Tour of the Belgian Ardennes
Durbuy and La Roche en Ardennes
Our first tour was to Durbuy and on the way back, La Roche en Ardennes, a round trip of about 90 miles. As soon as you start driving in the area you can appreciate the beautiful scenery and the suitability of the roads to enjoyable open air driving. There are places where industry puts a blot on the landscape, but these are few and far between and can be avoided if you want to.
Durbuy is on the banks of the river Ourthe and is famed for being "The Smallest City in the World". I hoped we would be able to get the small train to the view point high above the town and take a photograph from there but this late in the season they only run at the weekends and we were there on Friday.
The cars lining up ready for the drive to Durbuy. We left at 9:30 each day and although it was always dry, there was a chill in the air. What you see here is the main thoroughfare of the village. The noisiest thing in it is the church bell. Fortunately, it doesn't chime throughout the night.
The cars neatly parked at Durbuy. I thought we may have problems with parking but there were none, obviously an advantage of coming relatively late in the season.
We only left the cars about 2 minutes ago and the ladies are going in for a bit of "retail therapy"
Some of our motley crew posing by a weird rock formation that was common in the area.
Durbuy's castle.
Durbuy's picturesque cobbled back streets.
Along its length the Ourthe is used for canoeing and the Durbuy stretch is no exception.
Alec was behind the camera for so much of the time that I thought it only fair that a good one of Mary and him should be included. This one is at Durbuy.
We spent 3 hours in Durbuy and then drove to La Roche en Ardennes a tourist town further down the Ourthe river. Once again we travelled through gorgeous countryside with great views.
The castle at La Roche
La Roche is also on the Ourthe river. Here too it is used for water sports.
Several of us went into the War Museum. This area was heavily involved in the "Battle of the Bulge" It suffered terribly and only 4 houses in the whole town were still standing when the town was liberated. The written accounts of what life was like in the town are quite harrowing. It is now once again a picturesque tourist attraction.
This was another town where we anticipated parking problems, but none occurred.
A drink in the sun? It would have been nice, but we got fed up waiting to be served and left. Whilst we were waiting Jennifer and I realised we were at the cafe where we first encountered Rambout coffee back in 1962. Ignorant of how it worked, we took the top off and put it on the table. We wondered why there was so little coffee in the cups and it was quite a few seconds later that we realised it was running all over the table!
In hindsight it would have probably been better to to spend 2 hours in Durbuy and 3 hours in La Roche, instead of the other way round.
The journey back to Smuid and a beer took just 30 minutes.
Rendezvous Hostellerie Des Tilleuls Bouillon Dinant
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