maastricht and the

maastricht is a little medieval town in the very south of holland on the border of Germany, Belgium and holland. The title could refer to one of two things - the house barge we stayed on in the middle of the Maas River, or the VERY touristy boat trip we took to some caves. The commentary completely ignored the beautiful castle on the left of the river, but raved about the wonderful concrete company ENCIE, and thier hideous factory. ENCIE IS GOOD!

Our boot Hotel (Dutch for Boat)

We embarked after a good brainwashing to go on a cave tour. Unfortunately it was all in Dutch which comes in handy, when your tour guide suddenly disapears with the only torch, leaving you in complete darkness with no explanation in 20 000 passages where he informs us afterwards several people have died and not been found for months. Lisa has a little panic attack, but Mick is to the rescue with the trusty lighter. I knew there was a reason he didn't give up the fags!

The River Maas from DAS Crap Boot

Apart from that, the tunnels were actually quite fascinating and bloody cold. As we found out after the tour (one hour in complete Dutch, with some doozies such as Hooble, Gooble, Flooble, Dooble, gooble - ah, Dutch is such a picturesque language, it was used in world war two to store the odd Rembrant or two and smuggle goods between Belgium and the Netherlands). it is full of amazing paintings done in chalk and leftovers from troops who camped out there.

After the tour, the guide was expecting a tip - but almost got a fat lip.

maastricht is a cute little town with endless churches and fortresses dating back to Roman times, great shopping, excellent variety of beer and some great restuarants ( if only we could have afforded any of them) and some out of this world bakeries. Lisa spent the majority of our trip standing with jaw dropped in front of the cake shops. uMMMMM - APPLE PIE!