Maastricht; Friday, 08 August, 2025

I had a decent night’s sleep and, after a quick breakfast, headed back to Hoofddorp station to pick up the train in towards Amsterdam to connect to the train to Maastricht. Originally I’d just intended on staying onto the train to Amsterdam Centraal and changing there, but it turns out that both my train and my connecting train called at Amsterdam Sloterdijk before reaching Centraal, and given how busy the train was expected to be I made the decision to make the short (three minute) connection there, which turned out to be an excellent idea as I was able to get a seat on the train, unlike some of my fellow passengers who boarded at Centraal who were left standing the 30 or so minutes to Utrecht.

The journey for most of the way was pretty smooth, until we got to Eindhoven where the train was abruptly cancelled due to a technical fault, but clearly they’d had advanced notice as slightly further down the platform was a replacement train heading onto Maastricht, so we were less than 10 minutes late leaving, and got into Maastricht only 5 minutes late.

I walked down to the hotel, but it was still to early to check-in so instead I left my bag with reception and then went for a wander around the city, starting by crossing over the River Maas (or Meuse depending on which language you want to use), on the neighbouring High Bridge which brought me out on the old town side of the river right by the old city walls and the Helspoort.

I had a wander around the area, including popping into the museum located in the Helspoort that details the history of the fortifications and sieges of the city (besieged 21 times before the first world war), before heading further down the river to the sightseeing boat ticket office to book onto a canal and river tour for later in the afternoon.

With my ticket secured I headed back in towards the city centre and visited the Vrijthof, the large central square that has a number of the city’s main churches back onto it, as well as a number of cafes and restaurants lining one side of the square. From the Vrijthof I carried on wandering around the old town before it was time to head back to the riverside and pick up my afternoon tour.

The tour was a combined canal and river tour that started by heading into the Bassin area of the city at the end of the Zuid-Willemsvaart, a 120Km long canal built in the 1820s to connect Maastricht and ‘s-Hertogenbosch, at the time flowing through the Netherlands all the way, though today it crosses into and out of Belgium which was created a few years after the canal opened.

After sailing through the last lock, the tour continues through lock 19, which is the last manually operated lock on the canal. From there we carried on a little further until we crossed over the border in Belgium, at which point the boat did a 180 degree turn and headed back towards Maastricht. All 20 of the original canal locks can only raise or lower the water by about 2 meters, which is why in the 1930’s a cut off was built with a much larger lock that avoids locks 19 and 20 and in a single near 4m change in height deposits you back out in the Meuse and that was the route we took on the way back to the city centre.

From the mooring point I headed back over the river to the hotel to check-in and drop by bag off in my room before heading out to grab a bite to eat and then, a little later, heading back out to wander around more of the city at sunset, including visiting the outer walls and some of the fortifications along them, as well as a quick visit past the historic waterwheel mill on the city’s other river the Jeker.

I continued through the city centre, stopping off by the Basilica of Our Lady and the Market Square before making my way back towards the hotel for a well-earned nightcap and then bed.