Step into this vast 9th-century mosque and you’ll find sunlit courtyards, weathered stucco arches, and a spiral minaret that winds up like a ramp. Climb to the top for a surprisingly quiet view over Cairo’s rooftops. The Ibn Tulun Mosque isn’t flashy, but that’s part of what makes it so striking — the space, the stillness, the sense of time just sitting in the air.

Completed in the middle of the 17th century, the Wazir Khan Mosque is ornately decorated with traditional architecture additions of the Mughal-era. Moreover, does the complex host several shops and is the resting place to Syed Muhammad Ishaq Gazruni, whose tomb is placed in the complex. The different creative expressions inside the mosque, will amaze you and make it hard to take your eyes of the colourful ceilings.

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.