More Castles around Belgium

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The second or third week after we arrived in Leuven the head of the department that Jonathan is working in asked us and another family over for dinner. We had a great time and got many of their opinions and observations on traveling around Belgium. They said that the best castle in Belgium was in Bouillon and that really stuck with us. So, after our day of driving to Luxembourg yesterday we decided to stay in Belgium and finally see what this castle was all about. But first we would hit a castle even nearer to us.

We found this amazing website that someone has put together with nearly 3000 castles in Belgium. He has photographed and documented as much as he can about each of them. Some of them didn't qualify in our minds as castles but there were quite a few that we thought deserved a look in person should we have the opportunity. One of these was Gaasbeek just outside of Brussels to the south west. We had a fairly slow morning at home before getting out the door a little before 11am. We had only minor troubles finding Castle Gaasbeek and we made it there in less than an hour. The grounds were incredibly expansive filled with wooded areas, large grassy fields and many, many man made ponds. The castle itself snuck up on us and was a wonderful sight. It is very different to visit a "crumbly" and try and picture what it looked like in your mind, never mind try and get it across to a child. This castle said it all without words. We decided not to take the guided tour so that we could get to Bouillon in good time (it was still a 2 hour drive away) but we did spend time walking the grounds and tumbling down the steep hills.

Back in the car and on the road we had lunch and hopes that the kids would fall asleep. No such luck but they did do a nice job from Namur to Bouillon entertaining themselves. We were much smarter today and gave Abigail some Dramamine which really seemed to do the trick on her motion sickness. Bouillon is in the south east corner of Belgium about 10 kilometers from the French border. The last 40 minutes of our drive consisted of nothing but fields. It was almost eerie quiet on the roads as well. Then there was Bouillon. Like so many of the lovely little towns we have visited it is built up on a river; this one is on the River Semois. It is so quaint and clearly a by-product of the castle that draws the tourists in droves each season. And what a castle! It truly lords over the valley. We drove up to the top and refueled with some coffee for the adults and ice cream for the kids at the neighboring cafe. Upon entering the castle we immediately discovered that it was really unlike any of the ones we had seen before. It predates Gravensteen by a lot (the castle is from 988 though there were earlier fortifications in the 8th century) but has a similar feel. It is much bigger but not quite as expansive as Vianden in a sense. It is not as polished as either of those two castles which makes it feel more real, or at least truer to its place in history. It is filled with narrow stone corridors and secret passageways which we all had fun wandering through. Then came the falconer.

I had forgotten that it mentioned something about a falconer in the guidebook but here he was in the castle courtyard with about 10 birds putting on a show. While we couldn't understand his commentary the birds were amazing. Most impressive was an ENORMOUS condor that weighed in at 15 kilos (about Eliza's weight!) with a wing span that was much taller than Jonathan's height. It was unbelievable to watch this creature fly over people's heads. After the show we spent a lot more time touring around the castle. The girls even found a toilet (they always get a kick out of seeing where the people used to go to the bathroom?) which is of course nothing more than a hole in the stone leading to the ground outside the castle walls. And Abigail just had to snap a few pictures of this for Grandpa (sorry Grandpa!).

After our playtime in the castle was over we drove back down into town and found a place for dinner. Of course being so close to France perhaps influenced all of the restaurants to not serve dinner until after 7pm. None of us could wait that long so we got pannenkoeken for the girls (no complaints there) and Jonathan and I both had versions of croque monsiuers, which were quite tasty with our Bouillon beer. We expected after two long days touring and no napping that they would all crash on the ride home, but of course we were almost to Namur before there was any peace and quiet! We really feel that now that we have seen Bouillon we have seen just about all the big things in Belgium that we had set out to see at the beginning of the summer. I am sure there are many little treasures awaiting us but it is good not to have any large goals looming over our heads.

And now we will regroup, do laundry and pack up to leave for Ireland on Wednesday!

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Photos

The Girls at Gaasbeek
And Eliza sporting her 'oranje' hat (which she took over from Emma who received it from Grandma and Grandpa's trip to Peru last year).

Rear of the castle
One of the cool things about Gaasbeek is that there was obviously a moat surrounding the castle at some point. It was allowed to dry up and is now covered in grass, making some serious hills for playing on!

On the cannons
The girls immediately ran to the cannons on the drawbridge of Bouillon Castle. They can't get enough of them. This one shows Abigail at work snapping pictures furiously. Unfortunately for both of us she fell up some stairs in one of the dark tunnels and broke my camera.

Tunnels
This was one of the larger tunnels that we were able to explore throughout the castle.

Another tower view
Yet one more amazing view from a castle tower. Luckily none of the views are the same or we might be getting bored by now.

View from the path below
Some of us ran and some of us fell down the hillside to a path where we got some great views of the castle. The girls really like to imagine what it would have been like to attack or defend a castle and walks like this really help illustrate it in their minds.

Comments

[Mom]

Pannekoken
Kara, Just last week I spoke with someone that I work with that is a native of the Netherlands and she recommended the Pannekoken highly as being as near to a native food as we would get. Can't wait!