Maastricht
A Roman crossing of the Meuse, in the strip of the Netherlands between Belgium and Germany
- When to go
- October 13° · 14 rainy days
- Per day
- €€€€price 4 of 5
- How many days
- 2days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 9 km Maastricht · 70 km Eindhoven
- Right now
Maastricht sits at the far south, in a strip of the Netherlands wedged between Belgium and Germany: Liège is 34 minutes away by train, Aachen about 45. Two days cover the city above and below ground, and a third is spent across a border.
The city grew up at a Roman crossing of the Meuse, Trajectum ad Mosam. The Sint Servaas bridge was built in 1280–1298 and is called the oldest bridge in the country, though much of it was rebuilt after the Second World War; the Helpoort, a gate of around 1230, is the oldest surviving city gate in the Netherlands. The treaty that created the European Union was signed here on 7 February 1992, in the provincial government building, the Gouvernement aan de Maas.
The Dominican church was consecrated in 1294, closed by the French in 1796, and has been a bookshop since 2006. The architects Merkx + Girod set a two-storey steel 'book flat' into the nave — two bookcases 30 metres long and 7.5 high — so that the church can still be seen whole; the café is in the apse, and the walls keep their frescoes of scenes from the life of Thomas Aquinas.
Under the Sint-Pietersberg, south of the centre, blocks of soft limestone were cut for centuries, and the passages left by the quarrying are now the Grotten Noord. The walls carry inscriptions from 1554 onwards and charcoal drawings, and during the Second World War Rembrandt's Night Watch was kept in a bunker inside.
What to see in Maastricht
Boekhandel Dominicanen
Dominicanerkerkstraat 1, behind the Grote Staat. Entry is free; the Guardian named it the most beautiful bookshop in the world in 2008, and the 1000 Libraries platform did so again in 2025.
The Sint Servaas bridge
For walkers and cyclists, 160 metres and seven arches, with a steel lifting section at the east end. It leads from the old town into Wyck, the quarter of the Rechtstraat and Wycker Brugstraat.
The Vrijthof
The main square, with the Basilica of Saint Servatius and the red-painted tower of the Sint-Janskerk, the main Protestant church since 1632. In December it holds the Magisch Maastricht winter fair.
The Grotten Noord
Guide only: a tour of an hour and ten minutes, every day, in Dutch and English, starting from Luikerweg 80. Admission €10; not for anyone who struggles to walk.
The Basilica of Our Lady
The westwork dates from the early eleventh century, with Roman stone in its lower courses. The gloom is deliberate: in the nineteenth century Pierre Cuypers replaced the large Gothic windows with small Romanesque ones.
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The Casemates
The second underground network, a defensive one: passages under the walls on the west side of town, dug between 1575 and 1825, some fourteen kilometres of them. They are visited on a Maastricht Underground tour, like the caves.
Two things you probably did not know
The Dominicanen bookshop occupies a Dominican church from 1294, with shelving on three levels between the Gothic pillars. Before that the church served as a bicycle store and a carnival hall.
Under the Sint-Pietersberg hill run over twenty thousand passages cut by quarrying soft limestone across twenty centuries. In the Second World War Dutch paintings were hidden in them, Rembrandt's Night Watch among them.
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