The sun was trying hard to shine through heavy fog which swirled over the Semois Valley - what a lovely view to have from our bedroom window!! It was one of those mornings when you know the sun will break through eventually. It turned out to be a cool and fine day but the haze of autumn didn't completely disappear so the distant hills were only ever misty silhouettes.
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| View from our bedroom window this morning |
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| Our home for a week or so |
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| St Peter and St Paul's Church - 2 doors away |
Finally, we were organised and headed out for a look around our new
village, Karl and I walking and the kids sharing a skateboard and a
scooter. Autumn in Europe is always lovely and I felt completely elated
at having found this place to stay and in the perfect season!
Squeal!! Our house is fantastic and has everything we could possibly
need! The village is quiet and we hear the church bells toll on the
hour. The walk was good in many ways including discovering our local
boulangerie where we bought a couple of baguettes!
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| Scooting |
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| Izel needs you Kevin McCloud |
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| Autumn colours everywhere |
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| Pretty houses everywhere, too! |
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| Another nice one! |
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| Local villages |
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| Our boulangerie |
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| Baguettes, of course! |
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| Not sure about how this chimney is being held up! |
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| Spiderwebs |
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| Not sure that these are edible |
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| Old music hall, Izel |
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| And she's off! |
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| Love required here |
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| Nicely restored and maintained |
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| Our local cat! |
The local main town, Florenville is only 5 km away but we drove there
as we had a big grocery shop in mind. We also needed to buy a jacket
for Luke as he seems to have lost his only one en route somewhere and it
is only going to get colder from now on as we head into winter. Not a
really fun shopping trip as it was "one of those days" and no-one seemed
happy. I was trying very hard to be cheery in this very lovely
environment.
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| Cote d'Or |
This is a French speaking part of Belgium being quite close to the
French border although most of the food in the supermarket was labelled
in Flemish and French. The buildings look more French than Dutch but it
seems that the Belgians have the best of both worlds with Dutch and
French foods readily available.
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| My maiden name strikes again! |
The tourist bureau looks over the valley and we spent a bit of time just
gazing at the view. The Semois Valley is the result of geological
activity. Slate mining was a big industry and lots of houses have slate
roofs or even slate walls.
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| Church of Our Lady of the Assumption |
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| Vast church for a smallish community |
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| Over the Semois Valley |
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| Huge wasp! |
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| Ivy at its best |
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| Luke looking hopeful! |
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| Sounds like a race track! |
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| Another lovely house! - very affordable compared with Melbourne prices |
Once we'd sorted out the groceries Karl, Luke and I went
for a lovely walk around the bit of our village we hadn't seen earlier
and found ripe apples dropping from a tree and a shortcut through the
churchyard back to our street.
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| Gorgeous dahlias |
We crept into St Peter and Paul's Catholic church (2 doors away) and it
was gloomy until a dear lady came down the spiral stairs and turned on
the lights and started chatting. She spoke clear French and we could
make out what she was saying and could make ourselves understood. We
think she was saying that the church had suffered damage in the war and
has been restored.
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| The altar at St Peter and St Paul's |
ahhh, another day another country! How Marvelous :) I saw the best sight today, on our way to netball a lady and man rode their old fashioned bicycles around our corner with baguettes sticking out of their front baskets, I immediately thought of you! I gave her a big smile and wave, she smiled back and probably wondered what I was grinning at :)
ReplyDeleteBaguettes and bicycles - way to go!!
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