Eily rejoined us for the next few days as we took in the
sights, sounds, flavours and beers of the Nederlands.
The best coffee I have ever had in Europe was in Maastricht
– after meeting Eily at the station, we headed straight across the road to a little
cafe with a Douwe Egberts sign on the front. The name was familiar to me as a
pipe tobacco – I recall my father smoking it in his pipe when I was a child,
but I wasn’t really aware of it as a coffee brand as I don’t recall the local
supermarkets stocking it. Nevertheless, the young lady there served a
sensational coffee......
Maastricht is an old town with cobblestone streets – it is
also much larger than I expected. In typical European style, there were buses
everywhere, each seemingly exceeding the speed limit. It was also our
introduction to the Nederlands and its cyclists......javelins on wheels. Don’t
get in the road of one or you will be harpooned.....
Our hotel had Moroccan decor, which was unusual and as the
girls described it, cute. The lights had a light shade that was so dense that
very little light emerged from the fixture when you switched it on. This is
quite OK for some romantic moments but not so good if you want to read.
A stroll around the town revealed its age – quite old town
walls and guardhouses (if that is the correct description!) and old churches
and buildings galore. Not too many tourists to block our way and armed with our
town map we had to purchase at the information centre, we had no problems
getting around. The need to purchase a city map was the first time I had
encountered this, but was not to be the last in the Nederlands.
The shopping centre is located in the old town is as modern
as you can get, but located in old buildings. I can tell you that multinational
companies are everywhere, even in this far flung corner of the Nederlands.
Burger King, McDonalds, Subway etc can be found almost everywhere, but in
Maastricht you can even find Specsavers......
As one would expect, we tried the Dutch fare and beers – but
the wine was French. I’m not sure that there are any Dutch wines and the
restaurants certainly did sell any. I insisted on only drinking Dutch beer, but
somehow still managed to be served a Belgium one nevertheless – I don’t think
the waiter really knew where they came from, but the Manufacturie in Belgie was
a real giveaway.
We also had our first try at Dutch cuisine – the first night
was fish and chip night, without the fish. We had a variety of deep fried foods
including parcels of spaghetti inside some sort of crumbed coating, rather like
a square potato croquette that is readily available at home. Other foods
included different types of sausage kebabs!
The second night consisted of more traditional regional food
– types of stews that had very interesting and extremely edible flavours.
Our next stop is Rotterdam......
