A FINAL STOP IN BELGIUM, ALMOST LITERALLY

We are scheduled for a night in Dinant, Belgium, and arrived in late afternoon. It’s a beautiful little town on the river. This area, including parts of Belgium and France were the scene of some of the most bloody fighting in World War I. As we drove toward the town, we passed through many place names we recognized from our history courses long ago

We stayed in an old Abbey perched high above the river. Well, it sounded idyllic when we booked it. I rapidly found reasons to be less than charmed. Our “suite“ reached only by a tiny, creaky, elevator (phobia number two and number three). Luckily, we were only booked for a night and the next morning we approached our car with anticipation of reaching France and the Château Beauchamp.

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Deirdre looking out at the Meuse River from the bridge, with the Church and buildings in the background.

A picture of the hotel where we stayed, which was formerly the Abbaye Notre-Dame de Leffe. Beer was first brewed here in 1240, as a means of protecting the citizens from tainted water. Dinant is divided by the Meuse River and the town is on both sides of the river connected by a bridge.

Adolphe Sax, who was born in Dinant, invented the saxophone. In tribute to Adolphe different, large, colored saxophones representing different countries were arranged on the bridge. This saxophone was representing Croatia.

This saxophone was representing the USA. These saxophones have lined the bridge since 2010.

You can see the various saxophones extending along the bridge, and they were on both sides.

We always find the different architecture in each place interesting and notable.

This also holds true for the different architectural styles of the churches. The Collegiate Church, with its distinctive onion dome dates from the 16th century.

In the background behind these buildings was the Citadel of Dinant constructed in 1815, which was involved in the Battle of Dinant in World War I. The bridge across the Meuse is named in honor of Charles de Gaulle, who was a young lieutenant and was wounded in the leg during the battle.

These, letters strung between the two buildings, translate to "At the end of the street", encouraging the Belgians to go to the end of the street.

And thus begins the saga of the demonically possessed car. We have leased cars in the past and always received a brand new, reliable and economically, sound vehicle. That was all over. We got into the car and Michael tried to start it. Nothing. No whirring. No clunking. Nothing. We made our first call (many to follow) to the 800 number 24 hour assistance line. We explained our problem to someone who, sort of, spoke English. They said they would dispatch someone to help us, and after two more calls in an hour, a man arrived in a tow truck. He jumped the car and pronounced our problem solved. We pointed out that the car was brand new, we had driven it hundreds of miles over several days, and it shouldn’t do this. He gave a gallic shrug and said he’d follow us down the incredibly steep hill into town. This was considerate since our dashboard warning system was saying that our brakes didn’t work. We decided his diagnosis was not sufficient. So, we went to a Renault dealer to get the car checked out. At the first dealer, we were politely turned away since one mechanic had called in sick and the second was on a smoking break. Yes, a smoking break. They directed us to a second Renault dealer and after I asked in my pathetic French that we needed help, they agreed to look at the car. They hooked up the computer diagnostic machine (the only way anything seems to get attention) and pronounced “Zee auto is fine“. We didn’t think so, but pushed on.

We arrived at our Château in one piece, but fearing each time we turned the car off that it would never start again. By now we were deep in the countryside with no Renault dealer in sight.

We loved our new dwelling. where we would spend six nights. My brother, Stephen and my sister-in-law Lee would be arriving by train in Dijon the next day around noon to join us. We zoomed into Dijon and fetched them with no problem. However, upon returning to the car once again, our dashboard warning lights were lit up urging us to attend to a low battery level. Damn! We have to get to another Renault dealer where I was forced to plead even more pitifully for immediate attention. They were very solicitous and spent 2 1/2 hours scouring the car to find the problem only to announce “there is no problem with Zee ka”. OK, fine.

The time with our kin folks passed quickly. We went to several small towns in Champagne on our first day and tucked into one of our better meals in Chaumont. Michael woke up in the middle of the night unable to sleep and sought out some other fun place to explore. And he hit pay dirt.The place he found was named TROYES but is pronounced TROIS.” Go figure. This dissimilarity between how a town is written and how it is pronounced is quite common in France. We had been to a town called UZES three times before we discovered how to say it correctly. Troyes was magnificent. Almost all the houses were timber framed, and it was a delight to stroll the narrow (sometimes very narrow) alleys and streets. Some of the houses were being restored, and we were pleased to see that they were adhering to the same architectural style of the original town.

Lee and Steve making their way through the Allée des Chats (Alley of Cats) in Troyes, which is called this because it is so narrow the cats can jump from one building to the other.

Steve and Deirdre in Troyes.

One of the many half-timbered houses in Troyes, which date back to the 16th century and evokes its rich Medieval and Renaissance past when the large Champagne Fairs were held here.

Some more examples of the half-timbered houses.

This half-timbered house was the local synagogue and displayed the menorah and the Star of David on the grills covering the windows.

This was the entrance to the synagogue Rachi.

A woman peering from the window of her half-timbered house.

There were many amazing sculptures throughout Troyes, this being an example of two of them.

This very cute little girl decided to pose in front of one of them.

The flowering trees showed that Spring had definitely arrived in Troyes.

