Maastricht, NL
I wonder if our own Maastricht has been here yet.
I saw this and I immediately thought of Livraria Lello in Porto. It’s one of the most famous bookstores in Portugal, and the staircase is famous in particular.
DAMN! Now I have to go back to Portugal.
Dunno if this didn’t work for anyone else, but… I got a picture of someplace neat, but definitely not a bookstore.
If you click on “Shops”, then “Selexyz Bookstore”, then “Maastricht”, it shows what looks like a church converted into a bookstore. Worth hunting around to find the pics.
Yeah there’s a lot of interesting architecture on that page… since it’s a flash-based interface that makes it impossible to link directly to the pictures the OP references… some directions would have been helpful since I was initially confused as well as to what bookstore she was talking about.
It was the first thing my host showed me when we went walking around in Porto, even before the Igreja dos Clérigos (it’s right nearby, up the Rua das Carmelitas).
More on Lello, and a Wikipedia article in Portuguese. It turns out it’s also a national historic site.
Pretty. It’s got everything a bookstore needs except books.
Pretty is always in the eye of the beholder, of course, but I would say that the bookstores of Hay on Wye might be in the running.
It seems that many are only getting to the main site, that is the architect’s site and the fist photo that appears (in the -EN- English side) is from an Earnest and Young office they designed. The books they have should be interesting only to the Feds now. 
This site has more photos of the location mentioned by the OP:
http://crossroadsmag.eu/2006/11/new-bookshop-in-maastricht-selexyz-dominicanen/
The Masstricht is certainly fancy and expensive looking, but the Rivraria Lello blows it out of the water.
But damn, I love book stores and would adore shoping in either.
I live in Maastricht too, and love showing it to friends, its realy nice…but I can’t say the book selection is so great, It’s kinda of going the way of all modern bookstores, only bestsellers and books you allready read…
Heh, I didn’t realise on first glance that the top photo is a 360° panorama…
I can second that…It used to be ‘the’ place to celebrate carnaval back when it was the ‘dominikaner kerk’.
wtks - how long have you been in Maastricht? I grew up in valkenburg but haven’t been to Maastricht for two years now - hopefully soon I’ll be able to drop by and have ‘friet and zoervleisch’ at Cafe Sjiek
I remember when it was used as a reptile house
Originally I’m from South Africa, but spent most of my teen years in Maastricht, did the walkabout thing a bit during my college years and for some time after that, returned six years ago and realised how much I missed living in Maastricht, apparently living in a beautiful city is something my soul needs.
That and chips with sour meat(Prefered food of the gods…trust us)
I just had a tiny little ‘o’ at those fantastic pictures.
::::::sigh::::::
My house is full (too full) of books, many newly purchased, but I just realized how few times I have been in bookstores since the Internet.