22 April 2024 – Floreffe, Belgium

Miles driven today = 133

Total Miles to date = 4,763

Showing my complete ignorance here, I always assumed that all of the BeNeLux countries were pretty much completely pancake flat.  Not at all it seems.  Luxembourg undulates nicely necessitating some fairly lengthy tunnels to speed us through the hills.  We could see the tower blocks of Luxembourg city as we circled to the south and we made a small detour to pick up some bread rolls from Lidl in Windhof.  But within an hour of leaving the eastern border of the country we had driven right across it, out the other side and into Belgium.

Our initial impression of Belgian roads wasn’t great and some of them were so heavily potholed that if we had closed our eyes for a moment (which, I hasten to add, I’m not generally inclined to do when in control of a 4 tonne vehicle) we could have been right back in Italy.  We followed the E25 and then the E411 Northeastward to Namur, stopping en-route for lunch in a service area.  Then shortly after joining the E42 we turned off and found our way to the quaint little town of Floreffe.

We are spending the night in a great little aire which is right on the banks of the River Sambre.  It’s only €5 to stay here.  Grey water disposal is free but chemical waste, fresh water and electricity are all chargeable extras.

We were amazed at the size of some of the commercial boats which chug up and down the river here.  Some even have cars on board and come within a foot of scraping the underside of the bridge.  It also seems to be a very popular spot for runners and cyclists with great gaggles of joggers going too and fro in ill-fitting lycra.

Floreffe is most famous for its Abbey which sits on the hill immediately overlooking where we are parked, so we went to have a look.  We clambered up some steep steps, thinking we were heading in the right direction.  At the top we found a line of family crypts on the approach to the Church of Notre Dame.

There was also this pissoir set against the Church wall, which seemed rather inappropriate, although I don’t think it had actually been used for a good while.

We found our way into the graveyard which had great views over the town.

But there was no obvious access to the Abbey so we had to make our way back down another set of steps and start all over again.

When we did finally find our way into the Abbey grounds we entered via its old farmyard.  Most of the buildings have been repurposed to house a Primary School nowadays.

This, I believe, was the old farmhouse and if I’ve identified it correctly it was built in 1756.

And this is the Mill Brewery which was also used as a flour mill.  

It dates from the 13th Century and is the oldest industrial building still in existence in Belgium.

We clambered up some more steep steps to the buildings of the Abbey itself.

There were signs saying that we should buy tickets from the Mill building in order to enter but we couldn’t find anyone obviously selling them so we took our chances.

The Abbey is now a secondary school and we saw a number of kids scuttling between classes in the various buildings.  We even got a couple of polite “bonjours” as they passed.

There are a few information boards dotted around the grounds but without a site plan it was difficult to determine which buildings they referred to so we could only really guess.

Looking at the website there are some interesting things to see inside but you have to be on a guided tour to see them and I’m not even sure that they run whilst school classes are in progress.

The main Abbey Church is the building to the left here.  It was originally founded in 1121.

Great views from the balustrade over the river and the countryside beyond.  You can tell which van is ours in the aire down there.  It’s the one with the grubbiest roof!

The 17th Century dovecote sits in a pond.  In 1912 it was converted to be a dwelling and was lived in right up until the 1990s when squatters moved in and it was vandalised.  It has now been fully restored.

This waterfall was created when the stream was dammed to create the pond in the middle ages.

We had a quick stroll around the centre of the town but beyond the Abbey and its surrounding properties there’s not a great deal to see here so we headed back to the van.

The weather has at least taken a slight turn for the better today and we’ve only had a few short showers along with some decent blasts of welcome sunshine.  But it’s still very chilly and, if the weather forecast is to be believed, tonight could be the coldest of the trip with temperatures expected to drop below freezing.  Oh to be sweltering in Verona again like we were just 8 days ago!

23 April 2024 - Tournai