Groningen, the northernmost city in the Netherlands, is famous for having the highest percentage of bicycle use in the Western world. An estimated 57 % of the 190,000 residents use bicycles as their main form of daily transportation within the city. 59 % of all journeys within the city are Read More …
Groningen does not have an opera house, but it does have a modern, state-of-the-art concert hall called De Oosterpoort, which is a major venue for all sorts of music, from classical to rock. Besides the large concert hall, there are also two smaller auditoriums and a cultural center in the same Read More …
The University Museum describes itself as a “Museum of Man, Nature and Science.” When you go upstairs and into the old building you get to the Geology Hall, which has intentionally been preserved as a traditional museum with old-fashioned wooden display cases to emphasize the four-hundred-year history of the university. Read More …
On the Brugstraat (Bridge Street), one of the major bicycle routes into and out of the center of Groningen, there are two beautifully restored medieval buildings that house the Northern Maritime Museum — “Northern” because Groningen is at the northern end of the Netherlands. The museum deals with the history Read More …
If you look at a map of the Netherlands, you will see that the country is shaped roughly (very roughly) like a parallelogram. But if you look at the lower right-hand corner of this parallelogram you will see an oddly-shaped appendage dangling like a swollen tail down into a bit Read More …
The Maas, as it is called in Dutch and German (Meuse in French and English), is actually not a very busy river. I seem to have taken pictures of it mainly when something was going on, such as a barge passing through, but there were long periods when the river Read More …
A Botel, as the name implies, is a boat that is used as a hotel. In a place like Maastricht, which has a shortage of inexpensive hotel rooms, a Botel is a good way to provide additional accommodation on quite short notice and without any huge investment. Of course the Read More …
People in Maastricht sometimes refer to the Centre Céramique simply as “the public library” — which it is, but the building also includes exhibition rooms, two cafés, dozens of computer workplaces with free internet access, several soundproof rehearsal rooms for musicians, parts of the city archives and the European Journalism Read More …
Albert Heijn is said to be the largest food retailer in the Netherlands, with a market share of about 30 %. The have six Winkels in Maastricht alone. Winkels? Yes, Winkel is a cute Dutch word for shop or store (reminiscent of the English words twinkle, sprinkle, wrinkle or crinkle Read More …
In other parts of the Netherlands, the southern city of Maastricht does not have a reputation as a very good cycling city. Especially people from Groningen, in the far north of the country, are no doubt unimpressed when they come to Maastricht and find that the level of bicycle use Read More …