Set within the Sea Garden, Detski Kat has been keeping children entertained since 2002. With 28 attractions covering everything from rides and inflatables to games and activities, it caters to a fairly wide age range, though toddlers and younger children tend to get the most out of it. Safety is taken seriously, with staff trained accordingly and the park certified to international standards. For parents, there is a pleasant upside: the surrounding greenery and relative quiet make it an easy place to linger over a coffee while the children burn off energy. Prices are reasonable, it runs year-round, and the Sea Garden setting means you are never just staring at tarmac and fencing. If you are travelling with small children, it is one of the more straightforward wins the city has to offer.

Picasso was born in Malaga, so it makes sense there’s a museum dedicated to him here. It’s inside a 16th-century palace, and the collection comes straight from his family — over 200 works, covering a bit of everything: painting, sketching, ceramics, even sculpture. Just around the corner at Plaza de la Merced, you can also visit the house where he was born.

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.