Look out Maastricht, here we come

Monday 25/6, we awake to another dull overcast day, but we decide to go via Brussels anyway. This was a good choice. By the time we got there (220km later), the sun was out but the air was still a bit chilly. We found an underground car-park almost immediately and hit the streets. We had a good look around the La Grand-Place (the town square) where the town hall amongst other stately buildings is located. The town hall dates from the early 15^th century. We continued off visiting other streets and building and eventually arrived at the Mannequin Pis, dressed in one of his 800 costumes. After this we (George) treated ourselves to a Belgium Waffle topped with Chantilly cream and Chocolate. It was then back to the car for the 120km trip to Maastricht, what a great trip! The first 5 or so km was slow with very heavy traffic but then the expressway opened up. A beautiful bit of 3-lane highway with a few large sweeping curves and a 120km/hr speed limit, with most of the traffic (Gina included) sitting on 130, with several cars passing in the 160 to 180 bracket. A one stage the railway line runs parallel to the expressway and a passenger train glides past us doing about 150 when all of a sudden it was gone and out of site. Jean isn’t too keen on travelling in the slow lane at 130 when we are rapidly catching a truck, but we indicate and merge left, indicate and move right; all’s good! We arrive in Maastricht, and find that the hotel we are booked into is the “Official Andrew Rieu” hotel. Jean meets one of the back-stage staff (actually the orchestra’s caterer) while we are checking in. The two of them chatted for what seemed ages to George while he continued with the check-in, arranged for the pre-concert dinner for tomorrow night, the bus trip there and back, and unpacked the car. Tonight, an online search located around 6 patchwork shops nearby, so George guesses what we are doing tomorrow before the concert. The concert starts at 9PM and finishes at midnight, the bus returns us at about 12:30, so a blog update may not occur tomorrow.