One of the more interesting museums I visited this past month was the open-air Musée de la vie rurale en Wallonie. It is a remarkable compound in Saint-Hubert, on a nature reserve, consisting of original and reproduced structures representing provincial, rural life in 18th and 19th century Belgium. This area is referred to as Fourneau St. Michel and there are other museums nearby as well.
Inside each building you could get a glimpse of precursors to Whole Foods…
Kinko’s…
and Saks shoe department…
As expected, there are no McMansions here. Houses used to be small yet efficient…how did women live without walk-in closets back then?
A few of my favorites are this schoolhouse and chapel:
Do you wonder where they parked their rides?
I’ve always wanted to convert a large barn into a house…wonder if they’d sell this one to me:
Tags: Belgium, Fourneau St Michel, Saint Hubert
I’ve probably seen more of the country of Belgium than many Belgians, and it’s starting to become a challenge to find new surprises there. But on this particular trip I stumbled across Japan in Belgium at Hasselt’s Japanese Garden, designed and constructed with the collaboration of Hasselt’s Japanese sister city, Itami.
The design is based on the traditional Japanese tea garden, complete with a tea house…
but there were always signs that I was not exactly in Japan…
even if it seemed like I was…
It’s a lovely place to spend an afternoon, and the clear highlight for everyone there was the koi fish:
Is it wrong I feel like having some sushi right now 
?
Tags: Belgium, Hasselt, Hasselt Japanese Garden, Itami, Japanese tea house, koi fish, tea garden
It’s tax day in the US today and while some of you are running around trying to beat the deadline, I’m also running around like a glutton for punishment. Because yes, to get to visit another castle–this time it’s the “working” castle, Château de Franc-Waret in Fernelmont, Belgium–
I’d have to cross through lots of fields and gardens in all their green splendor, full of pollen:
Can you imagine being born into such an estate? Yes, it’s good to royalty by chance but the burden of maintaining a place like this!
But that’s probably why this is a working castle. It’s used for large events and for filming. This wing houses a large restaurant to cater any function…
and this is a more recently constructed addition to hold parties:
Those two puppies in the first photo were only a couple I could catch out of a litter of 3 (and their mommy made 4) with my camera. One had a broken front paw, but he barked the loudest to make up for his deficit. He also enjoyed the belly rub the most . They were all scurrying around the property with the groundsmen, enjoying the fresh cut lawn and even the water around the moat.
I don’t know about you, but I think I’d rather be one of these puppies than a modern royalty who inherited the tax bill on this place!
Tags: Belgium, Château de Franc-Waret, Fernelmont
As some of you may already know by now, I’ve made it across the Atlantic.
Spring is in full bloom in Europe and as beautiful as it is to be here at this time of the year, my allergies have me whipped. No, not whipped. Whooped. No signs of jet lag, but all the symptoms of allergies have been magnified tenfold for me here.
Pretty rough to be on the road while feeling like a 700-pound gorilla is sitting on my chest, and the meds are not working! And no, the first shopping I did was not at some boutique but a pharmacy. But what did I say the number 1 rule of travel was? That’s right, no whining allowed.
In today’s entry I’m sharing with you photos I took at the Château de Beloeil in west Belgium a few days ago. I probably sneezed from one end of the grounds to the other, but I still enjoyed the visit very much.
No long stories for me today because I’m foggy (just looking at the blooming magnolia trees outside the window make my eyes watery), but I do want to shout out to my gal K who recently interviewed me at her lovely FeatherFactor blog. Always fun to build on the sisterhood out there in the blogosphere! You can easily access her site from the link under my Blogroll to the far right of my blog’s home page.
Tags: Belgium, Beloeil, Europe, Feather Factor
I’ve been invited to visit the beach towns along the North Sea so I pack a small overnighter and hop yet another train to the town of Oostende:
The last time I was here, it was freezing cold and I had the entire boardwalk to myself. On this occasion, however, the entire country of Belgium is on the beach. It’s warm enough for shorts but still a bit chilly when the wind blows so I have no choice but to dress in a bipolar sort of way: long sleeved swimsuit cover in a thin cotton fabric. Actually it’s a bit of a fashion disaster with all the Liberty prints on at once :
On a totally unrelated note, this is the first time I see eggs cooked sunny-side-up on a pizza:
The seafood pizza is more my speed…
By sunset it’s downright cold, so we all huddle as we catch a live concert on the beach:
In the next entry we’ll visit a neighboring town.
Tags: Belgium, Liberty prints, North Sea, Oostende