"The saying goes that France is home to 80% of the world's stained glass, that 80% of French stained glass windows north of the Loire are in the Champagne region, and that 80% of the stained glass windows in the Champagne region are in the Aube départment." (Troyes La Champagne Tourisme). The Aube contains approximately 9,000 square meters of stained glass windows.

The ceiling of the stained glass museum was as impressive as the stained glass. The museum is housed in the former Hôtel-Dieu-le-Comte, built in the 18th century.

The museum contained stained glass from many different eras,...

such as this one from 1621.

It also contained more contemporary stained glass...

as seen in these two photos.

It even had this Art Deco themed stained glass. There were so many more beautiful examples included in the museum collection.

These stairway lights were definitely on the more contemporary side.

Troyes also contained some quirky things like these bears arranged in various poses in the windows of the building...

and a cat coffee house, where the cats roamed free and would greet the customers. This one posed for its photo.

The facade of the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) was initially started in 1624. It is one of the rare monuments in France to have preserved on its facade the initial motto of the French Revolution.

The rather ornate gate to the Hôtel de Ville.

Troyes contains many whimsical sculptures, such as this one...

or this one...

or even this one.

However, the most famous one is the stainless steel "Heart of Troyes", which lights up at night and emulates a beating heart.

After a stroll through the timber framed section of town, we moved on to the section in which the most affluent of the populace live. Here the architecture was notably different but still very charming. We went to a museum that explored the art of stained class. An exhibit highlighted the evolution of stained glass creation over the centuries. In Troyes, and in all of Champagne really, we never encountered any tourist. By comparison in Bruges and Ghent, we were pretty regularly surrounded by tourists trailing dully behind their flag waving guides.

We had eaten a late lunch of sushi (it is a bit strange in France, I know) but we wanted to hold back because that night our hosts were going to prepare a meal for us.

Our host and hostess were Dutch but spend many months of the year in France at the Château. They prepared a marvelous meal featuring local produce and meat. Of course there was wine. Lots of wine. And lots of conversation. We spoke of our life in Mexico, my brother and sister-in-law‘s life in Maine, and their lives in Europe. Of course, we ended up discussing the political situation in the United States and its impact on Europe. Except for the one instance in

Ghent, we’ve not encountered any anti-American feeling in our travels. In fact, in our discussions, we have found that the Europeans we know, tend to express sympathy and concern for us rather than outrage or a sense of betrayal. It was a long and fascinating dinner and it is conversation and these kinds of interactions that make traveling so valuable to us.

The next morning we spent helping Lee and Steve organize for their next segment of travel, which would take them to Annecy and Grenoble. After that, we decided to go for a hike. Champagne has several extensive parks and we picked a hike which featured a most interesting waterfall as its high point. I’ll let Michael’s photos and captions explain why it’s unique. 

Take a spring and some moss, pour rainwater onto a limestone substrate, allow it to wander along a bed of marl and wait patiently until it resurfaces, skirting a landform.

There the limestone in the water will precipitate and gather around moss, eventually turning it white.

Leave it to simmer for a few hundred years...

and the final result will be tufa.

This waterfall at Rolampont feeds the water that drips down the terraces of moss, helping to create the tufa over time.

On our last day at the Château, we decided that it would be a travesty to not go and sample some of the region’s most famous product. We had not, however, done our homework. We drove past domain after domain, all of which were closed since Monday seems to be the universal date of rest for the industry. However, as we were about to abandon our search, we came upon an open sign and immediately turned into the drive..

We were greeted by the howling and yipping of at least a dozen beagles kenneled behind the tasting room. We were the only car in the parking lot, which should’ve served as a sign. The door was open, but no one was around, and we were about to get back in the car when a very elderly gentleman appeared. He must’ve come out to see why his pets were going mad.

He warmly welcomed us and invited us in (via sign language) to the tasting room. I realized at this point that any interaction was going to have to be entirely in French. And so it was. Never being wholly confident of my ability to either comprehend or speak French accurately I began to realize that this conversation seemed more challenged than most. After all, I’d managed to charm service people into letting us jump the line and get our car looked at, right? After tasting a couple of flutes of champagne and conversing with the old gent for far too long, I came to the conclusion that the problem was not entirely mine linguistically. He clearly was suffering from dementia. It turns out his son runs the place, but wasn’t there because it was his day off and he was out drinking champagne with his buddies. It was quite difficult to extricate ourselves graciously, but we bought two bottles and eased our way out. We were going to bring one bottle home to give to our friends who always host a New Year’s in Paris party, but it was really heavy so we drank it. Sorry Sally and Mike.

One of the more interesting sights as we drove around Champagne was the number of trees with mistletoe...

and the fields of rape stretching to the horizon. Rape seed is the source for canola oil.

The decoration of the interior of the house was very interesting. It came with a knight in armor to keep us safe and, if he failed, we could grab a halberd from the wall to fend off any intruders.

This is the wood stove that kept our accommodations warm during our stay. The weather was much cooler than we had experienced previously. We went through a cord and a half of wood during our stay.

The side of the house we occupied, along with a photo of our first car (to be explained in a future blog).

A view of the whole house. Our hosts occupied the left side of the house and we occupied the right side of the house.

Finally in our wanderings we came across this cart, which was quite old judging from the wooden, iron clad wheels.

Now it was time for the drive to our next stop on our journey.