2015 European waterway cruise – Belgium – Liege

Port des Yachts – Liege

At the end of my last post, we arrived quite late, around 17.15 hrs, at Port des Yachts in Liege with the rain bucketing down.

The marina, which sounded  quite good from the guides, was not particularly welcoming.

Not many passing boaters, and rather a lot of
shabby looking boats which obviously lived there and didn’t get used very often.

Shangri La at Liege

In the pouring rain we headed for the Captaininerie to pay our dues.

Couldnt get out the gate as we needed the code, so had to return to the boat in the rain to get the mobile phone and call them.

Which we did and were given the code.

Entrance to Port des Yachts at Liege

At the port office (Capitainerie) we paid for a 3 night stay – 17 Euro per night including electricity and water.

The toilets and showers were inside the office which was only open certain hours of the day.

There was another toilet and shower at the back for which you needed to buy an access card.

Building in Liege

For some reason the harbour master would not let me buy one.

Later we did manage to get one from one of his assistants.

The guide said that the port buidling was being extended to include a club house etc.

Well there was a restaurant on top, and you could use their wifi if you were right there.

Narrow alley in Liege

The other thing is the language.

Liege was our first stop in the French half of Belgium, and we were straight into full on French speaking territory.

Since being in the French part of Belgium and France itself, the younger people are far more inclined to speak English.

We always try to speak French but is usually easier to revert to English.

So all in all. poor old Liege did not get off to a good start with us.

But it is never all bad.

Marche de la Batte

Our visit coincided with the weekly Marche De La Batt which takes place on the bank of the river, over a couple of kilometres.

It is one of the best markets we have been to so far.

Loads of stalls with fresh produce, wonderful breads, electrical goods (I managed to buy the soldering
iron I needed).

Even live animals were on offer- chickens, rabbits, goats, dogs, hamsters and even rats!

Chickens on sale at Marche de la Batte

We wandered round the town – the usual lovely old buildings and plenty of museums.

One can only do so many of these.

Our visit also coincided with the Outre-Meuse festival.

This is a 3 day affair, culminating in a parade through the Outre-Meuse part of town on Sunday evening.

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Certainly one of the most different and entertaining parades.

Locals dress up in religious and/or funereal type costumes, the women having tear drops painted on their faces, and follow brass bands through the streets, singing and dancing.

They also wave celery sticks of all things!

This all apparently in to mourn or celebrate the death on one Mati l’Ohe. We were not able to find out much about this festival, or why celery sticks of all things, but the locals seemed to revel in it.

We departed from Liege wondering whether we had missed something and whether we had done the place justice. But one must move on.

Next – Liege to Namur via Huy