Day 10 - Driving through Belgium

Rent a car (2 days) €205
Waffle €1
Lunch @ Chimay (3 people) €50
Orval Museum €5
Dinner on highway €7
Gas €40
Water €2.50
Hostel €65
Hostel bar (for 3) €40

 

Yesterday, since we failed to rent a car, we reserved one online for today. They upgraded us to a fairly nice station wagon. Both Tim and Neil attempted to drive it, but it was much less forgiving than the last car, so it didn't work out. Our plan is to drive around Belgium and visit the Trappists, and tomorrow to try to pick up our Westvleteren.

First stop is Chimay. We got a tasting of the three widely available Chimay brews as well as Dorée, the pale ale only available at the abbey inn (l'Auberge de Potaupré). Tim also ordered Trappist roast duck, which was excellent; Neil and I had good grilled cheese or something.

 

Next is Orval. You can take a self-guided tour of the old abbey, which was pretty cool; apparently the abbey was built in the 11th century and sacked in the French Revolution. The new abbey is beautiful but you cannot visit it. You can peek through a window onto the cloister though. Serene. I didn't get any photos of the old abbey, though there are some good ones here: http://trifter.com/europe/belgium/the-treasures-of-an-abbey-in-ruins-orval/

 

Rochefort: it's hard to find! They do not want visitors. We knew where it was in terms of latitude and longitude, and we had a GPS, so it should be easy, right? Nope. We spent about two hours circling it, taking random back roads that we passed, until we noticed a steeple in the woods about half a mile away. We thought it was a cell tower. We did finally find the road leading to the gates. A monk exited the monastery while we were watching, got on his bike, and rode away. It made me very happy. There's nothing to visit or do in Rochefort unfortunately.

By this point it's getting quite late, and we still have to drive a couple hours to Bruges where we have reserved the hostel. Found a parking spot on the street -- we have no idea what the parking laws here, but there were no signs on the street, so we put the car there, locked it and headed to the hostel. Bruges was about a hundred times more relaxing when we weren't worrying about sleeping on the street or planning; we drank a few good beers at the hostel, played some pool and fell asleep.

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