24 hours in Liege, 24 hours of eating

I've spent the last 24 hours living out my foodie dreams in Liege in Belgium. Louise and I have finally caught up! And I am very excited to be spending time with her and her family.

As I was coming from Brussels and Louise from her hometown, we decided to meet at the train station, which was also a good spot for her sister to pick us up from. My arrival was not smooth sailing. My train was delayed, and there were much confusion at the train station in Brussels, but eventually I got on the train and arrived at the Liège-Guillemins railway station. Where my first job was to observe the very expensive roof.

We will be staying with Louise's sister, Claire and her partner Nicolas, during our stay. They have a beautiful house, which they are renovating, that looks over the city. It’s up on a high hill and has a beautiful big garden. And a lovely warm heater!

Tonight is football night, which usually is a big enough deal. However, tonight, Belgium is playing in the European League playoffs and they are fielding the best team they’ve had in 30 years! So it’s big business right now. It’s so big that we have a friend of Nicolas’s joining for aperols, beers and dinner, and of course football.

Our Sunday evening menu goes as:
Aperols – four types of French dry meat that Nicolas brought back from Switzerland with him. One has cheese, one nuts, one alcohol and one is wild boar. This is joined by some local cheeses, pesto on crackers and wine.

Dinner - For dinner we had a local speciality, one from Nicolas’s own family cupboard. Did boulet sauce lapin, which is basically meatballs in a special local sauce. It was very tasty, and sweet. All of this was of course washed down with different Belgium beers and a win by the team!

Today, Monday, Claire, Louise and I have been exploring the town. Liege was once a very important town and was it's own state back in the day, a bit like how Monaco is now. But eventually the downturn in industry and wars took its toll. It is still the third largest city in Belgium.

After feasting on freshly baked croissants for breakfast, we took the bus into the city and walked all around the town, seeing old churches, monasteries that were turned into war hospitals during the war. When we arrived in town it was raining, so we decided to wait it out at a café the girls like and have hot chocolates with fresh cream on top, accompanied by nougat and a slice of orange cake.

Claire told me all about a terror attack that had taken place at the main bus station a few years earlier and the importance of the water fountain near the main square. We sat up on the second level by the window, looking out over the town.

Once we had finished our drinks the rain had stopped so we ventured off, up the main street towards ____ (highest point) and an epic tall staircase! On our way we walked past an old bookshop that had a magazine in on the table, featuring an article that Claire had written! Too funny.

We reached the top of the staircase and took in the views of the town. I think the best bit was walking up and down. Traipsing through the village and looking into all of the individual cafes and shops, antique showrooms and craft stores. Claire described the different architecture styles and how they indicate what year they were built depending on the type of materials used. It was just beautiful.

After a lengthy walk down we decided to reward ourselves by having a Mitraillette aka the Machine gun for lunch. This is apparently a very popular item and once again I am posed with the question 'how do the Belgiums’ stay so thin?’ haha.

Mitraillette is a baguette cut in half filled with meat, hot chips and sauce. You select your meat, which is usually deep fried, some sauce, than a 2 person serving of chips is piled on top, more sauce is added. Louise tells me that most of the gals don’t usually eat more then half … I had ¾ haha. It was the single most odd thing I’ve ever eaten. Not sure I’d like up for it again, but perhaps if I needed to show someone a special Belgium delicacy I would.

After lunch we took a walk through an old church that had an art exhibition in the back. From here we talk a walk through the town centre, it reminded a bit of Ireland. There were pubs scattered everywhere with independent fashion shops, designers and small boutique stores

Everywhere. We window shopped at a hat shop owned by Claire’s friend.

Louise tells me that design and fashion is very important. There are loads of local artists selling their designs everywhere, whether it be clothing, shoes, hats, artwork, setting up their own café. It was brilliant!

Whilst on our walk Louise took us into a favoured lolly shop to sample. It was like those old school ones were you got a bag and filled it with lollies from all of these different jars. Louise’s favourite was the Cuberdon, a purple triangle tube jube lolly.

We walked across a few more bridges, with Claire sharing some history that I can’t remember now :/. And then she took us to a favourite pub of Nicolas’s. It was called Pot au lait, and it could be described as funky / arty / alternate haha, but very cool. It felt a bit like a weird little wonderland. We had Belgium beers and enjoyed sitting down for a while.

To finish the day Claire took me to get a waffle from her favourite spot. Waffles, much like pizza in Italy varies depending on which county you’re in. These ones were a Leige special. They had chunks of sugar in the batter, so that they melted when cooked. We also ordered ours to have Belgium chocolate stalks inserted in the down the holes – amazing!

Afterwards Louise and I rolled our way to the train station headed towards her mum's house and village. Thanks Liege, you've been great!Read more