This is a vista of the region where I am staying. It is difficult to see, but mostly the region is composed of towns, surrounded by houses, surrounded by farmland, with a rather hilly topography. On the left of the picture you can see some of the cows that I talked about earlier. From what I have seen, it seems that all of the cows in my region are free to graze.
Here are the remains of a quarry that has been closed for some time. The rock is typical for this region.
This is most of what remains of an old castle. Currently, the castle is privately owned and opened a few times a year to the public. There are a lot of remnants of the property around this piece, particularly the bases of towers and stone walls.
This is another, more modern castle as seen from inside the graveyard of a church. It is also only opened a few times a year. The white wall that you can see on the left of the castle used to stretch around a large garden, but I am given to believe that the property is not particularly well-tended at the moment.
This is the church from whose graveyard the previous picture was taken. Many small churches have closed in the region with a reduction in the number of Catholics attending Mass. This one is only opened a few days of the year.
This is one float from a parade that I attended in a town called La Gleize. All of the floats were horse-drawn with horses similar to the one seen here. It is adorned with local plants, and there is a little girl on the float in a traditional dress.
This is another float from the same parade. You can see the traditional dress of the Ardennes of blue garments and a red necktie.
One of the floats embraced the farming heritage of the region with a man hand-shearing a sheep. The wool from that sheep was being used by some women on the float to spin into yarn.
This is a video clip of some traditional music of the Ardennes region. The quality is rather poor, but at least you can get an idea. Note the traditional dress of the band.
This bunch of rocks is called the "Faix du Diable" - literally, "The Devil's Burden" - and it comes with a story. I will try to recount it as best as I can from what I could understand of the French. In a town called Stavelot, there is an abbey built by St. Remacle. The Devil was not happy about this abbey, so he decided that he would walk his way over to the abbey and crush it with a rock. But, the rock was very heavy and the Devil had to walk for a long time before finishing his journey. So, when the Devil came upon a human, he asked him how much farther it was to the abbey, not realizing that the human he was asking was St. Remacle himself. St. Remacle knew that the Devil was tired, and of course he did not want his abbey destroyed, so he told the Devil that Stavelot was much farther away, even though it was really only a few miles from the spot. The Devil decided then that he was too tired to continue, and dropped his rock right there, hence the enormous pile of stone. Quite a clever saint if you ask me!
I'm planning to add more local information in later posts as I learn more about my region, particularly about its role in World War II. Feel free to leave questions or comments!
P.S. A terribly under-appreciated Beatles song is the subject of this post-script: "Her Majesty" from their album "Abbey Road" (It's their shortest song, by the way!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb4uGHGUZMs&feature=related
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