Sailing to Dordrecht, Netherlands

  This is an extremely long post!  I had plenty of time on my hands as we were sailing all afternoon.....

The day was grey and overcast  but fairly warm.   We took the offered umbrellas for our morning tour of Maastricht,  with the oldest bridge in the Netherlands dating back to Roman times.

This was on Sunday morning  so no crowds  at all.  

Walking thru the pretty cobblestone streets.

Our Lady of the Basilica church.

This is the exterior of the church.

As our walk continued,  the grey skies turn to rain.

Old bakery uses spelt grain in some of their pastries. 

And they grind the grain in the mill next door.

And it is powered by this waterwheel. The creek runs under the buildings.

We were told that there are 60 church buildings in the city but 75%of the population is atheist.  So they have re-purposed many of the buildings rather let them set empty.   This one is an archives. Another famous one is now a large book store. I would have enjoyed seeing that but it was closed. 

A lot of the ancient  city walls are still standing, built in the early 1200's. 

A city gate.

According to our guide, this spot is used by all brides for romantic photos. 

Old city walls mix with newer buildings. 

Just a lovely walking town.

A government building that is now part of the university. 

An orphanage. 

Beautiful churches,  now exhibition halls.

Artwork in the square.

Back to the boat for a noontime shove off.

And just to answer Kris's question about grass growing between the cobblestones....I'd never paid it any attention and cool to get a question that makes me investigate.   So the answer is that "it varies"  I would have answered, no, I don't think they grow grass in the spaces between  cobblestones.   But clearly I was wrong. SOOOO many cobblestone streets here with various patterns. There is almost no pavement in the older sections of the city.  Most do have some greenery growing but not all.   The growth must be controlled by foot traffic since none of the growth was higher than the stones themselves..so here are some stone photos from our walk today.....skip if you're not interested,  haha.

OK, that's it for the cobblestone photos...

And for Tom and Janet, here is some pipe organ music, I believe the organist was practicing. It was in the middle of the day with no one else there.  This is the Basilica of St Castor in Koblenz, Germany.

Underway after lunch, we spent most of our time lounging in the lounge....I played a few games of backgammon with a fellow traveler  who had brought his own board!  Fun to refresh my memory of the game that I haven't played in years. 

Leaving Maastricht...

Strange building....apparently an art museum...

The bridge we walked over yesterday. 

We are in a canal so not cruising on the original itinerary  but it's interesting  nonetheless.  We are on a rather industrial Waterway called the Juliana Kanal.  We are on this canal because the river Meuse has some un-navigable sections due to low water.  Im actually not following the route closely, letting the captain and Viking figure it out!!

Along the shoreline, there are balls of mistletoe in the trees.

A barges met us - looks wide but we both had plenty of room to spare!