Crikey, what a disaster!!

G'day Mates,

The day before yesterday (21 rst of July) we went to some friends approx. 13 k's from our caravan park and because that's not far away, we went by bike. We started with getting lost, we haven't been to that house they live in now before so we relied on the navigator Fred has in his phone. And actually its a good one but not if you hold it upside down haha, so at one stage we went right when we had to go left.

Anyhow we arrived about a quarter later then promised but that wasn't a problem. After a while, just before dinner which was planned in the garden, we saw in the distance very black sky and we joked about it that it will leave us alone and it amazingly did.

After a very nice meal we went back home, actually a little too late as it was already started to get dark and it was still an hour ride.

When we came closer to the caravan park, we saw on the streets that it had been raining. I was glad I had asked the neighbours if they could keep an eye on our caravan and close the windows when it would rain because it was very hot when we left and I had let them open.

A little bit further, we had about 1 km left to ride, I saw a big fallen tree and a lot of branches on the street, it was pretty dark in the mean time and I feared for the worst what we would find when we get home.

When we got to our camp field we saw only water, Crikey what a disaster, look at what we faced;

It felt like a waterbed, the whole floor was waiving and a lot of it was already gone as it happened about 5 o'clock and we got home at about eleven.

We had a whole package of toilet paper sitting on the floor, you can't imagine how heavy that becomes when it absorbs so much water;

Next day we heard from our fellow campers that it had been terrible and scary, thunder, storm and hail had gone over the caravan park and a few caravans had damaged annexes, so actually we were lucky as the water will evaporate but our annex is still OK.

Here are some pictures I got from some fellow campers;

Here is the start of it;

The posts of that awning just broke in half like matchsticks

Its getting a bit dryer and some people (Tieneke and Wytze) dare to go outside....

And when the violence stopped, the fun began.....

The kids had fun of course, their Grand Parents lost their awning but kids don't care....

I even got two movies of our neighbour which I turned into one;

Movie time;

So now its cleaning up time;

Aaah, we missed it all, ain't we lucky!! Well, I would have liked the fun part, being all together, helping each other and share the stories and feelings you had during the bad part.

No worries Mate! We will survive, we always do!

Till next time, Cheers!

  

Liège, Luik, Lîdje

G'day Mates,

After a difficult time I'm back and I hope I didn't loose any of my readers/fans?
Live goes on, as hard as it is, especially for the closest family members of the ones who passed away.



Enjoy my new story, its about a city in Belgium;  Liège, Luik, Lîdje;

 Liège is not the most attractive destination in Belgium to go to but we were going there to attend to a concert of Lara Fabian. Most probably most of my readers don't know her but we recon she is one of the best singers in the world and to convince you, here is a link from YouTube and look for yourself if you agree with us.

Goosebumps;

After seeing her you now will understand why we volunteered to go to Liège. No, I'm just joking, well it's not the most beautiful city in the world but I can prove it isn't that bad.

Cathedral Saint Paul

A photographic eye always find something worth to make a picture of and because we took advantage being in Belgium and we adore Belgium beer, we stayed a few days in a lovely apartment.

The river, La Meuse (De Maas) is running through Liège...

They also still have some nice old buildings.....

In this building is a museum, the building is called "Grand Curtius"

Of course I also want to prove that we've been at the concert;

As you can see we were sitting far away from the stage so it was hard to see her properly, and she spoke French so we couldn't understand her but the music and her singing said it all. 

We hope there will be a DVD of this concert soon as she is a person with great expressions in her face when she sings.

And of course did some walking.

On top of the"Sainte Walburge" hill was an old citadel (just remains left) were you could drive to by car or bus but more famous is going by the "Stairway of the Montagne de Bueren"which contains 374 steps. Because the view supposed to be great we decided to go there, and as we are no sissies we didn't drive there but we took one of the walks to go up and go back by the steps, down isn't that bad for our bad knees!

The walk was great and not so hard

And the view stunning....

On Cointe-Hill is a war memorial situated;

 And the steps were OK too.

Coming down the steps I saw another walk which we decided to do so you would end at the other side of the centre and that sounded OK to us.

We just hoped there wouldn't be any steps or heights in this walk but we were wrong.

I think we even did more steps then the famous stairs as we got lost and faced closed gates every time we thought to find an exit.

At last we did get out of this labyrinth which is called "Terrasses des Minimes" and decided to take the first terrace we could find to grab a beer! We could hardly talk of thirst. And so we did. With Belgium beer often comes some cheese, yammie!

But I must admit, also this last walk was very nice and we wouldn't have wanted to miss it.

Our apartment was situated very central, close to a big shopping centre but also to the old centre of Luik. We could walk to restaurants, bars, cafes and shop in just 5 minutes, also the theatre where the concert was held, was just 900 meters from our apartment.

The last evening we wanted to eat something real Belgium and that we found. I found a nice typical Belgium restaurant just 2 streets away and I called in the afternoon to make a reservation for diner. Unfortunately the guy who answered the phone said they were fully booked. I was really disappointed and went back to the Internet to find something else and so I found 2 alternatives, I didn't call to book, just thought we go there and see. Just before we left the apartment I said to Fred; " let's just go past Tchantches ( the Restaurant I called) and see if someone maybe cancelled" , and so we did.

Tchantchès is a folkloric character (Walloon for François), a hard-headed but resourceful Walloon boy who lived during Charlemagne's times. Tchantchès is remembered with a statue, a museum, and a number of puppets found all over the city.

When we came there they were not booked at all and we got our table for two. Together with a nice bottle of wine we had rabbit leg, cooked in Tchantches beer. It was just delicious!!

Some more images of the cosy Restaurant;

Totally satisfied we went back to the apartment to have a good night sleep before going back to Vorden, to our caravan.....

Good night!

Cheers!