Namur

Sunday 12 June (Happy Birthday Michael Cullen) to Thursday 16 June.

With the current varying from a mild 2kph to a pretty vigorous 5kph depending on how much rain is falling upstream (that means southern Belgium, eastern France and western Germany – and Luxembourg too!) and how the barrages are being manipulated, we decided to wait until flows upstream abated to somewhere nearer to their mean – about 200 cubic meters per second would be fine even though the average for May before the rains was around 100. The 350 cubits which it was when we arrived is a bit much but it seems to be dropping – however it is still raining intermittently, but heavily, all over the catchment area.

Namur is a lovely city. Prehistoric fossils abound and there have been many artifacts uncovered from the Iron Age.

The 16th C meat market building which has been the archeological
museum for over 150 years.

Artifacts on display.

Fortified from before the Romans arrived its strategic situation at the confluence of the Meuse and Sambre means that its history is intrinsically linked to siege and conquest - read all about it on Wiki here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namur

[Touring the visitors center’s historical exhibition, one thing struck me, illustrating that nothing really changes: King Louis XIV of France’s siege of the city in 1692 was delayed for the whole of the month of June due to heavy rains and he only managed to breach the walls (and that means automatic surrender according to the rules back then) on 30 June when the weather cleared…]

And so we did lots of meandering through churches,

parks,

street markets,

battlements (yes, I cycled almost non-stop from the river all the way to the very top of the citadel – over three kilometres of steep uphill!),

A wine celler built into the battlements.

Half way up.

The amphitheater and events arena at the very top.

museums

A less risque Lucien Ropps lithograph

and the odd pub and restaurant.

Lynn even paid taxes at the Casino.

We also met people:

- Alex and Louise from the barge Ricall whose blog Ricall Rambling was one of the early ones I devoured. They bought the ship as a rusting hulk and Alex single-handedly made it into the thing of beauty it is today; beautifully panelled wheelhouse, period bulkhead doors leading down a staircase (not a ‘climb backwards’ set of steps) to the raised dining area set apart by a curved wooden handrail of banister proportions. The sitting room would find favour with Sherock Holmes with comfy couches and a lovely fireplace. The guest quarters, as with the main bedroom’s en-suite, are hidden behind secret panels which open if you know what to push/pull/lift/twist. Stunning!

Louise, Alex and Ricall

- The very pleasant young man from the Antwerp (Willendok) based cruiser Chouffe who, not being on board when the port captain arrived to collect fees and planning to be on his way early the next morning, left 8 Euros with us to pay for his mooring when the port captain did his rounds the next evening.

- The Dutch couple from the cruiser Synergy, whose names escape both Lynn and I, who invited us aboard their gleaming, feature filled, home constructed beauty for Irish coffees.

And not forgetting Guillame the port captain for whom nothing was too much trouble. A teacher by profession, learned logistics working for Doctors without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) in Burundi where he met his Belgian wife-to-be. Now married with three young boys, they manage the three ports (Casino, Jambes and d’Amee) as well as assisting in a mainly sports orientated promotions enterprise with a colleague. Thank you for your hospitality and service young man (including swopping out an empty gas cylinder even though it was not the same brand which the captanerie carried – no cost for the cylinder)!

Dr Guillame House?

A really lovely city Namur but on Thursday morning we discovered that during Wednesday night some slimeball had come aboard and stolen our flag. So we have decided to forgo the free music weekend beginning tomorrow and be on our way.

An aside:

Sometimes life among the Walloons can be tricky.

Le (or should that be ‘La’?) Acer Computer screen is not happy and will not show a picture so Moi takes the stupendous decision to buy a new one in a foreign city with no computer store of any note to be found on the internet; we asks departing-very-nice-Meneer-boot-Chouffe-owner what he thinks – try a big department store like Carrefour and you might get lucky. And lucky we are as there is one – a Hyper to boot – just 2.6 kilometers away. Go bike, go!

Eventually after trawling gondolas of the fairly large store to no avail, Lynn spots, at the very back of the furthest corner, a sign saying electronics/clothing/gardening UPSTAIRS (well, no stairs but something resembling a service lift) so up we go and lo and behold, computers. Battling through Frenglitalian, a Lenovo at €399, being the second cheapest in their range is selected, paid for and off we go, cycling tenuously back to Elle only to find that no-show Acer screen has come alive again. But now we can relax as we have a laptop with screen designed for one another. Slit the seal, remove the packaging and out pops the new acquisition – but not the one I had selected and much bigger than I would ever buy for travelling with. So back to Carrefour to be greeted by the following scenario:

-          The €399 Lenovo computer I had looked at and selected was inadvertently coded for another computer.

-          On the computer of choice the price was now showing (on its screen) as €449 so I said I would pay in the extra €50.

-          Non. €449 was the new price for the €399 ‘wrong’ computer even though it was showing on the screen of the ‘right’ computer.

-          The price of the ‘right’ computer was €499 even though the price on the damned machine was €449 – that was also yesterday’s price and the special could not be repeated today. Not even the Assistant Manager could get Carrefour’s stupidity reversed in favour of a customer who would, by the end of this intervention, have cycled some way to buy their goods.

Carrefour Belgium is now on my boycott list despite being Lynn’s favourite department store.

And to cap my day, the specialist “cheapest-computer-prices/widest-range-in-the-country” store, only had one attendant who could speak English or Dutch (yes Dutch, the other official language of Belgium, something almost unknown to most Walloons) and he was busy with another couple. Even after 20 minutes when I walked out. And Delhaize Hyper does not sell computers…