Every design for Eijsden

At Eijsden the Meuse enters the Netherlands: coming down from France and Belgium, the river becomes the Maas here, and from this point on it forms part of the border. On the far bank lies the Walloon village of Lanaye; to the south, the Flemish Voerstreek.

This is one of the most southerly corners of the country, in the south-west of Limburg, where the small river Voer joins the Meuse. Eijsden is the largest settlement in the municipality of Eijsden-Margraten, made up of quarters such as Breust, Mariadorp and Laag-Caestert, each with its own history. Its name is thought to come from an old Germanic word for an aspen wood, and excavations have turned up traces of a Roman settlement. In the seventeenth century, trade and shipping on the river brought prosperous merchants. Kasteel Eijsden still stands, and the Motte Eijsden, an early castle mound, was excavated beside the Martinuskerk. It was also here that the German emperor Wilhelm II crossed into exile at the end of the First World War.

Whoever comes back along the Maas, with the river alongside and the Belgian hills ahead, knows this is where they belong.