After a lovely time in Luxembourg, we headed north, back into Belgium. Our first stop there, was the Chateau de Lavaus-Sainte-Anne.
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| Marg at the Chateau de Lavaus-Sainte-Anne |
This is a beautiful castle surrounded by a moat, and now set up as a museum.
We wandered around it visiting the fully furnished rooms, as well as the cellars of the keep. It was really interesting, but we weren’t so keen on the huge collection of stuffed animals killed by various owners over time.
Then we drove through some narrow country roads to view the beautiful turreted Castle of Veves which dates back to 1410. It is still lived in by the original family.
Our next stop was the pretty town of Dinant and its citadel.
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| Dinant Citadel towering over the township |
The town is lovely, running alongside the river, and the citadel is massive. It towers above the whole town.
Moving on, we stopped to view the Citadel or Castle of Namur. This was reached by driving up a very winding road, through several narrow gateways.
It occupied an impressive site on top of a hill overlooking two rivers; a wonderfully defensive position for a citadel/fort and with great views over the city of Namur.
After that, we viewed the Bois-du-Luc, an old coal mine that was essential to the Belgium economy during the Industrial Revolution.
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| Bois-du-Luc coal mine worker's houses (UNESCO) |
It is a UNESCO site because of the unique workers village, and the social, educational, cultural and religious buildings that were provided at the mine site for the workers - all wonderfully preserved.
Then we did a little side track to see a huge historic boat lift. The lift is one of several on the Canal du Centre which uses hydraulics to lift boats up and down the different levels of the waterways.
Built in the 19th and 20th century, they are now only for recreational use.
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| Canal du Centre 19th century boat lift (UNESCO) |
Our last stop in Belgium was Mons, which has the only baroque belfry in Belgium. Its belfry has 47 bells which are played like our Wellington Carillon - it was lovely.
Mons also has a Grand Place that is a large cobblestone square dotted with cafes and mix of interesting architectural styles of buildings.
We had a nice wander around before retiring to our hotel for the night, ready to head back to Brussels the next morning.
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| The Belfry at Mons (UNESCO) |
The trickiest thing about our Mons hotel was the parking, which is underground. It had a very narrow and steep entrance into one of more challenging places we have parked. We were driving a small VW Pollo and it was tight even for that small car.
We managed to get in and out (just), drove back to the Brussels Gare du Midi to return our rental car, then caught the Eurostar train back to London, where Marg’s cousin Di met us.
We then went to Di and John’s place in High Wycombe for the night. It was lovely there, and we had a great catch-up over good food and wine.
Before long we were heading to Heathrow Airport and a plane to Beijing - the last stage of our trip, before flying back home to New Zealand.
This is part of a bigger blog on our travels around England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Belgium and Luxembourg. The first blog is called "Off to do the UK in a motorhome".