Learning our ABCs – 1

Position: 50°00’05.7″N 5°44’52.3″E

A is for Ambition

“Tempus fugit!”, said the man as he threw his alarm clock out of his window. Our clock was ticking. Aleta is on the hard and waiting for parts. She’s also waiting for us to complete a hundred maintenance jobs. But! Stuck in Belgium as we were, Carol, as marshal of land operations, had compiled a long list of things she wanted to do. Things like seeing where her dad fought in the war, visiting Luxembourg, sampling France’s champagne region and riding an e-bike in one or more of those places. Trying to help her focus, I suggested we should also see her old friend Bruce Springsteen in concert. Tickets cost a quarter of what they would in America, and it might, I figured, be our last opportunity.

A is for Ardennes

The Ardennes Forest shares its borders with Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Germany. Holland almost gets there but falls a few miles short. Given its location, you can understand where its rich cultural influences come from and why it’s been a battleground for centuries.

Plunging straight in we pulled up to Le Grand Maur hotel and restaurant in Spa, about 40 kilometres southeast of Liège. Quirky. Our room, the ‘feu de bois’, was, comfortably appointed and came with a fabulous breakfast, the likes of which we hadn’t seen for months. Having accommodated us early the previous night for an excellent dinner, steak for me, zeewolf for Carol, we sauntered in for breakfast just after 9AM. We didn’t eat again for 12 hours. Fresh berries, orange juice, yoghurt, and scrambled eggs with your choice of breads or croissant. Perfect!

From there we headed south to Bastogne where we explored America’s role in World War II, including our walk in the wood, described in last week’s post. A tour of the Bastogne War Museum and its nearby foxhole virtual reality experience flooded our historical buffers with new knowledge.

L’eglise Saint-Pierre de Bastogne is the most recognizable building in town. Badly damaged in the war, as so many churches were, it has since been completely restored. This pattern of destruction and rebirth was common to both the First and Second World Wars across Europe.

Low, gently rolling hills surrounding the town grow hay for cattle who graze contentedly. Unless, that is, you pay them any sort of attention. The cows I mean. Then they (the cows) turn into curious and surprisingly affectionate creatures.

Memorials to the Battle of the Bulge are scattered around for miles. A bit like Gettysburg, only on a much bigger scale. There’s a small granite monument about five kilometres east of Bastogne that commemorates the sacrifices of soldiers from the 501^st Infantry Regiment of the 101^st Airborne Division. Nestled in a tiny triangular plot, the site is neatly kept and actively guarded by a herd of cows. Although, the cows don’t participate in site maintenance. At least, I don’t think so. A small card indicated that the relatives of Vincent J. Speranza had visited recently.

Having paid our respects, I paused to pet the cows and encourage them to keep up their good work. Not knowing much about befriending cows, I reached out my hand for the boldest one to sniff. Cows, it turns out, have a keen sense of smell. Much like dogs. She mooved forward and decided she liked me well enough to give my paw a lick. Her rough tongue felt like moist 60 grit sandpaper. Reaching up to ruffle her hair made her shy away, so I stuck with licks and chin scratches. Carol paced impatiently while I bonded with Miss MooMoo (aka #4200). After a couple of minutes I bid my new friend adieu and we hopped back into Clarice the e-Citroen. Clarice needed yet another infusion of electricity.

B is for Battle

Bruce Springsteen screwed up our itinerary. Bastogne is ten kilometres from Luxembourg. Logically, we should have headed east and continued checking things off Carol’s list. Not a chance! Brucie was playing in Lille, France. Two hundred and forty kilometres west. That set us up for a five hundred kilometre round trip. Yeah, yeah. I hear you. Why didn’t we plan our sortie to the Ardennes after Lille? Because we had four days between the time we left and when Brucie and the E Street Band would take the stage. Tempus Fugit! Plus, the little town of Mons sits halfway between the two.

