Hilly NL - Day 6 - A lot of castles round around the hotel

Bicycle: 32 km

Riding time: 2:08 h

Total ascent:  147 m
Avg speed: 15.1 km/h
Route: Around the hotel in North of Maastricht

Weather: Sun and clouds, no rain, but strong wind,  17 C

Finally it seems that the bike has been repaired successfully. At least I could ride 33 km without any incident. Okay, 33 km aren't that much, but then I was back before lunch, and then too lazy to get out of the hotel room again. It didn't help that each time I looked on buienradar, it seemed that in the next hour it would go to rain. And actually the only time it did NOT forecast rain, it was actually raining outside. Anyway, I at least did some riding today. 

I took it slowly, stopping at each castle along the way and taking a picture.

Well, okay, the first picture wasn't a castle strictly speaking, but it looked great with the gray sky behind it. 

The first castle... 

... inaccessible like all the following ones, but still in use. 

Castle number 2 (Hartelstein) looked more like a defensive manor, and seems to house a housing project as well as a second hand shop. 

Before coming to castle #3, I passed through the Maas landscape, which at least in this region here claims to be a nearly natural river... not like in the rest of the Netherlands, where most rivers are highly regulated. The horses (and also some angus cattle) are officially "employed" in this landscape to keep the vegetation low and avoid the growth of a small forest along the river. 

Castle #3 was inaccessible at the moment and also unoccupied, but clearly there were some reconstruction works ongoing in order to reopen it to the public. Not sure what are the precise plans for the castle though. Looks big compared to poor, young brompton. 

In front of that castle was also this not-at-all-explained "sculpture". One would think that the explanatory sign above it gave some hints why a toilet bowl would be standing around in the middle of a village... but no. It was tempting to use it... but I figured that this wasn't the scope either. 

Continuing, I came to castle number 4, which I had seen already yesterday, but for good measure I took a new picture.

Shortly after followed by castle number 5 ...

Today I managed to progress beyond this castle and back to my hotel without incidents, but not without passing an other 2 castles. Castle #6, which is a few hundred meter away from our hotel ...

... and apparently used by a long list of companies for their offices, and a bit further down the road castle number 7 which is currently being restructured, but already quite close to finalization. Probably for something like a company or meeting rooms. 

And then finally back to the hotel, castle number 8 of the day: