Namur, Belgium. One of the old city gates from when this was a fortified, walled city.
Namur
Namur. We thought these chips out of the stone walls were perhaps from WWII gunfire.
Namur. A shop window full of lovely cheeses.
Namur. This shop has a window full of representations of comic or book characters. That's Tintin in the orange space suit up front. Some of these figures, although of plastic, cost 100 or 200 euros! (We didn't buy any.)
Namur. Book store. This was one of my favorite stories when I was a child.
Namur. An old citadel on the hillside above town.
Namur - walking along the canal.
Namur. Bridge.
Namur. Tour boat.
Namur. This is the hotel where we stayed in Namur. It did rather have the look of a prison, although I'm not sure it was ever used as such.
The American cemetery near Bastogne.
A historic working mill was moved to this chateau, into the building on the left. It is now a museum.
Chateau in the town of
Besides going through the mill - museum, we got to make speculoos cookies, a Belgian treat. Thats the pastry chef and
Speculoos making.
Holly and her tray of lovely speculoos. The chef rated my efforts as "bon".
Part of the mill assembly.
Braided grains.
Cookie cutters.
Molds for making pastries.
Midieval torture chamber ... no, no - its actually for coating nuts with syrup.
Even though she didn't bake, Mary got to eat the cookies. (Some of the cookies.) They are rather like gingerbread; very good. Wish I had one right now.
Herrmalle. Many of the towns in southern Belgium have an annual "battle of the bands" and "dance till you drop" competition. It seems to basically be an excuse for a big summer party. We seemed to be the only Americans on hand.
Herrmalle.This little guy took his musicianship with the band very seriously. A while later, we saw his mother dragging him back home for his bed time, and he was utterly outraged - the band was relying on him!
Herrmalle.Fallen flowers. Actually they are just taking a beer break, although all the beer breaks probably make it harder to keep dancing until midnight.This was the night for the young adults to dance. They are all in prom wear.
Herrmalle.Barbara digs the sousaphones.
Herrmalle.There are two bands in town marching back and forth on the main street, representing the blue and the red. When the bands intercept, they continue to play their own tune as loudly as possible, while marching right through the other band.
Herrmalle. A bouquet of sousaphones.
Herrmalle.The red band in motion.
Herrmalle.The prom-enadors get ready to march.
The line dance.
Herrmalle.Young Emil talked Holly into riding the Tidal Surf at the carnival. So it was me and 20 little kids. When the announcer asked if we wanted to keep going, and go faster - it was 20 little kids yelling "oui" and me yelling "no". They won.
Dinant. Absolutely no dachshunds are allowed into this chocolate shop.
Dinant. The chocolatier displays the components of chocolate. See that pool of chocolate behind him? I wanted to go test that.
Dinant. Showing off some of their fun special orders.
Dinant. Adding walnuts to each chocolate piece.
Dinant. Chef Michael created this church out of 35 pounds of chocolate, in a representation of their historical church in Dinant.There is a picture of the actual church coming up.
