Happy New Year's Eve!

Well, it's the end of 2009, the end of the noughties, our third New Year's Eve since we moved to Liège and our second New Year's Eve since I started this blog. There's plenty more Liège blogging to come in 2010. I wish you all the best for the New Year and the new decade.

Incidentally, the fireworks photo is from July 2008. With a bit of luck, I will post much fresher fireworks tomorrow!

Frozen Dome

This was taken 10 days ago, when it was still winter in Liège. It's the dome of the Guillemins train station on the coldest day of the year (temperatures reached -13 degrees centigrade; that's 8.6 Fahrenheit according to Google). To all Canadian readers: please don't laugh at us, this is really cold for our standards.

Another winter sunrise

I don't go to work too early so the only sunrises I ever see are the wintery ones. Good morning Liège!

Pigeons!

Pigeons lines up in Place Saint Lambert, watching the Christmas shoppers.

Never ending Christmas

Christmas may be in the past but the holiday spirit persists. This is the Christmas Ferris wheel in the Place Saint Lambert.

Public Private Christmas Tree

Believe it or not, this is supposed to be a Christmas Tree. It's part of the Christmas Tree Festival, an event aiming to 'highlight the economic activity of the Liège metropolitan area'. Each 'design and original' tree is sponsored by a different local company and 'is built of the materials that best reflect the company's activity'. This particular specimen is sponsored by a public lighting and signposting company... At least the pigeons seem to appreciate it.

Merry Christmas!

My avatar and his miniature Christmas tree wish you all a very merry Christmas!

A Calatrava Christmas

A very Christmassy Guillemins train station wishes you all a great Christmas Eve!

It's a Jennifer Lopez Christmas

A photo of a giant poster for Jennifer Lopez clothes/beauty products hiding the renovation works on the facade of the St Denis car Park. She's also visible in one of the photos I posted yesterday.

Last of the snow

The temperatures rose significantly over the last couple of days and most of the snow has melted away. Here's the last couple of snow photos for the moment. First, a view of the Cathedral spire behind a snowy roof while the sun is struggling to come out from behind the clouds.

Next, a general view of Liège city centre with snow and two lonely seagulls.

More snow

Another snowy scene from Liège, starring the St Denis church.

Snow in Liège

Today Liège joined the rest of Northern Europe, sinking under a few centimetres of snow. Here's a view of the dome of the old Saint André church through a veil of snowflakes.

More Christmas stuff

Wintery and seasonal decorations in a shop window, reflecting the Cathedral spire. Last year, the same shop had done something similar.

Christmas stuff

The city is all bright and Christmassy, most notably around the Cathedral square where they've installed an ice rink and half of the Christmas Village stalls.

Skywatch Sunrise

For this week's Skywatch, here's an authentic Liege sunrise.

A view from the hill 3

Final part of the Chartreuse hill series!

A view from the hill 2

Second instalment in the series of views of Liege from the Chartreuse hill. One more to come tomorrow.

A view from the hill 1

A view of Liège from the Chartreuse hill. Some more views will follow over the next couple of days.

What else?

It's Skywatch Friday of course!

A watery sunset

Here's another sunset along the river. Happy Watery Wednesday!

Maison de la Science

The House of Science seen from the Kennedy Bridge.

Barbed wire and broken windows

A disused building near the edge of Outremeuse.

Sunrise

Bright rays of cloud emanating behind the citadel hill. Happy Skywatch!

Another Watery Wednesday

More watery pics here.

Building facades

The setting sun lights up car windows and building facades along the riverfront.

Mosan Art

A sculpture of Saint Anne with Madonna and Child from the enormous collection of Mosan Art at the Grand Curtius Museum.

Droixhe

Droixhe is an area of Liège built in the 1950s in a purely modernist style, inspired by the architectural experiments of Le Corbusier. Half a century later, the area has lost all of its early glamour and is now slowly being demolished, as seen in this blog entry from last week. Nevertheless, when the sun breaks from behind the clouds just at the right moment in the early evening, these old and tired buildings can create a striking cityscape.

Meuse, sky, Skywatch

More Skywatch here.

Mediacité 2

The Mediacité shopping centre, which I blogged about last month, has been open for a few weeks. This is what it looks like on the inside.

Watery Wednesday

Water. Just water. You can see more of it here. A bit early.

Under demolition

This high rise apartment block is being demolished in order to regenerate the Droixhe area if the city. Over the next few months a number of similar buildings will be razed to the ground. The demolition was in the local news this week because parts of the elevator shaft collapsed, threatening an old people's home nearby. Here's two photos of the building, with

and without sun.

Opéra Royal de Wallonie

The Royal Walloon Opera is being temporarily housed in this circus tent while its city centre building is being refurbished. It's not just any tent though, it also housed the famous Fenice Opera in Venice after its building burned down for the nth time in 1996.

Incidentally, this is my 400th blog post.

Skywatch

The cathedral spire and the blood red clouds in the sunset. I didn't photoshop this in any way, the colours are natural. You can browse for more celestial wonders here.

Lights, camera, action!

A film is currently being shot in Liège in the Place de la République Française. It's a Belgian production called 22nd of May, starring Sam Louwyck. He is a Belgian dancer, choreographer, actor and singer. You can read more about him here if you speak Dutch.

Today, they were shooting an explosion in front of the entrance to the Galerie Opéra. They did it over and over again all day long.

Sam looked a bit fed up...

In the end, they managed to start a real fire, the fire brigade and a couple of ambulances turned up. I hope that it was nothing serious.

Dead engineers

In the Bois de la Chartreuse you can also find a monument to the Belgian army engineers killed in the first world war.

The mellow time

Autumn in full flow in the Bois de la Chartreuse.

Fog on the river

Recently, the river has been bringing down a lot of fog in the morning. This is what the Pont de Fragnée looks like on such occasions.

Another Skywatch, another Friday

Nondescript building, interesting sky, reflections and Friday. It must be Skywatch!

High rise sunset

The setting sun lights up apartment blocks from the 50s and 60s, giving the impression that they float on top of the roofs of more traditional buildings.

Li Torê

The bull tamer is a statue located in the Terrasses d'Avroy. It was inaugurated in 1880 and shocked the public because of the nudity of the tamer. The iconography has its roots in the myth of Hercules capturing the Cretan Bull. The statue has since become the symbol of Liège students, who love painting the bull's testicles red.

It is complemented by another bull+man statue just opposite. This one depicts an ox and is called 'Bœuf au repos' (ox at rest).