The Dutch Burgundy — caves, Carnaval, Limburg vlaai, and a city that feels more Belgian
Maastricht is the Netherlands' most southern and most surprising city — a compact Burgundian city of Roman walls, Gothic churches, and a culture that feels closer to Liège than to Amsterdam, with its own Carnaval tradition that fills the streets in February. The city is threaded with 32km of medieval marl caves, the Vrijthof square is one of the finest public spaces in the Netherlands, and the food (Limburg vlaai tart, zuurvlees slow-cooked beef) is unlike anything in the Dutch mainstream.
Maastricht is the Netherlands' oldest city — founded as a Roman crossing point on the Meuse (Traiectum ad Mosam) by Julius Caesar's legions in 50 BCE. It was an important medieval religious centre, the birthplace of the Maastricht Treaty (1992) that established the European Union, and the site of a famous 1673 siege by Louis XIV who took the city in just ten days. The Spanish, French, and Dutch have all administered it, which gives the Maastrichteners their distinctly non-Dutch political self-image.