Oostwegel — all of them “housed in monumental buildings with a rich cul- tural history,” according to Oostwegel’s website. They include my host hotel, Kruisherenhotel Maastricht, which occupies a church that was built in 1520 and about 10 years ago was carefully reimagined as a magnificent 60-room property that preserves the building’s original lines and structures — and even offers three conference rooms that each can accommodate from four to 20 people. That night I enjoyed a leisurely dinner with Marcel Knols, the conven- tion bureau’s managing director, in Kruisherenhotel’s restaurant, floating on a mezzanine level among the stained glass and gothic arches of the old church. The next morning, a guide from the

bureau took me on a stroll through the city center. It was gray and chilly, and as we navigated the narrow, wind- ing streets, through small public

squares, past crumbling segments of the old city wall, and over the Meuse, it would have been easy to slip into the past — except for the high-end shops, boutiques, and bars that line Maastricht. We stopped for a coffee at Selexyz Dominicanen, a 13th- century Dominican church that’s been converted into a bookstore and café, then later popped in to the Museum aan het Vrijthof, housed in the 16th- century Spanish Government building, and full of light thanks to a transpar- ent roof soaring over its courtyard. Eventually we ended up at Maastricht University, internationally respected, with nearly 16,000 students, and, like the health campus, offering valuable resources for meeting planners. The university was only founded in 1976, but seems much older because it occu- pies a series of 16th- and 17th-century buildings in the city center.

Perhaps the best indicator of

Maastricht’s old-world charm and the comfort it engenders in visitors is that, after our walk, I was eager to say good- bye to my guide — an engaging, knowl- edgeable companion — and spend some time on my own. By the time I’d made my way to the train station, after a quiet lunch at a window seat at Harry’s in the Hotel Beaumont, I felt like I’d been welcomed as a friend. The final leg of my trip beckoned — heading back north, to Rotterdam — but I wasn’t sure I was ready to leave.

ROTTERDAM: WINNING THE WAR But Rotterdam cured me of that. Rot- terdam Central station, where I got off the train, is in the middle of a huge improvement project that’s creating a transportation hub in the heart of the city. The space is light and airy, with an angular, shiny silver roof that points

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