Week 36: Trip to Liege

Last Sunday we took a trip to Liege, Belgium, which is one of the largest cities and Belgium and was a industrial center for the country. Belgium is particularly interesting, as it has two distinct regions--Wallonia and Flanders--whose people are separated quite strongly by language and culture. Wallonia, the region closest to  us, is primarily French speaking (with a smaller German speaking area) and Flanders is primarily Dutch speaking. This difference was part of the reason that Belgium, up until early December of last year, had not had more than a caretaker government since June, 2010.

One of the big draws for Liege on the weekend is a very large market along the river. We arrived just as they were starting to pack up, but were able to walk through much of it while they were still set up. You could get just about anything you were looking for, especially if it was any of a wide selections of foods or that particular knock-off purse.

Liege's Riverside Market

In walking around the city, we stopped by the Cathedral, dedicated to St. Paul, for a wander around. There were some fantastic stained glass windows, which, unfortunately, do not photograph well on my phone. One of the nice parts of having all of these churches available to visit throughout Europe is they tend to be warmer than the outside in the winter and cooler than the outside in the summer.

Liege Cathedral

On a brief side note, we were reminded about how different Europe is from the US when we first parked our car at a garage in Liege. As I was zipping up my coat, I heard a familiar tune by Cee Lo Green, that was all over the place about a year ago in the US. There are two versions of this song. The first is the one you hear on the radio in the US: "Forget You"; the other is the album version, whose name in the listing is "F**k You". The one that was playing on the Belgian station was the second. It is funny how little things like this can still stop us in our tracks.

On our drive back from Liege to Germany, we made a stop in the old hilltop portion of Limbourg, Belgium. Our guidebook stated that it is a spectacularly well preserved example of a hilltop fortress, which it certainly is. It also noted that the main square had rather undulating cobblestones. We experienced those directly with the car. Jason though we should let Honda know about this, so they could use the area for a suspension test track.

Limbourg's Main Square

Once we bounced through the main square a bit and found a spot to park, we walked through the village. There were a number of side streets with fantastic stone houses, which looked over the side of the hill onto the main part of the town below. Since it was cold and wet (we are close enough to have the same weather as the Eifel), our walk was brief, but we did check out the exterior of the church, which was perched on the side of the hill. As the sun started to set somewhere behind the cloud covered sky, we made our way back to Germany in the soon to be complete darkness.

Limbourg--I swear I've seen this as a jig-saw puzzle...