Monday, April 21, 2014

Metz - Luxembourg - Namur - Ypres, Belgium (Day 18 thru Day 20)

Namur, Belgium

 We left Metz on a chilly and damp morning looking for the signs for Luxembourg and Brussels. Namur was the first big town we came to after entering Belgium, a rather seedy and depressing place where we stopped for lunch and a very quick walk about to stretch our legs. We still weren't used to the cramped quarters of our little Toyota. We turned west after leaving Namur and on less than perfect roads (there were signs every few miles reminding the careless driver how many fatal accidents had taken place on that stretch of highway)
drove through some pretty countryside with fields and the occasional village where a 100 years ago the guns of German and allied forces had pounded one another to bits.




Belgium beer!

And they call this a deal!

 
We stopped at one of the fast-food pulloffs for coffee and I was shocked at the prices they charge for food and drink. I had to take a picture of one so called advertised special on a billboard: a hamburger and a coke for 15 Euro (almost $22 Canadian). It was late in the afternoon when we saw the turnoff for leper (Ypres), our destination. Our lodgings were on the main street of town across from the church of St Peter and a few minutes walk to the central square. Here we would find the very moving In Flanders Field Museum, the market and Cloth Tower. Remarkably all these mediaeval buildings were not what they seemed as we would soon find out over the next two days. gws