Walking was just as mixed. This morning we knocked out the kilometres, crossing the river Muese, just south of Maastricht, around lunchtime. But then things went a bit wobbly. Having crossed the Muese, a very wide river, we still had to cross the Albert Canal, which runs parallel and is just as wide. We had two choices. Either walk south a couple of kilometres to the bridge marked on the cycle route and then trudge north again. Or clamber up a slope to the road bridge which would take us a more direct route when we arrived at the other side. We chose the latter.
Whether the alternative would have been any better, we will never know but we soon found that our chosen route did not, in fact, offer us a direct route east. Instead, we had to head north, to get over a mighty hill and then all the way back south again. From then on, it was mostly slogging along roads. Alas, so far, we have not been having much luck with walking routes in Belgian which do not seem to be well marked. But perhaps we are just looking in the wrong place. Tomorrow, we will have an opportunity to look for some more specific local maps than the ones we have been using so far in Belgium.
Having mentioned the Albert Canal, I can not help but mention my old geography teacher, Mr. Croom. Mr. Croom, or Eddie Croom, as we called him – I was never sure whether his name was really Eddie but there you have it – had a speech characteristic, such that he pronounced the world “Albert” as “Elbert” and the word “Canal” as Kennell. When studying European geography, he was always inclined to stress the importance of the Elbert Kennell, much to our collective hysteria. Now having seen the Elbert Kennell, I realise that it is a mighty Kennell indeed and worthy of great respect. But it was Eddie's pronunciation that captured our interest.
Not as lesson passed that term without someone asking, “Sir, what's the name of that big canal in Belgium, Sir?
“I am losing count of the number of times I have told you Murphy, it's the Elbert Kennell”.
Anyway, Eddie if you are reading, you were very tolerant of us and a decent rugby player, so here is a picture of that particular waterway, for you.
On a more sober note, walking where we have, we have seen a fair few war memorials. I have, however, been stuck by two so far - although I am sure I will see many more.
We saw the one below yesterday, just outside Lueven. At first, being a poor French speaker, I couldn't understand the inscription but was struck by the stone carved picture, of someone climbing through a fence.
The inscription read “AUX VICTIMES BELGES – ALLIES qui perirent ici par le fil éléctrique 1914 – 1918”
Somewhere near the border between Holland and Belgium, it is a tribute to those who died on an electric wire (or fence). Pretty sobering stuff.
Another one that struck a cord was in Germany, near Remagen, where the allies first crossed the Rhine. As with the the other memorial, it was the powerful look of it that first drew the attention.
This time, at least one of us had the language skills to translate the inscription: “Here lie 1212 victims of war and tyranny. Nearly all died in 1945 at the prison 'Goldene Meile'. To honour the dead and warn the living.”
As far as we can make out, they were German prisoners, captured in the battle for the bridge.
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