We left Nijmegen at noon and set out on the river Maas (Meuse in French). It originates in France and runs, among other things, through Verdun in France, Namur and Liege in Belgium and Maastricht and Nijmegen in the Netherlands. After 925 km, it empties into the North Sea.
The Maas has a winding course, very little current, and is wider than the canals of Germany.
Lakes with good water depth, cozy harbours, restaurants, campsites, beach, forest and a rich birdlife are adjacent to the river.
Along the river are fields and meadows with grazing cows. Once in a while we passed a town with a church, hotel, restaurant, houses with nice gardens and occasionally a cable ferry that connected the town together across the river.
Twice we spent the night in harbors in neighboring lakes. Nice to enjoy nature, the silence and the relaxed late summer atmosphere in the harbour. On the third day we reached the town of Roermond.
We sailed into the bottom of the rather large harbour, where nicely large sailing boats with masts were moored. The boats sail on the adjacent lake and also have access to the North Sea with the mast on.
The town of Roermond is a smaller and very cozy town. There is an older part of town with a large Catholic cathedral and a fine old bridge over a smaller canal that runs through the town. Shops and restaurants are mixed with the many old well-preserved buildings.
There is an outlet with 150 shops with over 200 designs – the largest in the Benelux. It was made like a very beautiful small town with low buildings in nice colors.
The next day we sailed on to Maastricht. We went through 5 locks. The first three are large, but with floating bollards that make lock work easy. The fourth was open for navigation. The last one was small and the entrance to the harbor 't Bressi, located in the center of Maastricht.
We arrived one hour after the lock was closed and called without much hope for the lock master. To our surprise, the call was answered. We were locked in by an English-speaking female locksmith who had spent her childhood vacation in Denmark - the only foreign country she had vacationed in.
Wonderful and obviously healthy for both body and soul 🙂
Hi Pia & Carl, it's great that you've come this far!
Knows Holland a little - it is flat as a pancake and often smells of manure.
And then the Dutch have more speed cameras than any other country I know - but probably not on the rivers and canals you sail on. But in Amsterdam, they shamefully have speed cameras on many of the city's channels.
Keep up the good work - we look forward to the next blog post from you