Namur, Belgium

We had planned to stay at the same château as we did last time we traveled to Assesse, Belgium, but a room wasn't available for two days in a row. Turns out we are SO glad this was the case. Check out Château de Namur, located in Namur, Belgium (aerial views provided by the hotel's website):

There was a rose garden, herb garden, edibles garden, and an "emotions" garden surrounding a koi pond. The emotions garden paired scents and colors together to evoke certain feelings (wish I could have experienced). The grounds must be amazing in Spring/Summer, as they were very pretty in Fall. 

I thought the sinks looked like ice cream cones. The mirror was heated. Like, could burn your hand heated. We had to close the bathroom door and the hallway door because the room was so hot.

We arrived late Monday night and just went to bed. 

Namur is both a city and municipality in the Walloon region of Belgium. The city is also the capital of Namur province and Wallonia itself. 

After we woke up, it was time to eat breakfast before exploring. 

I haven't described European breakfasts (well, French, German, and Belgian hotel breakfasts at least) yet, but it's basically lunch meats, cheese, fresh fruit, fresh breads and jams, and sometimes yogurt and soft boiled eggs. Cereal and milk is also provided but I never see anyone eat it but Boo. This place had an omelette station, which I didn't utilize, but the gesture was nice. 

The customer service was outstanding at this château (pulling my seat out at dinner that night, cutting Boo's food for her while I ate... I felt so fancy).

John needed the car that day, but the convenient location of the château meant it didn't matter. We were about 500 yards away from the Citadelle de Namur, and walked allll over the grounds and enjoyed the beautiful views of Namur below. It was pretty foggy all day, but we had fun.

From Wiki:

The Citadel or Castle of Namur is a fortress in the city of Namur, at the confluence of the Sambre and Meuse rivers. It is originally from the Roman era, but has been rebuilt several times. Its current form was designed by Menno van Coehoorn, and improved upon by Vaubanafter the siege of 1692. It has been classified as a Wallonia's Major Heritage site.

The original citadel dates to 937. It achieved its present extent between 1631 and 1675, when the city was under Dutch control. 

Due to it being off season for tourists, almost all portions accessible by road were under construction. For what, I couldn't say. But Boo enjoyed watching the machines while we waited for our train tour. 

We had stumbled upon the train while we were walking and Boo wouldn't let it go that she wanted to ride the stupid thing. So we walked all over until we found the visitor center and could buy tickets... which basically just drove us around everything we had just seen, albeit with a nice explanation of the history. But Boo was happy and that's what mattered.

We took a nature walk back to the château after the train, since John was coming home soon and we were going to drive in to Namur to check it out. I later realized we could easily walk down to the city via the Citadel, which we did the next day. 

Sign says "Marrionnier de l'OHIO," aka a Buckeye tree all the way in Belgium!!

We had dinner reservations at the château, but had a few hours to kill when John got home so off to Namur we went. It is a pretty city on two rivers, and has a bunch of nice architecture and quirky statues. 

Random store.

Statues located in the Place d'Armes. From what I can gather from some Googling, Joseph, Francis, and the snails are part of Namur folklore. Something self deprecating about the people from Namur being slow and having to watch to make sure the snails don't get away. The Belgians seem to have a quirky sense of humor. 

While driving around, we saw a statue in the middle of a roundabout of two guys fighting on stilts. Huh? Thanks to Google, I now know that Namur is proud of its "Echasseurs."

The Echasseurs, dialectal word meaning "jousters on stilts" play the sport since the Middle Ages. Divided into two groups, Mélans (yellow and black stilts - colors of the old town) and Avresses (red and white stilts). jousters try to bring down the opponent in harsh body-to-body. Once a year, the third Sunday of September as part of celebrations of Wallonia, fifty jousters compete in the squares and in the streets of Namur. The winner has the honor to hold for a year "golden stilt."

A golden stilt. Fancy. I couldn't get a good picture of the statue due to rush hour but Google never lets me down. I even found some pictures of the real jousters:

We went into a few shops to check out some clothing, but it was really expensive. I've learned that the places to buy clothes are The Netherlands and Germany, because elsewhere the VAT is too high. 

