Harry Travels: Quiet (Albeit Wet) Days in Liege

Oct. 2-4

It’s a short train ride from Aachen to Liege. Good thing, too, because the train was packed and we had to stand.

We got to the Eurotel easily enough and were met at the door by a white-haired lady in high heels. The building may have always been a hotel. Or it may have been a townhouse converted long ago.

In any event, it is full of small rooms. Ours has an entry foyer and an irregular footprint with one round wall. There’s an alcove in one corner that holds a small desk.

An old fireplace, long sealed up, has a marble mantelpiece.

It’s really quite an eccentric place.

It has a tiny elevator, smaller even than the one we had in Delft. In this one, too, you have to keep pressing the button for your floor till the car stops by itself.

The most unusual thing, though, is that we have found no place to eat or drink in the neighborhood. In better weather that wouldn’t be a problem, but it has been drizzling, pouring, or windy off and on since we left Delft.

We were hungry when we arrived, so I did a Google search. The closest option is La Captainerie, almost half a mile away. You have to walk a few blocks to the bridge named for King Albert I and cross the Meuse to the yacht club.

But it’s open three hours for lunch and then four for dinner. It was closed by the time we got to the hotel, and we were too hungry to wait almost four hours till it opened at 6.

So we hiked about a mile to a steakhouse, La Cafetaria, that has continuous service.

We were going through the historic old town, so we enjoyed the walk.

This seems to be fair season in the Low Countries. When we were in Delft, the central market square was taken over by kiddie rides and games.

There is an even bigger gathering in Liege.

For much of the way one side of the road was occupied by some kind of carnival, probably a temporary set-up in a park. There’s a substantial Ferris wheel and a full-size Wild Mouse, as well as what appears to be an extensive array of midway games and attractions, all in trailers.

The map shows that somewhere along that stretch is a statue of Charlemagne. We didn’t see that, probably because it was obscured by the carnival.

We found La Cafetaria easy enough. It’s on a street closed to traffic and packed with restaurants and shops. We did a survey of menus and found that the place next door, Brasilia, looked even more interesting.

When I first saw the name, I expected the wood-fired barbecue and the tangy chimichurri sauce that I had years ago in Buenos Aires. But no. Brasilia was serving escargot bourguignon.

The was enough to draw me in. Joanna went along.

I didn’t want beer, even Belgian ale, with the snails, so I ordered a glass of the house red wine. What is it?

I expected Malbec, an Argentinian staple.

But no again. It was Montepulciano d’Abruzzo.

We shared the snails and then finished with omelets. Joanna’s was plain. Mine was called a la Provencale. It was made with tomato, celery, and onion, much like the Spanish omelet at a Jersey diner.

It was excellent with the wine, though. Actually, I think corn flakes would be good with that wine.

Brasilia was well worth the walk.

One of the attractions in Liege is St. Paul’s Cathedral. After Ghent and Aachen, we’ve been pretty much cathedraled out, but even so, we decided to go in that direction on Thursday.

We walked through some interesting commercial streets, many of them closed to automobiles.

We almost missed the church, though. Right now, it’s covered with screens and scaffolding for a major restoration.

I have no excuse really. When two nuns walked down the alley, that should have told me which way to go.

The interior has some large oil paintings and several interesting marble statues.

One is an angel with bat-like wings and a shackle around one ankle. One hand holds a small crown. The figure is hunkered under the overhang at the rear of the pulpit.

Could it represent Satan after the fall? I don’t know because there was nothing in sight to give me a clue.

We stopped for lunch at Fu Xin, which advertises authentic Chinese dishes. We had noodles sauteed with a medley of proteins: chicken, beef, shrimp, and squid.

Then we decamped to a place down the street for dessert.

We were waited on by a tall, young counterman with a short beard. We were there for maybe 20 minutes, half hour tops, and at least two young women stopped in just to chat with him.

We shared another wonderful Belgian waffle and a crepe.

We walked around the area, and came into the section of town where Brasilia is. There is also a shoe repair shop in an arcade on the street.

The sole of Joanna’s shoe was pulling away, so we waited while the shop glued it and stitched both soles.

We were chatting in pigeon French and pigeon English. One of the shoe men greeted Joanna: “Nie hao.”

He not only has heard of New Jersey; he has a cousin there.

We walked some more because Joanna’s shoes were now more comfortable than they had been for a while..

Most of the town is fairly flat, save for one curious section that towers over all.

You can reach it by a 19th century staircase, called the Montagne de Bueren, named for somebody who beat off an attack by Charles the Bold in the 1400s.

It’s a climb of 374 steps. According to Wikipedia, it’s No. 1 on Huffington Post’s List of Most Extreme Staircases.

And we saw people climbing it as we passed. I assume, though, that there are other, less strenuous ways to get to the top.

We also stopped at Temple Bar, named for the site on Fleet Street in London where there used to be a city gate. It’s billed as an Irish pub. I don’t know how Irish it is, but they do serve Guinness and have a dart board.

I was surprised to see that they also have Goose Island IPA.

Goose Island’s good, but why bring even a good beer all the way from Chicago to Belgium?

I opted for a Tripel Karmeliet, which despite the name is not an abbey ale, though it’s strong enough to be, at 8.5 percent. Its brewer says the recipe was developed at a Carmelite convent in the 17th century

The company, Bosteels in Bruggenhout, Belgium, and Goose Island are both owned by AB InBev, the same outfit that brings us Budweiser.

The bar was nearly empty in the middle of the afternoon, and the music way too loud for me. Of course, that encourages me to behave; one beer and I’m done.

We stayed indoors for most of Friday. The forecast warned of tropical rain, fallout from a storm called Leonardo. There was some rain, but not as much as we expected.

We took a short stroll down the block to Boverie Park. We saw some curious looking birds that I couldn’t identify and lots of horse chestnut trees. There’s also an interesting footbridge across the Meuse that seems to be very popular with walkers and joggers.