Maastricht IV

A dominican Church converted into a bookshop! Fascinating! They appeared to have renovated the church beautifully and then they placed (bolted in on the floor) a structure in black steel on one side of the church, not damaging any of the original structure.

I can only imagine the contreversy it must have had using a church for anything commercial but the way it has been renovated,in such an amazing way, the way the books are presented made me feel like it was done with much respect and I prefer this than having a church get into ruin because the clergy can no longer afford to keep it up. It is a way to preserve cultural heritage.

Une église dominicaine reconvertie en une librairie! Fascinant!




The Ceiling / Le plafond:




The coffee shop:


It has won an architectural interiors prize.

Maastricht III

I fell in love with this old fashionned bakery!

Maastricht II

This shop is attached to "the Notre Dame" Church in Maastricht. Needless to say I just had to bring home some tulips!

More pictures later in the week...

Maastricht I

Ha ha! (Inside Joke with D&Y ;-))

I had a blast with Yvonne and Dolly in Maastricht this week-end! It has been nearly as long as we have known them (nearly 5 years) that we said we would go to Holland with them. D&Y are our very good Dutch friends and "the parents" of Luna, Pashmina's best friend!

Well, this week end was the week end for me as we decided we to:

"Shop until we dropped" and we ate like pigs and drank like fish (litterly) HA!

I took 227 pictures with my Camera!

I did regret not taking Mark's camera because it is such a wonderful peace of equipement (thank you Amy for recomminding it) but I thought it was a little too big for a weekend out with the girls so I decided against it on Friday morning.

I must admit I was ever so reasonnable about the shopping...I bought 5 bunches of fresh tulips, 3 pots of white jacyinthes (I love the smell of them) , 3 pots of Muscaris and 6 of dark red helleborus (Christmas roses) one cannot resist buying flowers and bulbs in Holland. I also bought a light blue raw silk tie with some flowers for Mark, a lonely planet guide to India for us all, a fun thing for Easter for Bhavishya, some Dutch cheese for Mark and myself (Miss B being intollerent to Lactose) some beschuit and haagel (dark chocolate which is nicer because not too sweet and because it doesn't contain lactose) andsome Dutch cheese.

Oh and some fantastic magazine about gardining!

Voilà.