Turns out there is a Boo! handbag line, only sold in some parts of the U.K. and Belgium. It was pretty expensive, so a picture was taken but no purchases were made.

After a few hours of exploring, we had a nice dinner back at the château and I promptly collapsed. Lots of walking was done on this day.

The next morning, John didn't have to be at work until after lunch, so after checking out of the château we stopped by a shop called Beer, Wine, and Coffee. Guess what they sell. It was recommended to me by Jake, father of a little boy Boo has played with, who used to live in Brussels and is a beer aficionado. We weren't disappointed. We picked up some random bottles of lambic and some beers John wanted to try, had lunch, and dropped John at the office. 

It was like BevMo, but with craft beer. Very cool. 

The night before, I had noticed a big golden turtle statue lit up near the top of the Citadel. I couldn't believe we had missed this, since we had walked pretty much everywhere. Once I learned John accidentally still had our room key in his pocket and I had to go back to the area anyway, I was determined to find it this round. Mission complete. 

Boo and I then walked down to Namur again, strolled around a bit and headed back (via a million stairs) to the car. On the way, Boo found a ladybug that she named Abigail. I let her walk all the way back with it, but that was it. When I told her she couldn't bring it in the car as her pet because it was from Belgium and we couldn't take it away from home, she started sobbing that it was her "best friend." Riiight. Someone was tired. 

She never ended up taking a nap, but a rest in the car rekindled her good mood, as did going through a car wash and then sitting in the parking lot playing "Disneyland" (basically we act like we are on some ride and talk about what we are seeing). We've also been practicing phonics and though she keeps forgetting /f/, she's doing really well with a lot of other sounds. 

At the end of the day when we were driving home, I asked Boo what her favorite part of the trip was. Not the castle, or the cool fortress, or the turtle statue, not even Abigail the ladybug. It was the last 15 minutes of those two days that we sat in the parking lot playing pretend. 

This was a wake up call to me that while exploring is good, so is sitting together and having a more personal type of quality time. After all, a four-year-old doesn't give a rip about another pretty bridge if Mommy isn't making the experience fun! Duly noted. 

Tomorrow we are going to play with Hazel in the afternoon, then head back to Belgium on Friday. I think Boo and I will explore Leuven this time, which was recommended by Alice, who also has lived in Brussels (not far from there). We will stay the night and then use Saturday to either go to Maastricht (Netherlands) or back to Brussels and Bruges this time so John can enjoy them as well. 

We may end up driving to the Paris area as early as Sunday (John is pretty busy with traveling, if you didn't notice, meaning so are we). That would mean we are in France ALL week, then go to England Friday - Monday. I'm tired just thinking about it. 

Mimi Visits

John's mom and her boyfriend arrived late Oct. 14, leaving the afternoon of Oct. 19. We had a whirlwind tour of our little section of the world and Boo was ecstatic to see her Mimi. 

We hit the ground running.

Day 1: Old Luxembourg and Indian food

After a brief driving tour to see some of the city quickly (they had just covered some serious pavement in Paris), we parked to check out the old fortifications of Luxembourg and stumbled upon the Bock Casemates, which I hadn't realized were right there (last time we visited, it was after closing and the gate was shut).

Good summary from the Visit Luxembourg site:

In 963, Count Siegfried built a fortified castle on the Bock promontory, which was soon to become the cradle of the city. In the course of the centuries, on the western side, mighty ring walls were added, which, however, did not foil the Burgundians in their attempt to conquer the city in 1443. 

The best builder-engineers of the new masters (the Burgundians, the Spaniards, the French, the Austrians and the German Confederation) eventually turned the city into one of the most powerful emplacements in the world, the "Gibraltar of the North". Its defences were bolstered by three fortified rings with 24 forts, 16 other strong defensive works and a unique 23 km long network of casemates: these could not only shelter thousands of soldiers and their horses, but also housed workshops, kitchens, bakeries, slaughter-houses etc. 

In 1867, after the declaration of neutrality,the military withdrew from the fortress and during the following 16 years 90% of the defences were demolished. In 1875, the superstructure of the Bock, a tremendous construction, was razed. However, it proved to be impossible to blow up the casemates, without also demolishing part of the city, so the entrances and the key connecting galleries were sealed. In spite of this, 17 kilometres of tunnels remain, often on different levels and tremendous stairways penetrate up to 40 metres inside the rock face.

