Looking around Liège

In retrospect, maybe leaving the city with the 1,200-foot staircase until last in today's tri-city day trip could have been planned slightly better!

Liège is the first Walloon city I've visited in Belgium. The economic and cultural centre of Wallonia today, it was the former Walloon industrial heartland, a powerhouse of steel production, and used to be an influential prince-bishopric of the Holy Roman Empire. It is considered the cultural capital of Wallonia given its abundance of theatres, art museums and museums. In particular, the train station is very similar in style to the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, having been designed by the same architect.

In my view, however, it felt like a city that hasn't quite managed to overcome the challenges of deindustrialisation. Its most notable feature is la Montagne de Beuren, an enormous staircase leading up to a Citadel on top of the hill overlooking the River Meuse (or Maas in Dutch - hence Maastricht). Besides this, the city feels very ex-industrial, lacking some of the charm of the other cities I visited today. It also felt quite difficult to travel from one end of the city to the other, though I've since found out that the city will be introducing trams in just 10 days time!

Unfortunately I didn't have time to visit the Museum of Walloon life today, but I'll be interested to see how Liège compares to other Walloon cities I'll visit later in this trip.Read more