The Christmas Market in the Valkenburg Caves

How's this for timing, now that it's Christmas week!

At the end of November, almost a month ago, we drove to the Christmas market in the limestone caves of Valkenburg, at the southernmost part of the Netherlands.

It was 170 km (105 mi) from our home, 13 km east of Maastricht.  

Not bad for a nice drive...made into an overnight stay (the next day later!).

It so happens that Valkenburg aan de Geul (its full name) is a huge tourist attraction because of its limestone caves which have been transformed into two different Christmas markets at this time of the year.

We wasted no time and headed for the larger of the two, Fluweelengrot,

also known as the Velvet Cave.

From the minute you walk in, you know you're in for a treat.

It's such a cozy feeling because it's like night-time, even during the day.

And even Santa came across our path a few tmes, both real and fake not real!

In case you weren't already in the Christmas spirit...

 ...it didn't take long to get there.

Ya, man!

All this while finding the cave murals everywhere!
(click any collage to enlarge)

[And that reminds me of my disclaimer:  My f-stop somehow changed to something I didn't want on my new camera and I couldn't figure out how to change it back till we got home...which accounts for some of the graininess and terrible lighting.  My new PowerShot camera really does better than that!]

They even have a café in the cave, where we ate erwtensoep for lunch, and drank glühwein!

That's what you do at this time of the year!

 ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

 Then we walked outside, down the street and around the corner to the Gemeentegrot,

the second and smaller Christmas market in a cave nearby.

It had the same old-world charm as the first market...

...making us short of eyes, of course.

Doesn't your inner Child want to come out and play?!

Yup!

Not as many murals this time but all were worthy, nonetheless.

Somewhere in the mix of it all, we watched the stroopwafel man craft his wares.

Astrid and I shared half each of a large one...because they're so sweet.
Half a stroopwafel is better than no stroopwafel at all!

How can you say NO to that!

(My animal guide is the wolf, you may remember?)

 ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

On that note...we were caved-in-out and left to walk around town.

We remembered seeing a cemetery as we drove in and walked to it before dark.

What is it about cemeteries?  You learn so much about a people and culture.

And not too far from there, the Lourdesgrot from 1926...

from which we could see the ruins of the Valkenburg Castle from 1115.

As if you can't tell, this is the Roman Catholic area of the Netherlands, way down south.

 As the late afternoon gave way to evening, we walked into town to eat.

How about Pub Henry!  Have you noticed that after my trip to Dublin in early September,

I've been on a Guinness kick.  HA!

Festive, night-time Valkenburg!

I'm still in awe of the cafés that serve food outside even during the winter months.

We always eat inside but we love to look once we're back outside.

This is so European!

And as we walked back to our car, we bought a heart Christmas ornament,

made out of limestone from the caves, with the name Valkenburg inscribed on it:  €1.

Yes, he inscribed it specifically for us and it's now on our Christmas tree.

And on that note...

MERRY CHRISTMAS to you all, however/wherever you celebrate it!