Cucumber Days for Maastricht Minutiae

Cucumber Days is what you call time when not much is happening. So if you’re busy are they pickle days?

Although we’re not going on holiday until later this summer, Maastricht Minutiae is going on a semi-hiatus for a while as I’m in the middle of another extra busy stretch. Watch (or sign up for the RSS feed) for my republished Maastricht Region articles here, and perhaps a few answered questions.

Got Questions?

I’ve like to try answering some of your questions about Maastricht or the Netherlands. If you’ve got a good question, submit it on Formspring. I’ll answer it there and use it for a blog post here.

Thank you ka_tate for the CC use of the cucumber photo via Flickr.

Pinksterdag at the Kanne Flea Market

This article was originally published at Maastricht Region: to Live.

We were presented with another long weekend with fine weather here in Maastricht last weekend. And we took advantage of it on Monday by biking out to Kanne for a Flea Market that was rumored to be the largest in Europe. I won’t say it’s that big, but it was pretty impressive.

Pinksterdag is the holiday of Pentecost in the Netherlands and it is celebrated as a two day holiday; granting (nearly) everyone in the country a national holiday Monday. In Kanne, they celebrate with a massive flea market that is visited every year by some 10,000 people. With only approximately 1150 inhabitants living there, this influx of visitors results in closed roads, special parking, and a fun mix of the old, new, and weird lining the streets for blocks. Much larger and better organized that the better known Queen’s Day market, I’m sad that I hadn’t heard about it sooner.

As with all good flea markets, the proof is in what’s selling. There was the usual mix of leftover junk and semi-vintage antiques, but the amount of interesting objects was pretty high. Old lab glass, brass clocks, a pink velvet couch, and a pith helmet; just to name a few. In addition we saw a few craftspeople: a woman hand-sewing horse halters and a young man hand-painting realistic marble textures. Very realistic! The churro cart had the best churros I’ve ever had; fresh and very sweet.

In addition to the sellers and craftspeople, Kanne looks like a pleasant little town that I’d like to bike back and visit again. Many Dutch people live there, commuting over the boarder to work in the Maastricht area, and we saw a handful of nice cafes. A small and cute church/shrine was open during the flea market and is worth a quick visit for people who enjoy visiting religious buildings. Castle Neercanne, which boasts elegant dining and all the historic promise of a palace, is also nearby. If you do visit, make sure you go by bike and enjoy the pastoral landscape along the borderland.

 

Congrats to the Maastricht Mooiste Runners

I’m pretty jealous of the folks who ran the 5K, 10K, and 15K races on Sunday in the Maastricht Mooiste. My hip isn’t better yet and it’s kept me out of my running shoes for 3 weeks and counting. When a lazy person like me gets a bit of exercise momentum, it really stinks to lose it. So instead of running, I went down to cheer on all the folks running. In particular I was there for the IWC women, about 10 of whom ran.

Maastricht Mooiste’s 5K & 10K started at 10 am, and the 15K began at noon (unfortunately when it was getting hot in the sun). I had run the 5K route a couple of times before being sidelined, and it really seemed like a minitour of Maastricht itself, with lots of right turns to take you though important parts of the old city. I’m told the 15K ran well out of the city and up two hills to bring runners through the countryside. I doubt I’ll be up to a 15K for a long time, but it sounds like it would make a good bike ride.

Back at the Markt square where everything began and ended, I had a good time watching the way people ran. Everyone has their own technique; some of which seem pretty efficient and others that appear quite silly. I noticed that lots of people sprinted the last bit of their run; trying to shave a couple of seconds off right at the end.

Maybe they were just after the vlaai.

Or, like this guy who ran the 10K, they forgot their shoes.

At the end of the day all the people I know finished their runs and seemed not particularly worse for wear. Footraces seem to be much more interesting once you’ve been involved a little in the sport.

Congratulations to all the IWC runners (and the pair of gentlemen I know)!

Explore the Maastricht Underground

This article was originally published at Maastricht Region: to Live.

As the weather gets slowly warmer, I encourage you to share in an old tradition and go explore the caves of Maastricht. You’ll be able to keep cool, learn a bit of history, and view a variety of remarkable graffiti and art dating back generations. If you’re afraid of the dark, don’t forget to bring your own flashlight. It’s dark.

Grotten Zonneburg

Grotten Zonneburg was the first cave I visited in Maastricht, and it remains my personal favorite. Located just outside the city by Buitengoed Slavante, Slavante 1 on St. Pietersburg, Zonneburg is actually a cavernous mine where people have been digging the local marl stone since the Roman Empire. As time and technology wore on, people were able to dig deeper and in more layers, resulting in the twisty and confusing space you can now visit. The Zonneburg cave has also been used for growing mushrooms and as a hiding place from invading armies all the way up to World War II. The generations of graffiti and art alone is worth the visit. You can join a guided tour in English from July 2nd until September 4th at 1.50 pm. Tours are also available in Dutch and German.

