You would almost miss them. Almost. Because as soon as you pass the entryway to the St. Servaas Basilica, you’ll figure out that it’s worth walking on. You’ll see for yourself that Maastricht doesn’t end at the Vrijthof. Sometimes you just have to take those few extra steps. That’s when Maastricht will surprise you with just how surprising the city centre really is. The Vrijthof has a number of little streets leading into it from all directions. They include Brusselsestraat, Grote Gracht, and De Kommel. Unlike the more idyllic boulevards in most of the rest of the city, these streets evoke a feeling of the urban, the artistic, the unknown. Here, students and locals come and go: artists, designers, professionals. It’s an area that’s moving fast: new shops, start-ups, young businesses, surprising concepts. Yet at the same time, it’s bursting with historic buildings, and is still very much a place where locals want to live. In truth, you can’t really describe the streets around the Vrijthof in a few words. It’s where local, university, business, authentic, forward-looking, and surprising Maastricht all come together.

ŠKODA Auto Lab is an Interactive Safety Center created by the ŠKODA brand, which combines automotive education with family entertainment. At the ŠKODA Auto Lab everyone can learn the ins and outs of safe and ecological driving and dive into the technical secrets which lie under your car’s hood.

Bristol Zoo Gardens includes a large area with over 400 different animal species. Here you can easily spend a whole day either alone or with your family. Learn about the animals inside the aquarium or about the insects at Bug World, see snakes at the reptile house and say hello to penguins and seals. The butterfly house is also well worth a visit. A restaurant and picnic facilities are on site.