn to big oversized stuffed animals as any child would be Ezra read the invitation correctly and went inside and Micah followed...or perhaps the beat wasn't an invitation at all and was meant to scare the kids off. It had some of the nicest toys I've ever seen. The kids immediately tested some toys that were sitting out and the owners missed only 4 beats before chiding them for touching the toys. We walked through the small store with admittedly only half-hearted attempts to keep our kids from playing with the toys that were set out perhaps being just a bit antagonistic because the owners were giving them the evil eye and stalking their every move. If you hate kids, don't sell toys, I would think. So after five minutes we shuffled our kids outside and vowed to never buy anything from them.
The market was completely empty, it's stands still closed except for the ones selling rotisserie chicken, fried everything, and spices. We walked around the old city and discovered at least three fountains. I've been to many cities in Europe, but Maastricht is one of the most charming I've been too. Perhaps it has to do with feeling that you are a part of history just by merely walking next to the city fortification that has stood to protect the settlement for 8 centuries.
Ezra loves very few things more than elevators. He didn't care too much about the wall, more about the glas elevator in front of it.

According to wikipedia Maastricht has an unbroken line of habitation that dates back 500 years before the Romans. That is so impressive. It has everything you would expect from a European city: cobble stoned narrow walk ways, ancient ruins, grand cathedrals, rows of houses joined one to another each outdoing their neighbor in architecture, cafes lining the grand places, and finally beautiful parks to relax and walk in. The Dutch seem to be especially fond of petting zoos, and farms for children. There has been one everywhere I've been to in the Netherlands so far. I felt very prepared when we encountered one without looking for it, having brought the crusts of the bread. I'm not sure why I get such a kick out of feeding ducks and deer, but I do.
We left tired and content, having found no playground, but having enjoyed what the city had to offer.