Tremendous stairways, indeed! We climbed and descended tons of stairways, but it was extremely cool and I definitely want to go back with John again.  I'll let some pictures do the talking:

See the windows in the rock under the tower? That's where we were. The tunnels extended all through the bridge and rock formations.

Cheeser

Stairs were treacherous at some points 

After going through the casemates, we walked around on top before heading back to the car.

Originally, we had planned to eat around the Hotel de Ville area, but the idea of walking more and a long dinner wasn't so appealing. Instead, we introduced Debbie and Keith to their first (delivery) Indian food (going tame with Chicken Tikka Masala - I ordered (extra) spicy Lamb Tikka Masala that was pretty good and nice and spicy). 

Day 2: Vianden, Luxembourg and Bastogne, Belgium

We've been to both of these spots multiple times so I didn't take pictures. We took them to the gorgeous château (see Vianden post), had a snack, then headed back to grab John to drive to Bastogne to grab some Belgian chocolates and a Belgian dinner (I had mussels with citrus seasoning this time). It was a nice day.

Boo tried to feed our swan buddy some stale bread by hand. She didn't keep her hand flat and got nipped a little bit (totally fine, just scared - (s)he's a HUGE swan, probably as big as Boo). They should just cancel the Parent of the Year ceremony, as there's no competition. 

Day 3: Echternach, Luxembourg and Trier, Germany

It was finally Saturday and John could come out to play! We headed to Castle Beaufort, some 11th century ruins near Echternach, Luxembourg (oldest town in Lux).

It was cool to see a castle that wasn't completely renovated and redone in the last century. This place had a prison, torture chamber, you name it!

Prison - note wall chains

After walking around, we picked up some bottles of Cassero, which is liquor the castle is apparently known for:

http://www.visitluxembourg.com/en/place/localproducts/liqueur-castle-beaufort

I'm bringing the bottles back to Ohio to share with whoever visits us!

The castle is pretty close to the German border, so it was only about 30 more minutes to Trier. We walked around and met up with Boo's buddy, Hazel, for a few mini carousel rides before dinner at Brassierie Trier, which Hazel's (German) mother recommended.

They are so darn cute. When they saw each other, they ran up and hugged in the middle of the square.

I finally tried frog legs (the restaurant is French and German food). Tastes like chicken with way more bones. It wasn't bad but it isn't a new favorite or anything. 

Then I enjoyed a salad with grilled prawns because eating all this rich food is getting to be a little much. 

Day 4: Strasbourg, France

We had loved Strasbourg so much we decided to take Debbie and Keith back to enjoy it on Sunday. We have quickly learned that Sundays aren't exactly the day to go touristing if you like to go shopping as well. Lots of souvenir shops open, but not much else, save for restaurants. It was nice to see the cathedral again and notice a few features I had missed the first time, plus walk all the way around the outside. The cathedral was nicely lit at night as well.

As we crossed a bridge, I thought I saw a hummingbird, but I saw antennae. A quick Google search informed me that we were observing a Hummingbird Hawk-Moth, and it was super cool. It's eating out of the second set of pink flower from the top.

This trip we had a little accident, but Boo is okay. I took her into the bathroom with me, and must have flipped the latch 360°, because a woman opened the door on me. I was frantically trying to close the stall door while she was weird and stood there staring at me, and the door wouldn't close as I pulled it harder. Finally I hear Boo's shrieks and realize she had put her fingers in the door hinge area and I was pulling the door against three of her poor fingers. They looked pretty ugly with a long pressure line in them, but cleared to a tiny bruise quickly. After lots of hugs and getting her to bend her fingers, then handing over a lollipop, she was completely fine.

Last day/morning: After a quick goodbye lunch and dropping them off to grab a bus to Brussels (to catch a plane to Venice, Italy), Boo and I took a glorious THREE hour nap and then we headed to Namur, Belgium for two days of adventuring. 

We will head back to Lux tonight, and probably visit The Netherlands for the weekend. I'm a bit tired after around 9 miles of walking yesterday but I'll sleep when I'm dead.