A walk around the walls of Maastricht and one of the most beautiful bookstores in the world

For lunch I had an apple and cherry pancake, and Jane had a Ham, Pineapple, Mushroom and Cheese pancake.

Once fed we went to what must be one on the most beautiful book stores in the world; Selexyz Dominicenium.

Of course we had to have a coffee in the book store.

We then headed off for a walk around the walls of the old city (following the guide of a multipart geocache).

We took a slight detour to get another geocache that was at the mill where we had lunch the previous day. We had totally missed the wheel then!

We then continued to finish off the multipart cache and had this lovely view.

St Pietersberg Caves, Maastricht

We headed out on the 10am sailing this morning after the market to the St Pietersberg Caves and were the only two passengers on this mammoth (~30 metre long) boat.

The journey was beautiful on the river with some spectacular views along the way.

It took about 20 minutes until we docked, watched the boat depart (with vapour trails in the background),

and then started the walk up the hill to a cafe where a guide then picked us up for a tour.

He said the tour is usually in dutch, but since the only other group of people spoke english (they were from Taiwan) he would do it in english. He did however apologise that he didn’t know much english; it turns out he is very fluent and had wicked sense of humour.

From the cafe we had a scenic 7 minutes walk (mostly uphill) to the beginning of the caves that even included poppies.

Inside the caves, they were pitch black and only lit by whatever light we brought with us.

The caves were initially built in the 1200’s (I think) and been deepened over time.

The lines on the rock formation below were from the axels on the horse drawn carriages as they entered and exited the caves.

During World War II the caves were also used for shelter and an architect (who could obviously draw) drew pictures in various parts of the cave to enable people to find their way around.

There is bizarrely also advertising in the caves.

The trip is well worth it and our guide was absolutely superb. I think however we were lucky to get an english tour.

The trip back on the boat was a lot noisier as were accompanied by a school trip.

Maastricht markets

We started the morning by going to the Maastricht market in the Markt. Jane was very happy to see lots of lovely fabric, however she refrained from buying any.

There was also an excellent assortment of fruit and vegetables,

and some beautiful breads and tarts.

We also came across these guys on their motorised scooters having a good laugh.

Le Bon Vivant, Maastricht

For dinner last night we went to Le Bon Vivant and had their three course meal (well actually I had four) with accompanying wine. The restaurant is located in what used to be an old vaulted cellar that used to be a brewery. There is also a well in the restaurant that used to be used for the beer.

There was only one other table occupied in the restaurant throughout our visit, and consequently the atmosphere was lacking a bit. The waiter was however very good and the food did arrive in a timely manner.

A complementary starter was provided of a cold fish dish that was okay, although nothing overly special.

We both had the Breast of duckling fillet, rucola lettuce, duck's liver and ramsons mayonnaise for our first course. This was beautifully prepared and in fact the duck liver was probably one of my favourite parts of this dish, Jane however preferred the breast. A nice dish.

For the main course, Jane had the Irish beef entrecôte O'Sullivan with vegetable stew, shallots and black pepper sauce that was okay but did not have any wow factor. I had the Halibut with sautéed green asparagus, capers and beurre blanc sauce and found the fish to be bland (admittedly I don’t think I’ve had halibut before so didn’t know what to expect) but the accompanying sauce was very enjoyable.

I then had the Artisanal cheeses from South Limburg and  the 'Voerstreek', pear treacle, fruit jelly and figs bread. The cheeses were all excellent and the bread was superb.

For dessert we both had the Dessert composition: chocolate, fruit terrine, orange sorbet with vanilla ice-cream of which the chocolate tart was divine and Jane thoroughly enjoyed the fruit terrine that was very jelly-like. The orange sorbet tasted like Jafas and was good too.

The accompanying wines for all dishes were all okay although other than the Moscatel Navarra, Bodegas Corellanas that accompanied the dessert, none of the other wines stood out. They were however very generously poured for the price, and we also had our glass topped up occasionally.

For what it was, I think the meal was slightly overpriced, but I think this may in fact be more that we are more spoilt at home in Auckland than we actually realise.