October 2006, Belgium. Part 2. Villers Abbey and Leuven.
L'Abbaye de Villers - Villers Abbey. October 31, 2006.
For the next day I have planned a visit of L'Abbaye de Villers - Villers
Abbey. It looked like a very interesting place to visit, according to ADAC
guide, and was relatively not far away from our hotel.L'Abbaye de Villers was quite known several centuries ago, attracting monks and pilgrims, but then it was abandoned and is now one of tourist attractions. The abbey buildings have mostly lost their roofs and are now covered with ivy, grass carpets in the former halls. The whole place looks quiet, lonely but magnificient.
While in the whole abbey, only the grass is mowed, with no flowers beds, the small garden is properly maintained, with a fountain and some "civilized" plants.
One side of the inner garden is "cut" by a railway bridge. I believe it should have a great look out of the window when riding a train. The stairs that begin under the bridge lead to some gardens or maybe vineries, but there was a sign that the path is rough, so we didn't go there with kids.
The whole visit to the Abbaye de Villers did not take that long, for we wanted to go visit other places, but if you have more time, you can spend several hours there, relaxing in its quiet surrounding.
Museum of Cote d'Or? No, Leuven! Same day, October 31, 2006.
On that day, we wanted to visit a museum of the chocolate factory Cote d'Or.
The museum was mentioned in the same ADAC guide where I have found L'Abbaye
de Villers. The abbey was up to my expectations, and I thought that another
places will be interesting too. We spent some time to go to the town where
the factory is located but no one there could not say where the museum is.
Finally we got to the factory itself, but the guards quite surprized and
could only say that yes, there are organized visits to the factory but mostly
for schoolkids, not for tourists.The day was not that good - it started to rain. We have to decide what are we going to do for the rest of the afternoon. In 2001, I visited Leuven (Louvaine), on a friendly advice from Richard Harper, and I wanted to go there with my family. Leuven was quite far away - we had to go around Brussels, but having nothing else on our minds, we decided to to that. We did not want to trust the ADAC guide anymore!
Leuven is a town east of Brussels, known by downtown architecture and its university. Towns that have significant young population always look hmmm... brighter and lighter, on emotional side, I would say, than those like our sleepy place in the northern Bavaria. But this turns to a disadvantage when you want to get your kids a snack in Mac Donalds. All seats were occupied by students that looked at us like if we were hopeless junkies entering a first class of some luxury train. We chewed our meals outside in the cold, exploring the architecture. Below is the City Hall.
Go back to part 1: Wavre and Brussels. Part 3: Oostende.