in the streets of Maastricht

Hi guys!

Ah, I'm so in the vacation mood already because I'll be going to beautiful Ireland next Wedsnesday! :)

So to make the most of the fact that Patrick has already taken an extra week off at work, we decided to escape the daily grind by going on a little city trip to Maastricht.

Maastricht is a small city in the Netherlands, actually it's the most Southern city of the whole country if I remember correctly. It's the capital of the province Limburg and only has about 120.000 citizens, but it was granted with the awards for "best shopping city" and "most beautiful city of the Netherlands" in the last years.

Furthermore I had not been there for over 10 years (last time on a school trip in 6th grade or so) and everybody kept telling me that it's so nice there, hence it was time to check it out again.

I live pretty close to the Dutch border, so it is only a one hour car drive away.

♥ jacket: new yorker ♥ scarf: primark ♥ cardi + dress: h&m (both 2nd hand via Ebay) ♥ necklace: china souvenir ♥ bag: fleamarket ♥ flats: thrifted ♥

We were lucky with the weather: it was pretty chilly but at least it didn't rain! At the moment there is this crazy unsettled weather torturing us here in the very Western part of Germany, we have a saying that goes something along the lines "April, April, does what he wants" (freely interpreted) about April weather.

Anyway, so no rain means I could wear comfortable flats for walking around. Furthermore I really wanted to wear my lovely "new" dress that I got dirt cheap via Ebay, so I built a comfy, yet warm enough outfit around it.

I've been living in Düsseldorf for several years now and some of the things I appreciate most about living here is living near a river. Seriously, it's amazing to be able to walk along the river and I love how the bridges and riversides make the cityscape.

Maastricht has the river Maas that divides the city in two parts and their most famous bridge is this picturesque cobble stone bridge called "Sint Servaasbrug", located right in the city centre. It's so pretty, a great place to take photos. Then we walked along the riverside promenade and later entered one of the lovely little alleys to roam the old town and do some (window) shopping.

The city centre and old town of Maastricht is a lovely place, everything looks so pretty, there are so many cute traditional brick houses, decorated facades, ornate window frames and doors etc.

It's a bit like I imagine Welsh small towns to look like, however I've never been in Wales so I cannot guarantee for the correctness of this compare ;) 

I didn't do too much shopping there because I'm a bit short of money at the moment (end of the month...), but let me tell you Maastricht really is a great shopping city. Like I mentioned before, it got an award for this - justly! I have never seen so many shoe stores in such a small city! They have anything from Jeffrey Campbell to sport sneaker stores like Sidestep to Tango and many more, shoe paradise! I also spotted the usual suspects H&M, Esprit, Bershka etc. and some stores we don't have here like Didi, Dept, Scotch & Soda and so on.

My absolute favourite was a non-chain store called Sissy Boy (and I found out they also have an online shop yay!). Their shop window immediatly caught my eye, everything looked so pretty and was decorated amazingly. They offer clothing (men, women, children) and home accessories and everything looks like it came straight out of the famous Impressionen catalogue - light colours, natural materials, pastel florals, shabby finishings, ah beautiful!

Before we left I also had to have a waffle. There was a bright pink candy shop selling freshly made waffles with caramelised sugar crust, mmhhhhhhh yummy! The perfect bad weather alternative to ice cream :)

It was a really nice day we spent there, I can recommend visiting Maastricht if you ever have the chance. it's rather small so you won't need all day to see everything, but of course there also are museums and cultural sights outside of the city centre that we didn't visit, so maybe you would need more time to additionally check out all of them.

I think Patrick and I will return when the weather is better, because I'm sure it's even lovelier by the riverside in the summer (this time with ice cream!). Furthermore we should return when I have more money left to go shopping ;)

Have you guys ever been to Maastricht? Do you have any recommendations or go-tos for it? Or maybe other recommendations concerning Dutch cities around the border area?

Have a lovely Sunday!

now playing: the gaslight anthem - changing of the guards