Grotten Noord

Like Zonneburg, Grotten Noord is a marl cave dug out over generations. In fact, it is all part of the same network of caverns, although the two areas are blocked from each other today. Located by café Chalet Bergrust, Luikerweg 71, Noord is a slightly smaller cave, but the tour offers plenty of different information. With this tour you can learn more about the dinosaur fossils that have been discovered in Maastricht over the years. And you can see where Napoleon’s men attempted (and failed) to blow up the St. Pietersburg Fort. Tours for Grotten Noord can be had in English from April 30th – July 1st, Saturday and Sunday at 2 pm; June 2nd, 11th-13th at 2 pm; and September 5th – October 30th, Saturday and Sunday at 2 pm. Again Dutch and German tours are offered as well.

Kazematten

The Kazematten is a different kind of cave. Instead of an elaborate mining shaft, it is a network of defensible tunnels running beneath Maastricht that were once considered vital to the protection of the city. During sieges, the tunnels could be used to surprise the enemy or to hide civilians. After World War II, a small fallout shelter was built in the kazematten in order to protect some citizens against a potential nuclear war. The remains of the shelter can still be seen. Regular Kazematten tours are in Dutch only, but you can arrange for an English language group tour.

Want more information about these fun, underground experiences? Check out Maastricht Underground.

Texel: Holiday Vacation or Writing Retreat

Welcome to Texel (pronounced ”tessel”; or something like that) where they produce all the annual wind for the Netherlands. Oh, and lots of sheep products too. Dan and I took advantage of a string of four days free to finally this pastoral island way in the North.

I went thinking it was a vacation, with writing retreat on the side. Dan had the opposite idea. Fortunately we came to a compromise that resulted in a bit of writing before breakfast, about an hour at lunch, and until bedtime after dinner. In between we explored the varied environment and bike paths of Texel.  Here’s some highlights:

Biking

Bikes are the way to get around Texel and on some of the other Wadden Island, they are pretty much your own option. We rented bikes in the port and petalled 20 km to our B&B on the other end of the island. The bike paths are great and weave through the polder, woods, and dunes equally.

De Cocksdorp

De Cocksdorp is the little village we stayed in during out long weekend. It’s a bit touristy, but further from the port than pretty much everything else and not next to swimming beaches. That makes it a bit less obvious in its touristy-ness. According to Wikipedia, 70% of Texel’s income is tourism, so when Dan & I guessed that at least 50% of the houses were probably for visitors we were probably underestimating. De Cocksdorp itself is a bit out of the way for visiting the island throughly, but it was really cute.

Lots of people in De Cocksdorp (and the rest of Texel) spoke primarily Dutch and German. Fortunately enough people spoke enough English, that we didn’t have any problems. It was a little funny to have people automatically assume I was German when I looked confused. A little funny, but not terribly helpful. I’m glad I know a bit of Dutch.

Lighthouse

On the northern point of Texel is a red lighthouse. It’s mostly remarkable for being 2 lighthouse; one inside the other. The interior one was damaged in WWII. After the war, the island rebuilt around it to preserve it. We’ve not sure, but we think it is still used as some sort of radar tower. We didn’t notice a light coming from it, but it didn’t get dark until 10:30pm and by then we were in our room.

Beaches

One of the biggest draws of Texel is their huge beaches. The sand is wide and white and frankly beautiful. Dan forgot his bathing suit and it was a bit cold for actual swimming, but we did go walking along the water a couple of time. The sand is so soft that if feels like walking on custard/oopeck might.

De Sulfter

In addition to the polder which dominates the center of the island, Texel also boasts large protected areas of dunes, salt marshes, woods, marshes, etc. De Sulfter was my favorite. It is a failed land reclemation project where the Dutch were unable to completely drain the water. Today its a major mating area for the islands many birds. De Sulfter, like many other protected areas, is literally protected with electric fencing.

Seals

Ecomare is a seal sanctuary where they raise and heal seals so they can return to the wild. Naturally some cannot return and so have a permanent place at the sanctuary. They were under construction during our visit (yay, discount), so some of their critters were off-sight but it was cool to visit a sanctuary. Ecomare also has a small nature museum (kind of lame), and a small aquarium with awesome glowing jellyfish (which you can’t pet of course), and a small spiny ray (that you could).

Sheep!

There are lots of domesticated animals on Texel, but they are best known for the sheep. The sheep were out just about everywhere and we tasted the local dishes. The lamb stoofpot was pretty good. Sheep cheese? Not so much. It takes a bit dry and plastic.

Sports Pub

I suspect that there is a magical connection between expats and Irish pubs (or at least sports pubs). We happened upon one in Den Burg while hunting for a good meal to make up for an hour of pushing a flat bicycle across the extremely windy polder. Their baked mussels plate was really good and really reasonably price. A Dutch gentleman was busking nearby and it was pretty funny to listen to him butcher American oldies.

On Sunday we had a bit of struggle getting back off the island, since we wanted to get up and eat well before the rest of the island. Naturally nothing was open and we had to get back to Den Berg where we’d left Dan’s bike with the flat. As it turned out when we called the rental shop, we could have exchanged it for a new bike right in town the night before. Annoying, but at least we didn’t have to bike the 15 km back to De Cocksdorp in the wind. We ate breakfast, swapped the bike, and petalled back to the port and back to real life.

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