Return to La Roche en Ardenne

Hello again!

On the Monday of our holiday we decided to have a brief break from our motorsport goings-on and revisited the little town we stayed in for our visit to the Belgian Grand Prix last year -  La Roche en Ardenne, a beautiful and friendly little town, but one with a tragic past linked to the Second Word War and the Battle of the Bulge...

Such a pretty place, with houses nestled amongst the trees on the hillside...

and more houses line the river bank...

Pretty little streets...

This is the lovely place we stayed in last year, as the lads were camping, but this year we all stayed together so we couldn't stay here again...

The British (and US flags) still fly as a mark of respect for the many service people who lost their lives liberating the town...

The castle is many hundreds of years old and stands on a natural outcrop of rock...

Climbing the ramparts is rewarded with great views across the town...

Loving the panorama setting on my camera...

Admission was 6 euros and included a falconry display - with condors!

And eagles! Brilliant value!  Especially as the condor nearly landed on my head on a fly past!! For some reason that seemed to be a very amusing event for my beloved family...bless them...

The Belgian flag flying proudly...

The ancient walls could certainly tell a tale or two if they could speak I'm sure...

Most of the town was totally destroyed in WW2 but the castle and church escaped relatively unscathed...so difficult now to imagine in this beautiful, quiet, friendly place...

 

 

We enjoyed a delicious snack of Belgian frites (which DD and I managed to order entirely in French!) before jumping back in the car to go back to our chalet by the lake...where a delicious meal was cooked by DH, followed up by these fun cow-shaped Milka chocolate biscuits for dessert...

 

 

 

Then it was a reasonably early night as we were on a mission the following day to Germany, firmly back on the motorsport theme - back soon hopefully to explain more!!

 

Helenxx









Deep in the forest a monster sleeps...

Hello again everyone - well, I left the last post with a bit of a cliffhanger: what were we seeking, deep in the forest of the Ardennes?

Can you make out what it is?

 



Yes, we had returned to this amazing place....

For the fabulous Belgian Formula 1 Grand Prix!!!!!

We had been planning the trip since before last Christmas, with race tickets and accommodation booked the day before my birthday on 12th January.

The track was locked to the general public as this was the weekend before the race, but the real reason for our country walk was to follow a woodland trail that runs parallel to the track giving tempting, fleeting, evocative views of what many F1 fans count to be the best race track in the world...

Looking across to the legendary Eau Rouge section of the track...the
G force exerted onto the drivers at this point is greater than that experienced by astronauts at take-off - the cars are travelling at around 200 mph...

The pit straight...

Lorries with equipment and the cars themselves had already arrived...

FIA vital equipment, this lorry, we discovered later, was carrying the safety cars...

Team Lotus and Team Torro Rosso...

Love the Torro Rosso logo of the charging bull...

A HUGE cheer erupted from us all when we spotted the Ferrari lorries as the driver we support, Kimi Raikkonen, drives for this team...

We then walked into the village of Francorchamps which offers one of the entrances to the track...

Big hotel, this houses a lot of fans come race weekend...

Impressive new house...wonder who lives there...

Hotel de la Source, named after the first bend on the track...this is a place for VIP visitors...

Number 1 son had planned this walk for us, and all were in agreement that it was the ideal start to our European Motorsport Road Trip!

Walking back to the car, we excitedly discussed who we thought would be the winners and losers, who could cause an upset, the latest Formula 1 gossip - yes, our support of this sport is a real family affair. 

The hillside was just starting to show pink/purple hues from the emerging heather....

Beautiful view over to Stavelot and beyond...

Tired, but excited for what awaited us the following weekend we returned back to our chalet for a lovely dinner, cooked by DH.

Back soon hopefully with our visit to the castle of La Roche en Ardenne! Complete with condor!!

Helenxx

Bonjour Europe!

Hello everyone, and to those fellow bloggers in the UK, happy Bank Holiday weekend - spooky to think that the next Bank Holiday here will be Christmas Day!!

I have been away for a couple of weeks from Blogland as I was lucky enough to have 10 days with my family holidaying in Europe.  We set off in the middle of the night, and drove down to the ferry port in Dover.  After a bit of a wait at the port, we boarded the ferry at 6am and waved goodbye to the UK...

Farewell white cliffs of Dover...

Feeling excited as we cast away from the docks...

 Leaving the harbour...

the grey skies did not dampen our excitement...

Cheeky seagull hitched a ride, perhaps he wanted to swap chips for frites!

Sailing into the harbour at Dunkirk...

Once arriving in France we promptly set the sat nav for Belgium and headed for the village of Vielsalm, deep in the Ardennes.  It rained heavily on and off for the whole journey, but this did not bother us one bit - we were far too excited!

We stayed in a lakeside chalet, lovely views out of the window in the evening...

Next morning we discovered some geese had made their home on the lake, they were quite vocal...

A lot of fun was had feeding these guys, they could be quite intimidating at times though!

On Sunday we set out for a country walk, deep in the forests of the Ardennes...

The landscape is a working area too, with the forest carefully managed for logging purposes...

But it still remains blissfully tranquil...

We covered over 8 miles in total.  But although we were really enjoying these dream-like forest views, we were looking to catch a glimpse of something else...the excitement when we eventually spied, deep in the forest, what we were looking for cannot be described...

What do you think it was?  And why do you think we were in Belgium?

Back soon hopefully to explain!

Helenxx