The week began at home, but on Wednesday afternoon I flew to Maastricht where I was going to attend a course at the European Institute of Public Administration on Thursday and Friday. After that, I stayed in the Netherlands for the weekend, visiting old friends in Eindhoven on Friday evening. I present the week’s pictures more or less chronologically.
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I start with a couple of morning dog walk images. First, close parking:
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Morning sun in the park:
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Observation post. The birds are monitoring me, because I leave food for the stray cats and the pigeons like to partake of it as well (once the cats are done, of course):
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Sunset over the golf course, seen from my roof terrace:
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A rainy morning on my street:
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Cats prowling in the darkness:
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On Sunday I cycled to Santa Pola and took a short break in the harbour:
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Couple with dog, along the road from Santa Pola to Arenales del Sol:
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On Wednesday I had lunch with my wife and our daughter. Monica was going back to Cardiff on Saturday, and I was flying to Maastricht later that afternoon, so this was the last meal together this time around. We went to Bodhigreen, one of Alicante’s vegetarian restaurants:
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The salad:
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Mexican plate:
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Vegan chocolate cake. The food at Bhodigreen is excellent, vegan or not:
The rest of the images are from the Netherlands.
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I arrived at my hotel in Maastricht around 9 p.m. on Wednesday. After checking in etc., I ventured out to look for a bar with good beer on tap that I remembered from a previous visit. This is the view along the way, the other shore of the river Maas:
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The bar is called De Poshoorn, and it has nice decor and good beer at reasonable prices:
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I lingered at the bar too long; in the Netherlands, by 10 p.m. the kitchens in the restaurants are already closed, so my only option for dinner was this kebab place in front of the train station:
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On Thursday morning, I walked from my hotel to EIPA. This is typical morning traffic in the centre, here on Sint Servaas bridge:
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The Maas is spanned by several bridges. This one is called Hoge Brug:
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Face on Sint Servaas Brug:
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EIPA is located on Onze Lieve Vrouw square, opposite Maastricht’s main church. It is a lovely little square. Here a man waits for his wife who is inside the small chapel in the background:
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This part of the Netherlands is mostly Catholic, and quite a few people pop into this little shrine to light a candle and offer a quick prayer:
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Reflections:
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Normally non-food shops in most of the Netherlands close early, at 6 p.m. But in every town there is a koopavond one day each week when the shops stay open until 9 p.m. In Maastricht that day is Thursday, so after the course ended, I went out to explore the city on foot. People and pets were out and about:
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On the Markt square:
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Maastricht is full of art in the streets:
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The goal of my walk was the Dominicanenkerk, a 700-year old church that had fallen into disuse and was later restored and converted to a bookshop:
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The bookshop has been written about in The Guardian newspaper, so a few tourists like me stop by, but mostly the shoppers are local:
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The café:
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Afterwards, I walked around a bit more. The shopping was slowly winding down, and the bars and restaurants were filling up:
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On the way back to my hotel, I once again photographed Hoge Brug, this time with some ominous clouds above it:
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Friday morning detail, on my way back to EIPA:
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Just inside the EIPA entrance, there is a small statue:
After the course finished on Friday afternoon, I took the train to Maastricht to visit Anna and Geert, a couple whose wedding I photographed almost exactly 10 years ago.
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I received a warm welcome:
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We spent a nice evening, talking about this and that:
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Six-year old Nora helps her dad make pizza:
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After dinner, I made this portrait of two sets of mother and daughter:
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Then Nora did a guitar lesson:
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And finally, Geert joined in as well. It was a very nice, calm evening, at the end of which Geert and Nora walked back to my hotel with me:
More pictures from Maastricht can be seen here.