About a fail that ended pretty well.
When I moved to Belgium, Liège was the first on my bucket list of cities to visit because of a video I saw ages ago that featured it. But then life got in the way, I learned that every place here looks like a postcard, and my drive to visit Liège faded.
However, there was one place in the city that I got to experience on multiple occasions: its main train station serves a high-speed rail network, so I transferred here every time I went to Germany or beyond. Besides being convenient, the station is bright, roomy, and impressive. It is designed by the same architect responsible for Valencia's City of Arts and Sciences, Malmö's Turning Torso, and the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge in Dallas. I just never managed to leave it.
It should have been the same story the other day: My stay here was supposed to be a five-minute change for a service toward Luxembourg. I was still half asleep when I entered the train, but when I sat down, I started to be stoked about my day. I was all set — until I wasn't. While enjoying my comfy chair, I noticed that a train on the other track, currently leaving, had written Luxembourg on it. My comfy chair was on a train on the wrong platform. "You gotta be kidding!" I thought. Unfortunately, the "you" referred only to me. There was no one else to blame for my brain fog. Hmm. After moments of disbelief, I stepped off the wrong train and checked when the next connection to Luxembourg was. "Two hours?! ... Well, you wanted to see the city; now you have a chance," I accepted the situation.
Here is what caught my eye within the remaining 110 minutes or so.
When leaving the modern neighborhood outside the station, crowned with the tallest skyscraper of Wallonia, I noticed that getting around requires a tad more alertness than what I am used to. Cars around drove in a rush – no matter the weekend. Waiting at a crosswalk took ages, bike lanes were an afterthought, and the roads were a patchwork of potholes. Nothing too bad; it was just noticeable coming from cities in Flanders.
On the other hand, another noticeable difference was the amount of people who said hi. It was tremendous! Walking around felt like entering a warm embrace. From my experience, it is more common to experience friendliness in smaller towns over big cities, but Liège is the third most populous urban area in Belgium – it's definitely not the size here.
I did not have any points of interest prepared, but I still recalled the views from the video overlooking the city from a hill. A quick peek into a map, and I knew. Liège Citadel is it.
I maintained direction but let the streets dictate which one to take. It follows this pattern: I see a pretty light reflection on the left at the crossroad, and I go left. The next intersection has intriguing architecture on the right; let's go to the right. And so on. I cherish this method of getting purposely lost; it always surprises me with unexpected gems of the place. Here, I stumbled on a few lovely parks and St. Paul's Cathedral. Its interior was spectacular.
The streets were like stepping into a colorful book in a library; every facade had tales to be told. From clean, straight pages to dirty, crumpled ones, from utilitarian concrete blocks to decorative brick mansions. Some houses provided literal illustrations, be it graffiti of an odd shape that could have been a day old or a sgraffito of a weapon sale from colonial times.
Soon after passing a freshly opened Christmas market with so many sweets on sale that I felt like I'd get diabetes if I stayed there for too long, I started climbing. Citadel, I'm coming!
The sun shone, the views delivered, and the waffle before getting on to the train that took me further south was a dream!
Thanks for reading! If you liked this post, you might enjoy stories about my other layovers or different city impressions. Alternatively, browse categories and locations in Blog Archives.
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