Historical museums in Maastricht: 7 tips

At the Maastricht Museum, you will travel through 7,000 years of Maastricht history in just a few hours. Discover who the first inhabitants were and how the Romans lived there later. See Maastricht as a political-religious centre in the Middle Ages, and as a successful factory town in the 19th century. In each room you will discover new stories. These stories are told in Dutch, English and Maastricht. During activities such as telling relatively unknown stories of Maastricht, you dive deeper into history in an interactive way. Much more fun than a history book from school. Before you leave, visit the museum shop. Here you can buy souvenirs and gifts with a link to Maastricht's past or the museum's collections.

At the Natural History Museum, too, you travel to earlier times. Here, you do so with stories about extinct animals and animals you can still spot near Maastricht. For example, did you know that where Maastricht is now, 70 million years ago Mosasaurs were swimming in a subtropical sea? A fossil mouth of one of these marine reptiles is so big that it didn't fit in the museum and got its own glass house in the museum garden. He shares his museum with fossils of flying dinosaurs, birds and sea creatures. Walking through the museum, you get an idea of what the earth looked like millions of years ago. You will also learn all about nature as it is today. Get to know the animals, plants and landscapes that make South Limburg so special and different from the rest of the Netherlands.

You rarely see a 'museum' like the Sphinxpassage. The 120-metre-long covered passage is not just a way to walk dry from the Eiffel Building to Pathé. It is also a long museum, telling the story of ceramics and later sanitary ware factory De Sphinx. Almost 30,000 tiles show how a Maastricht company grew into one of the continent's largest and most prominent ceramic producers in the 19th and 20th centuries. See portraits of the influential owners, images of the huge factory buildings and old advertisements. And gain useful knowledge right away for your next pub quiz. You visit the longest tile tableau in the Netherlands daily for free during opening hours. The story begins on the Penitentenpoort side.

Treasure hunt in religious atmosphere in the Treasury of Saint Servatius Basilica. The Treasury is one of the most beautiful and important ecclesiastical museums in the Netherlands. What to expect there? Relics of Saint Servatius, the first bishop of Maastricht and patron saint of the city. The saint's bones lie in the 12th-century chest that glitters at you with gilded copper and semi-precious stones. Also look into the saint's gilt silver eyes (his bust) and admire all the other ancient, shiny religious treasures. While you're there, you can also take a look at the rest of the church, light a candle and contemplate on a wooden pew.

From sacred bones to thick stone walls designed to keep the enemy out of Maastricht. The Fortress Museum is located in the Netherlands' oldest city gate, the Helpoort. Standing in front of the door? Then look up at the two floors of the gate and you'll see it's not a big museum. Yet in this museum you get a good idea of Maastricht as a Fortress City. The staff enthusiastically complement the information on the walls. Find out why the Duke of Brabant had this first city wall built in 1229 and how it was used in the centuries that followed. Tip: near the gate, also walk a bit on the remains of the first city wall of which the gate was part.

World War II and the Cold War play a big role in Maastricht's history. The casemate (underground bunker) under the Minister Goeman Borgesiusplantsoen was one of the places where people were hidden during both wars. A few Sundays a year you can take a look there. In the Schuilkelder Museum, you can view old newspapers, documents and objects that tell the story of war and hiding in Maastricht. The names of the American soldiers who also came to hide there are still scratched into the walls. And did you know that residents used to dig their own tunnels from their cellars or gardens to the air-raid shelter located underneath the residential area?

Our Lady's Basilica also has a treasury, which is again very different from that of Saint Servatius Basilica. You view religious objects from the 12th and 13th centuries here. The treasury reopened in May 2024 after a two-year refurbishment, but the collection of objects began back in the 13th century. Stroll past the showcases and don't miss Pope John Paul II's stole.