Day Two: Rainy Maastricht

Greetings from a wet and 55-degree Maastricht. Today started out with a small breakfast with Jane, then we traveled to the town of Valkenburg. Very quaint and charming. We saw the ruins of a castle, had some coffee (I had cocoa), then went to meet the rest of the team at a restaurant that used to be a monastery a few hundred years ago, then turned into a casino (my notes are elsewhere about that place). Then we toured the limestone caves underneath the hotel. Mining in the caves started in the 1200s and stopped around 1900. About 180 miles of cave exist --- huge passageways that you can easily get lost in. The tour was great, except for being in Dutch and not understanding anything. Thankfully, our Rotarian friends helped us with the translation :-)  At one point, the guide extinguished the oil lamps and let us stand there in darkness. Did you know that if you walk around in pitch black for about an hour, you'll lose your sense of up and down and just fall over? Who knew!

After the caves, we rode the boat down the river and took a guided walking tour of Maastrict for about 2 hours. We saw several churches and learned lost of interesting facts. The final stop took us to the Hotel Kruisheren which is an old church converted into a hotel and restaurant. Cost one euro for the guy to buy the falling-down church and 16 million to turn it into a hotel. It's just spectacular. Rooms are 340 euros per night --- steep! Oh, another fun fact: real estate in Maastrict costs about 3000 euros per square meter. So a 3 bedroom/2 bath attached house costs about $400,000 to $500,000 euros, about ($538,000-$672,000 US). The most expensive real estate goes for $5,500 euros per square meter. So do that math and go appreciate the cost of your home :-)