Scanned Photos 09

I am unable to identify the location of this one. I recall a sign saying it was “Chateau de Rhondinne” but I can find nothing anywhere on the Net. At any rate, this was one of a row of tiny homes a local told us were once sevant’s quarters for those who served on staff at the chateau in previous centuries.

Today the Sainte Ode Hospital near Lavacherie, Belgium is quite a few buildings all over a forested hilltop. However, the original building features this rather ancient gateway that has been well preserved.

I haven’t been able to identify the structure up on the bluff, but the note on the photograph says this was near Yvoir, Belgium with a view of the Meuse River. (You do realize that the same river is called “Maas” in the Netherlands and “Meuse” in Belgium?)

This is another structure I can’t identify, but the photo says it’s in or near Argenteau, Belgium. That’s a village along the Meuse near the Dutch border, and it’s strung out along a valley and the ridge above it. The valley runs almost parallel to the Meuse and is covered in forest, so there’s no telling precisely where this thing stands, but it was shot early in the spring before foliage had returned.

It was quite a long march I took sponsored by some organization in Vise, Belgium. We hiked a course up and down the ridges and hills east of the Meuse River almost down as far as Liege. This is one of the curiosities in the Belgian countryside, a WW2 machine gun tower defending access to a valley that ran down to the Meuse.