Maastricht  

"The valley of the Maes — home of Hubert and John Van Eyck — is noted as classic ground by the earliest historians of Flemish art; and even the grave Van Mander likens it to the vales of the Arno, the Tiber, and the Po. Maeseyck, where the Van Eycks were born, lies North of Maestricht at the edge of the barren Kempenland, touching the waste on one side, looking on the other into the gardens and orchards of the country of Liege. To the 'Eastward, by Dinant and Namur, we see the beautiful landscapes of town-crested rock and flowing river which John Van Eyck so lovingly repeated in the backgrounds of his pictures. Due North, towards Venloo and the sluggard Rhine, are the sweeps of flat country endeared to us in their melancholy by the canvases of the later Dutch."--Early Flemish Painters (1856) by Joseph A. Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle