Southern Hospitality

After a three hour train ride through the scenic countryside from Den Haag to Maastricht after a slight miscalculation on my part. After ringing up our hosts daughter, who I've not seen in 15 years, parks directly accross the street. Courage was eventually plucked and we asked if it was her and we were on our way to Eijsden.

We will not find the hospitality we have recieved from family friends, Paul and Lika and their family. We feel as if we are around family and mostly I have consumed authentic Dutch food. Both their childeren, Jerome, Floor and her partner Rene have also treated us fantastically.

Paul, the official photographer of Maastricht, personally took us on a tour of arguably, the oldest city in the Netherlands. Sitting in firstly the room where I believe the treaty of Maastricht was signed, with a frame poster containing the signatures of all european presidents (see facebook) and secondly the room of the Duke of Limburg. I started to get the feeling that the citizens were a touch spoiled for culture when we walked into a book store which was the old church of the city, circa 1500, tastfully maintaining it's historical walls paintings.

Today we have seen the historically and beutiful Belgian Wallon city of Liege and just ridden into Maastricht. You know a country has a lot of bike riders when 80,000 bikes are stolen a year.

We look forward to seeing my tante Rosa tonight over dinner and the rest of the week in Eijsden and hopefully Hasselt. Then off to Spain, where I think Beth is hoping we staying in a small hotel room instead of a hostel :)