Liberatoribus Americanis Populus Belgicus Memor

This past weekend a friend and I went to Belgium. We started out Saturday at about 0830 and arrived in Houffalize by 1130. There is a little town near there called Achouffe, which is also the name of a brewery there. We didn’t go to the brewery, but a restaurant across the road had their beers. After we ate lunch, and drank a couple of beers, we headed down the road about 15 miles to Bastogne. While in Bastogne we checked out the memorial to the American Troops that liberated Belgium. We also went to a local WWII museum where the main emphasis was the Battle of the Bulge.

Being as I am now the kinder, gentler. Tony, I didn’t even raise a stink when they charged us full admission. And even though it wasn’t the greatest of museums, I didn’t ask for my money back either. After the museum we wandered over to the memorial, which was very nice.



Took a few pictures from on top of it.



Belgium is a beautiful country, and is very rural. You are not very far outside of the cities before you start seeing farms. There are a lot of cows here, and the majority of them seemed to be lying down (lazy bastards!)



We headed north to Namur because a book I have said it was a good place to start exploring Belgian beers. It recommended a certain pub which was closed down. We ended up going to a restaurant in town and met up with a couple of British guys who were in town for the motocross championships (who knew?). We ate and then went next door to meet them for a couple of (or more) beers. They were a good crew.

The one guy was laughing at everything I said. I asked him what was so funny, and he said it was my accent. My accent? I explained to him that, being as how I am from Pennsylvania, I don’t have an accent. He was having none of it though.

Sunday we took the long way around getting back to Wiesbaden, but it was a nice day and we stopped a couple of times. So it was a good trip. We put in over 500 miles this weekend, so I was glad to be able to get back to work and rest.

Or so I thought. I had a bunch of work dumped on me on Monday, and I’m out of town next week. So I’m working overtime this week trying to get everything done. Sorry that I couldn’t go into the excruciating details that I had promised, but this update will have to be good enough for the next week or so.

The good news is I now have a Belgium Room…

... there are still some gaps in there, but it's a start!

And yes Jimmy, they do have other beers. I thought about you when I saw a six pack of Corona!