Confusion reigned among the 40 or so participants of City Escape as they waited for the starting gun in front of the Stayokay on the Maasboulevard last Thursday around 11 o'clock. "I'm sorry, but I can't find my group. Can you help me?", a few of the first-year students ask the reporter, as he is waiting next to them with an official INKOM-card around his neck. The only help from the INKOM organisation is an A4-sheet next to the door of the Stayokay, which asks participants to make small groups on their own, register them on the INKOM-app and then start the tour with their phones. But most discover that piece of paper only after 15 minutes, and before it is then read and everyone has found a group, the next hurdle awaits: technology. "We can't add you two here on the app anymore, it doesn't work the way it should, I don't get it either," says a student who has just formed a group to two others. The solution: they just go along, without registration. The reporter joins in. Together we go through the city park and the city centre. Along the way, guided by the app, we pass historical monuments like the Helpoort and the Mestreechter Geis. People talk to each other a lot, but it doesn't get beyond smalltalk. Still, a bit disappointing.
The first point on the map is quickly reached: we are standing in front of the Pater Vincktoren, probably completed around 1400, the last of about 40 rampart towers in Maastricht's second rampart. The group must now complete half a picture of the tower with one of their own. "Which angle is right? How close should we zoom in?" asks Mirun from India (she does not want her surname in Observant).
City wall in the shoe shop
We continue. "It’s tiring to walk so much anyway," Lithuanian Migle (also no surname) informs us, and the other group members agree. She is hungry, and everyone thinks it is a good idea to get something to eat together. But one last stop they want to make. A few minutes later, we are standing in front of a shoe shop on Haven Street. "What's in the basement of this house?" the app asks. The group has no idea. "A shoe stock?", they laugh. Two minutes later, they know more; a salesman takes them into the basement. Among the shoe boxes, a substantial piece of the medieval city wall still stands out, about a metre high.