From Maastricht to Koblenz

The second part of our pilgrimage turned out to be tougher than the first one. Our trip from Maastricht to the German Rhineland was interrupted by several smaller and larger incidences. On the 5th of May, Bastian’s grandmother died after a long sickbed and so we went home by train to attend the funeral. Despite of this sad instance, we still kept our wanderlust and a good spirit for adventure.



Größere Kartenansicht

The weekend in Maastricht (24-25. April) was like a big reunion party for us. We just arrived in the city when we ran into Katia from the St. Antonius parish in Utrecht. After a brief but warm conversation we left her to meet Melissa and Flo at their apartment who offered us a room for the weekend. Even though we haven’t seen each other in such a long time, they haven’t changed at all: still the same good feeling for hospitality and the same zest for action.



On Sunday, we had an appointment with our dear friend Thomas in town, who came to catch up on all the stories and experiences we made since our departure from Utrecht. We just started a small city tour through the old centre of Maastricht when we heard two familiar voices behind us.
It was Riza and Atta, our two friends from Indonesia. Incredible as it is, Atta just arrived from Indonesia and the two of them planned a short trip to Maastricht on just the same weekend. We spent the rest of the day together and had a wonderful time in the city.



We left Maastricht to the famous holiday location of Valkenburg in the early hours of the coming morning. Our way there brought us through the hilly landscape of southern Limburg, a foothill of the Belgium Ardennes and the German Eifel, which are promisingly titled the “Dutch Alps”. What an exaggeration!
Admittedly, a scenic highlight of the region is the large number of artificial caves in the soft sandstone originating from different epochs, the youngest of which are no older than from the German occupation in World War II.





Valkenburg itself offers a variety of touristic attractions. However, on our arrival, we gave full attention to the local Benedictine monastery, where we were fortunately welcome for the night. The aged nuns also hosted a group of Southern American sisters, who took care of their elderly fellow sister and who were supposed to run the monastery when the time has come. Based on our own modest experience with modern European monasticism, the model of the Valkenburg monastery seems to be one of the few measures taken to protect these spiritual places from aging. Hence, we are fortunate to be able to put our dream in practice right now. Who knows whether we would have found a similar dense network of monasteries in ten years time?



On the next day, our journey brought us from Valkenburg to Aachen, where we took the first train home to meet Bastian’s grandmother. We had to promise her that we would visit her for a couple of days as soon as we arrive in Germany.



Back in Aachen on April 30, we planned to spend some more hours in the city for Eli to use the unique opportunity to bring the famous Imperial Cathedral to paper. Unfortunately, the cold and rainy weather doomed her ambitions to failure.





We therefore moved on to Stolberg early that day, where we were accommodated by the parents of our old friend Sebi. Having been invited to a delicious cheese & leek soup, we shared our stories and experiences of the past weeks and received some exciting tales about the archery sport, the Eifel National Park, and the life in medieval Europe in exchange. We left Sebi’s parents on the following morning not without getting a somewhat belated introduction into the traditional equipment of a pilgrim. Among other things, we learned that we forgot to bring a felt cloak, a ceramic flute used as a status symbol and a horn, and a walking stick. Maybe, we should have started our trip from Stolberg instead of Utrecht...



The following ten days of our journey brought us through the Eifel mountain range and to the Mosel-Rhine delta located in the city of Koblenz. There is much to tell about this time, but unfortunately there is no time left for long explanations:




Puppet theatre of the Franciscan monastery in Vossenack. The monastery also hosts a cultural centre, an art collection, and a literature and philosophy group.



View on the Rur reservoir. The Rur dam was target of one of the bloodiest battles of World War II in the village of Hürtgenwald, where the troops of the Allies were stopped by a German ambush.



Foggy weather at the departure from the Salvatorian monastery in Steinfeld.



The Roman-Germanic matron sanctuary “Görresburg” close to Nettersheim.