Not a single cloud

The weather has been relentlessly hot this week. Not a single cloud to provide some shade. Here's the Citadel hospital baking in the early evening heat. Yesterday parts of the E42, the main motorway of Wallonia melted (actually it's not been hot enough to melt tarmac, it's just a very badly maintained motorway).

A restful place

A rather somber subject today but I like the photo. It's a view of the cemetery of St Pancrace in Dalhem, a town in the Province of Liège. In the background you see the towers of the vielle ville, the old town.

Hay-in-Wallonia

Back to Belgian-themed posts with a photo of the church of Redu, a small village south of Liège, in the Ardennes.

Redu is a booktown in the style of Hay-on-Wye in Wales. Almost every house is a bookshop and you can find an amazing wealth of reading material, including the complete works of Barbara Cartland in French:

At the other end of modernity, the village also features a European Space Agency station, Redu-on-space.

Jet lag Saturday

Well, we're back in Liège after an epic journey across two continents and an ocean. I am jet lagged. Big time. My brain feels like this:

which also happens to be the exterior of the Experience Music Project in Seattle Center. This is the last photo I will post from our trip in the US. From tomorrow it will be back to more familiar territory.

Seattle by night

The Seattle Library at night.

Watery Wednesday from Seattle

And here's my Watery Wednesday post from Seattle. A ferry boat coming in to Seattle harbor yesterday.

Sunny Seattle

This is our second full day in Seattle and we're loving it. By the way, who said that it always rains in Seattle? Here's proof of the contrary, a gloriously sunny downtown view featuring Mt Rainier, taken from the Space Needle:

The Space Needle itself is working on its suntan:

And the Science Fiction Museum looks as weird as usual, despite the clear blue sky:

My kind of town

This is my first ever blog post from the US! We're in Seattle and I've finally got the time and internet connection to post. We've already been to Chicago so I will start with photos from there. I've taken a lot of shots but there's no way they could ever do justice to the city; I found it impressive, charming and larger than life. Here's a photo from downtown:

the Trump building basking in the sun:

and my take on the view from under the Bean in Millennium Park.

Early Skywatch Friday

I am posting my Skywatch Friday contribution early because tomorrow morning we're flying to the US. We'll spend a couple of days in Chicago and five days in Seattle. If I take some nice photos from over there, I might post them. If not, see you back next Saturday!

So here it is, an interesting sky behind the spire of St Paul's cathedral. Don't forget to visit the Skywatch Friday blog for more pastel sunsets and candy floss clouds.

Downtown Cheratte

A view of the church of Cheratte, seen from the central square. As far as Liège suburbs go, it's not the biggest one.

La Grand Poste

The old central post office. Object of a major future redevelopment.

Hasard Cheratte

This is the Hasard in Cheratte, just outside Liege. Believe it or not, it's an abandoned coalmine. The castle-like building is actually a winding tower over one of the mineshafts. It was built in the 1860s and has been abandoned since the 1970s.

Faint rainbow

Here's a faint rainbow hanging over the roofs of Liège. There's many more sky pics at Skywatch!

More Vader

I just couldn't resist, here's a couple more pictures of Darth Vader from last weekend. First, he terrorizes a random boy off the street (and his mother) by telling him that he's his father

and then he strolls away, mingling with the shoppers, as if he'd done nothing wrong.

Another Watery Wednesday

Here's a watery one: the pond in the Parc de la Boverie all dressed in green. More presents from the water fairy can be found here.

Postwar symbolism

These are the statues decorating the Pont des Arches, a bridge in the city centre that was destroyed during the World War II and rebuilt in 1947. The Art Deco (almost Stalinist) statues symbolize the birth of Liège, the Middle Ages, the Belgian Revolution of 1830 and the resistance to the German occupation. Two of the statues are seen in this photo, the other two are on the other side of the bridge and have featured on a previous post. I am not sure which statue symbolizes what...

Anticonstitutionally

Graffiti on the riverside. It features the longest word in the French dictionary.

Suncloth

I saw this and I just had to blog it:

It comes from the street market (the one Darth Vader attends).

Lord Vader in the Galeries Saint Lambert

Every year the city organizes a large street market in the city centre. On every such occasion, the dark side of the force descends on Liège en masse. Here, you can see Lord Vader with his retinue looking for bargains in the city's indoors shopping centre. He also paid us a visit last year, sunning himself outside the same shopping centre, albeit under much nicer weather conditions.

These stormtroopers are obviously interested in renting a shop in the Ilot Saint Michel area of the city centre. Why shouldn't murderous clones be on the lookout for some tempting real estate bargains?

Catwatch Friday

Skies and clouds are OK on their own but they become much cooler when they serve as cat background.

You can find many other sky pics (mostly catless, sadly) at the Skywatch Friday Blog.