Mons (the town) is best known outside of Belgium for the Battle of Mons – the first clash between the British and German armies in the opening days of World War I. Having now spent a night there, I know a bit more about the place. Surrounded by coal and iron deposits, the city became a centre for heavy industry during the 19^th century. Industrial workers invented the ‘general strike’ there in 1893. Union workers in Europe never looked back.

Steel and coal production petered out in the 1970s but the town retains its last vestiges of gritty, industrial decline. Thinly drawn lines of coal dust accentuate the buildings like a Mucha painting. Property is cheap, for now. If you want to open a store, you have your pick of locations to rent or buy. But change is in the air. A few big infrastructure projects look set to convert waste ground into condominiums.

In the heart of the city, the town hall and a clutch of pubs surround a splendid 17^th century market square. Uphill, a tall belfry looks over the Church of Saint Waltrude with its splendid gargoyles. In a little park just below the church, David Mesguich’s sculpture of Lucie and the butterflies is a glimpse into Mons’s possible future as an artsy, multicultural melting pot. A little further on, an ostentatiously avant-garde railway station takes up masses of real estate and is perhaps another element of the city planner’s vision. The station’s broad, sweeping lines and parabolic overhangs are redolent with ambition and Star Trek references.

Crossing into France early the next morning, two police cars came roaring up behind us, their twee blue lights flashing. First they pulled in front of me, then leapfrogged one car ahead. Unsure if their antics were for my benefit or the other fella’s, I pulled over just in case. An officer who looked like a mid-career Jean Reno, all cropped hair and half-shaved, immediately waved me off and turned to look sternly at the driver of the other car. We didn’t wait around for the dénouement.

B is for Bruce

Carol has been a lifelong fan of The Boss and knows his catalogue intimately. Me? I liked Born in the USA. For decades, a Springsteen concert was a three-to-four-hour commitment. His shows had all the energy and heat output of a Bethlehem Steel furnace working at full blast. Today, he and the E Street Band are all in their mid-70s. They are as tight and polished as a band can be. Gone, though, is Bruce sliding across the stage on his knees or hopping up and jigging on the piano. The concert lasted about two and a half hours and included a medley of songs from Born in the USA. I enjoyed it. Carol was a little cast down. The evening was, inevitably, a reminder of how old we are getting.

C is for Clarice

Clarice the e-Citroen was a demanding little car. Fully electric, her limited range of ~300kms, meant we were constantly searching for places to charge her. East of Brussels our options for charging narrowed dramatically. Every fast charger we found in the Ardennes was brand new and therefore only compatible with the EU’s new ‘L’ charging standard. In Bastogne there was one, count it, one fast charger compatible with Clarice’s ancient circuitry. All of 18 months old, she is a ‘K’ charging car, not a ‘L’ car. Our only other option was slow 22kw chargers that only accepted RFID cards for payment. We didn’t have an RFID card. Thus, Clarice’s batteries were fully exercised. And though she never ran out of volts, we drove well past her warning alarms more than a couple of times.

C is for Clémency

Homophone fun: Duchy, Dutchy, Dutchie, Dutch-y. Luxembourg is a Duchy where people speak Dutch-y and sound a bit Dutchy when toking a Dutchie.

Château de Clémency dates back to the 17^th century. Just over the Luxembourg border with Belgium, it is a boutique hotel with some of the most entertaining décor you can imagine. Carol booked us into the Roaring 20’s suite which contains close to a dozen projectors. Some are magic lanterns, others handsome 16mm reel-to-reels. Had my father not owned an 8mm hand-cranked Beaulieu movie camera and a Bell & Howell projector, I might not have been as excited. My high school buddy Rick and I made some fabulous silent movies with Dad’s camera. Today, despite its overwhelming shortcomings, hipsters love trying to make old analogue film work. It is a fool’s (expensive) errand.

Over breakfast in the common room, we met Anne and Anton. Both sported motoring caps. My powers of observation honed to a razor’s edge by a double espresso, I correctly deduced they were touring the low countries in a convertible. I was jealous. Clarice didn’t even have a sunroof.

Intermission…

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