First off, a pic of the Meuse river, with to your right the principal rocks of the Massif de Freyr, very popular with Belgian, Dutch, British and Northern French rock climbers. The rock wall you see is the so-called l'Al Lègne, a 120-meter high nearly vertical wall of stratified limestone.
A pic from a bit closer up, on top of a grate. You can well see how through the ages the Meuse has carved this valley through the land, with the Rochers de Freyr nevertheless being so hard they forced the river to bend. The two lads had just finished climbing up l'Al Lègne. I don't know whether the lady did so too, but she sure had nice titties, pity there was no cleavage.
Uh, wait a minute. What did I just say? I was talking about valleys, right?
Okay, have some patience with poor old Outlaw, who still hasn't upgraded from his geriatric Nikon Coolpix 4800. I post this video just to annoy people.
Here, a better shot of the Chateau de Freyr, which is actually some kind of mini Versailles. Indeed, the park, with a.o. 300 year old orange trees, was designed by the famous landscape architect Le Notre, who also did Versailles' parks, and the Sun King himself, Louis XIV, stayed here. This Renaissance castle was in fact the summerresidence of the Dukes of Beaufort-Spontin, and their descendants, in their 20th generation now, inhabit it to this day.
Then it was off to another chateau, more precisely the Chateau de Walzin. Very interesting place, in fact. Chroniclers mention the existence of some stronghold on this very spot from the 11th century on. What you see right now is of course a neogothic folly built from 1850 on by a certain Alfred Brugman, and adapted in the thirties by a descendant, Frédéric Brugman. What stood here before was ravaged four times, and only the 11th century donjon is still there. Castles and chateaux have been peppered quite abundantly in this corner. Also nearby is the Chateau de Veves, another must-see.
When I had a closer look at my photo this evening, I saw that I should have waited a couple of more weeks, till some kind of Indian Summer turns the Ardennes into a red-green-yellow-brown carpet. When you take a pic then, yu get something like this (not my photo):
After Walzin the evening had set in, so we off to nearby Dinant, the "fille de la Meuse" [the Daughter of the Meuse - MFBB], for a wrapup of the trip in a cafeteria. There I took this pic of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, with Dinant's citadel behind it on top of the cliffs.
Here's another overview of the centre of this town of 13,000 people. I picked this photo from Wikipedia, we had no time left to cross the Meuse for a photo op from this angle. When you cross the bridge on foot, you might want to look out for a commemmoration plaque marking the spot where a young Lieutenant Charles de Gaulle was wounded in World War I. Speaking of World War I, long before the Waffen SS Dinant was subjected to teutonic fury, since in the opening days of the Great War, no fewer than 674 Dinantois were brutally murdered by German soldiers.
Dinant is also famous for being the birthplace of Adolphe Sax, the inventor of the saxophone.
And we conclude with a pic for the romantic souls. Again, not mine. Photographer's a certain Luc Viatour.
Good night.
MFBB.
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