Construction works

The city is currently an enormous construction site. Here's an example, the renovation works of the old building of the Société Libre d'Emulation, which will eventually become a theatre. In case you're wandering, a Société d'Emulation is a kind of learned society that was very popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. Happy Skywatch!

Abbaye des Bénédictines

Two views of the Benedictine Abbey on a sunny day. There's been a lot of these over the last week!

More of Liège in 1730

Thank you for the nice comments on my previous post. I took another three photos of the model so here they are.

Liège in 1730

In the library of the University of Liège, you can view this model of Liège in the 18th century made by Gustave Ruhl-Hauzeur. It's an enormous, highly detailed model that took 10 years to complete. It was made in the very early 20th century so its historical accuracy is being questioned but it looks good!

Salle académique

This is the ceiling of the Salle Académique, the original lecture hall of the University of Liège.

The latin writing is a commentary on the painting below. It reads something like 'This is how he personally crowns with laurels the hope of the sweet fatherland'. 'He' is King William I of the Netherlands, the guy in the centre of the painting. The text is a chronogram, if you add up the arithmetic values of the capital letters you get the date of completion of the Salle Académique, 1824. At the time Belgium was part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Il y a tout sauf la mer

A shopping bag of the Province of Liège. The motto says 'There's everything except the sea'.

Change of subject

It's time for a change of subject. Here's a photo of an impressive piece of graffiti next to the Bressoux train station.

The organ

This is a view of the front of the organ of Saint Denis. Very impressive.

This is a view of the back. Much less impressive.

And this is the engine. Somebody had to work the pedals in order to pressurise air while the organist played. Sadly, the entire organ is not used any more, they have a small electric organ instead...

For whom the bell tolls

That's the big bell at the top of Saint Denis. I rang it!

View from up top

This is the view from the top of the Saint Denis tower. Only one of the windows was open but it was certainly worth climbing 156 steps for this.

The breast-shaped hills are pit heaps from the old coal pits.

Shadows on the wall

More photos from inside the tower of Saint Denis. As you may have guessed, the shadow with the camera is mine!

From the inside

First couple of photos from my trip up the tower of the Saint Denis church. The first shows the upper side of the roof of the original romanesque building. It features three domes that are now completely covered by the newer roof.

The second photo shows the wooden beams that make up the newer roof. It is not that new, one of these beams dates from 1028AD!

Saint Denis

This weekend we had the Wallonia Heritage Days. Several buildings and monuments held a sort of open day, giving access to areas that are normally restricted. I went to several of these and took many photos. I'll start with the Saint Denis church, which gave us access to the tower. First a couple of photos of the church interior. Tomorrow I'll post some photos from the tower.

The stained glass is fantastic and the ceiling very imposing. When going up the tower we also got the opportunity to walk above the painting in the middle of the ceiling!

Back to work

Well, I'm back, summer is gone and the holidays are but a memory. Having said that, the sun still comes out from time to time and there's still flowers on some trees. Here's proof!