Maastricht's artful appeal

Too many people know the Dutch from those ubiquitous master paintings of 17th century burghers that hang in every museum.

These are really portraits of stolid submission; the sober, overworked, rheumy eyes gazing out with resignation, and those choking ruff collars evoke a dour world devoted to duty. You can still see traces of that fortitude in northern Holland, where even Amsterdammers -- despite their raucous reputation -- can sometimes seem endearingly earnest in their pursuit of fun.

But head 130 miles southeast to the city of Maastricht, and things explode. Forget the relentlessly responsible burgher meisters. Maastricht's true patron saints, at least these days, are the carnival barker, the bartender and anyone determined to have a really good, guilt-free time.

Why Maastricht? Location has something to do with it. Perched on the very southern, Catholic tip of Holland, the part that swoops down like a wagging tail into Belgium, the city sits in close proximity to party-time Brussels and carnival-happy Cologne. The resulting cosmopolitan mix of cultures -- Dutch, Belgian, German, even a dash of French -- turns Maastricht into a little European union. That means that the Lowlands capital can feel more Latin than Calvinist, a place dedicated to fiestas, cafe society, crying saints and unabashed sensuality.

That becomes obvious the minute you arrive in town and head to the city center, which is where the party gets started, every day, and never really ends. This is the Vrijthof, a large square that has been Maastricht's proud heart since the 10th century, when it hosted religious celebrations. The square today is anchored by two stately churches that are easily eclipsed by a succession of cafes, restaurants, clubs and pubs, plus a seasonally rotating round of carnivals, food fairs and concerts. The minute the sun pops up, every cafe and bar drags its tables outside, the square becomes one collective alfresco bistro, and the whole city seems to congregate, toasting mugs of home-brewed Heineken and plowing through bowls of steamed mussels with the kind of elegant aplomb that comes from centuries of practice.

Typifying all this free-floating Vrijthof bonhomie is a landmark of a bar named In den Ouden Vogelstruys, which claims to be the city's oldest pub. Part cozy and part rowdy, the brown cafe -- a genre of Dutch pubs known for their historic, cocoa-colored walls, stained by centuries' worth of tobacco smoke -- wears its age well.

Real aficionados, who may find the Vreijthof too democratic (aka touristy), head a few blocks northwest to Onze Lieve Vrouweplein, a smaller, tree-lined plaza offering its own cafe tables under a glowing canopy of twinkling fairy lights.

Chefs scoop up Michelin stars

All this, of course, is only the prelude to another of Maastricht's best lures -- its food. In fact, the city hasn't become just one of Holland's own epicurean epicenters but a continental dining destination. While its established restaurants trail a constellation of Michelin stars, they increasingly compete with chic new kitchens.

If you're more interested in a home-style pea soup than anything cutting edge -- i.e., an emulsion of a foam of a pod of a pea -- head to old-school Au Coin des Bons Enfants Maastricht, where everything is picturesque: the cobbled street outside where the one-time orphanage's children used to play; the beamed dining room, and the traditional continental menu that features a plump roasted pigeon paired with goose-liver and green cabbage.

If you'd rather see what Maastricht's younger chefs are up to, try the eponymous Toine Hermsen. That's where Toine himself performs nightly in a bright open kitchen, ladling up ambitious tasting menus that often feature his signature frogs legs that highlight his exuberant form of contemporary cuisine.

Art and antiques abound

Amid all this eating and drinking and cafe-hopping, there is a more profound depth to Maastricht's sensuality. Holland's abiding appreciation for the pure beauty of objects -- honed through centuries of trading with the world -- reaches an apex in Maastricht. In fact, the city's European Fine Art Fair, held annually in mid-March, has become the continent's premier art and antique fair. And we're not talking Depression-era glass, carnival figurines, or any new finds for your snowglobe collection. The fair's dealers and bug-eyed collectors, who turn the town into a millionaire's row for 10 days, are more likely to be bidding on multimillion-dollar Rembrandts and medieval illuminated manuscripts. Too much? More modest items at the 2007 fair included a diamond-and-ruby Art Nouveau dragonfly brooch, late Gothic gilt copper drinking horn and a few circa-1700 carved gilt wood palace stools.

If you miss the show, though, it doesn't really matter. Maastricht, dedicated to swag all year long, is famous for sidestreets bulging with boutiques, galleries and antique shops; it's a running show.

The city's shopping epicenter is the historic Wyck quarter, on the eastern bank of the Maas River, which is loaded with fashion and design stores. But then, you don't have to pay for the privilege of ogling pretty objects. Maastricht's cultural attractions are just as devoted to the art of fine living.

At the Treasury of St. Servatius, in the basilica of the same name, the city's love of bright shiny things comes camouflaged by religious devotion. Most eye-popping: the glimmering gold plate reliquary chest housing the skeletal remains of the 4th-century St. Servatius himself.

The city's real treasury though is its best art museum, the Bonnefantenmuseum, designed by Italian modernist architect Aldo Rossi. A new alliance with Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum has made the Bonnefantenmuseum temporary home to a knock-out collection of early southern Netherlandish paintings and sculpture and Early Italian paintings. Among current stars of the collection is a canvas by Pieter Brueghel the Younger depicting skaters skimming down a frozen canal under swollen clouds that hang so low they almost brush the frozen canals. There are some choice Rubens and Van Dyck canvases on hand, too, but it's the portrait of a young Bruges minister, holding a Bible in one hand and a money purse in the other, like someone weighing his options, that tends to draw the biggest crowds.

Maastricht itself, given over to a worldly love of this life, has clearly made its choice and there is no point clutching the money purse when you're in a town this ripe with possibility.

Live large and spend at least your final night at Maastricht's newest attraction, the show-stopping Kruisherenhotel Maastricht.

The 15th-century Gothic church and monastery in a central city square has been converted into a five-star hotel and entertainment complex. Forget monastic stoicism. The Kruisherenhotel features 60 rooms whose classic contemporary elegance -- think glass desks and blond wood bedboards -- complements the austere beauty of the monastery's old bones. Just don't get too comfortable. Designed as a one-stop funhouse, the hotel also boasts a wine bar and wine cellar, a garden filled with German artist Ingo Maurer's light installations and a library. A restaurant is suspended in the former church nave.

It's hard to know what the Crutched Friars, the order that founded the monastery, would make of all this, though there is a hint they might have understood. While they cared for the indigent sick of Maastricht, the friars also bound books with an artistry that won them some local fame, so they knew the worth of sheer beauty along with the value of good works.

Maybe they would have frowned at the conversion of their hushed spiritual retreat into a high-life getaway. But they still might have appreciated the amalgam of fine design, good food -- and even the earthy sense of fun -- that transformed their abandoned cloisters, and that buoys the city they left behind.

Raphael Kadushin is senior acquisitions editor at the University of Wisconsin Press and a contributing editor at Bon Appetit magazine.