Durbuy (The Labrynth) - A to Z of Places I have visited

For the next few months I am going to write about some places I have visited and do them in alphabetical order.
Still wondering what I will do for the more unusual letters like Q and X etc. but maybe I will have a brilliant idea later.

My D for the series is Durbuy, a small town in the Luxemburg region of Belgium.

We lived in Belgium for over 6 years and loved our time there especially seeing so many new places.

One day trip we made from our home in Tervuren (on the outskirts of Brussels) took us to the Labrynth (Maze) at Durbuy and being a Mathematical person I am also a logical person so I love to have a puzzle of some sort to work out.

The Maze Was Very Large 

and it was also very tall.  No seeing over the top of those hedges but if you managed to get up higher somehow (you'll find out later) you would have seen that

there was something at the centre of the Maze.

Fortunately we did get a map of a kind to help us find our way to the activity at the centre.

So Off We Went 

and to start with I had the map.

Fred was looking at it along with me and our son Jonathan was coming behind taking some photos.
It was a lovely day with the sun out and we were very comfortable in our short sleeves but because the hedges forming the maze were so tall parts of the trail were in the shadow and that meant a lot of dark patches for the photos.

Fred is 6 foot tall so looking at these photos now I'm presuming the hedges were between 7 and 8 feet high.

At one stage Fred ended up with the map on his own - I was probably lagging behind talking to Jonathan.

Then Fred was off and I had to

run to catch up with him before we would get lost.

Fred had decided that he knew exactly where we were and where we were going and so he took the lead and we just followed.

Of course he was right (as always) and a little while later we had arrived at the centre.   

Walking In There

we saw some other people were sitting waiting and there were a few people dressed as soldiers. 

 One of them had a map of the regions of Belgium so that everyone could see where we were. 

Soon some other people arrived and the soldiers took charge and gave some commands for us to stand and then they picked out some from the crowd to come to the middle of the clearing and the rest of us had to sit down on benches around the perimeter of this area.

Well Guess Who Got Picked

Fred!

My husband is always full of fun and always willing to enter in at times like this and Jonathan and I were happy to sit and watch and laugh and laugh.

The soldiers tried to teach them all to hold a gun (really a large stick) making them look and act in a very funny manner and then

they had to be able to do something with their hands held up - I don't remember what that was because we were just laughing so much at them all.

Each one of the "volunteers" got picked on for a part of the training 

and then they had to practice marching.

After our bit of entertainment we had to find our way towards the exit of the Maze and Jonathan found himself a great place for a view over it all.

Now you know how we have those first two pics looking over the maze.

We took some photos of him up there as well as him climbing up and down it and he got some photos from that height too. 

Then He Took a Nice Pic

of his old mum and dad sitting below.

Before we left he took another nice one of us on a wooden seat under a trellis.

It is a lovely place and we had a relaxing time there even though we had to navigate a maze.

An entertaining day in the middle of a puzzle in Belgium

If you are ever in that area of Belgium do make the effort to go and I hope you get a nice sunny warm day as we did.

If you missed any of the previous places in this series just click on the Titles below:

A for Alicante
B for Bratislava
C for Calpe

Alicante - A to Z of Places I Have Visited

For the next few months I am going to write about some places I have visited and do them in alphabetical order.
Still wondering what I will do for the more unusual letters like Q and X etc. but maybe I will have a brilliant idea later.

For a few years we found a lovely place to stay in Spain and enjoyed our different holiday weeks there in the small town of Calpe.

To get there each time we flew into Alicante and normally we just got our hire car and drove straight on to Calpe to get settled in to our little villa without even thinking about a visit to the town of Alicante.

However two of these holidays were shared with my sister and brother-in-law (yes the guy I wrote that post about gifts for his birthday  10 Gift Ideas for your Brother-in-Law )  and for the first one of them we were coming from two different countries to meet up in Spain.  Both flights were into Alicante Airport but several hours apart with Fred & I arriving first.  So we had plenty of time to pick up the hire car and go on into Alicante to have a look around and enjoy a coffee maybe!

Arriving in Alicante we found that the streets were full of people and there was 

a very noisy and joyful atmosphere.

We quickly discovered that the people had been gathering to await a procession.

Well being from Northern Ireland we have watched many parades and processions over the years in various towns and cities there but we knew that this one would be different.

We had previously seen processions in the Canary Islands so presumed that this one would be similar to those where a statue of a saint or of Mary would be carried from one site to another.

There were bands led by girls in very colourful traditional dresses and white headresses/bonnets and also banners with pictures.

Then after one section of the procession these girls in (we presume) national or local style outfits were all gathered together with many of them holding banners with numbers on them.  There seemed to be some sort of contest and perhaps it was between the girls or between local areas of the Alicante region and that would account for the numbers.

There were so many banners and they passed us by so quickly that we did not get a good look at them and unfortunately we did not get close enough for our pictures to clearly show the writing.

The bands themselves all looked very similar with the men (and a few women) all in white shirts and black trousers.  In Northern Ireland band parades we are used to each band having a different uniform.

With the man and woman both in green it made me think of St. Patrick's Day Parades.  If interested in that click on these links for posts I have written about them  Everyone's Irish on March 17th   &  St. Patrick's Day Parade in NI

The Ladies who were all dressed the same were led into this covered stand as there region or area passed by with their band - we never worked out why.

Occasionally there would be some men with the ladies in front of the band and they were also in a type of national costume.

They played the same instruments as we would normally see in our bands but they were perhaps more casual in their attire and their marching.



By the time this was all over we only had time for a lovely relaxing walk at the harbour area

Photo Credit:  Pixaby

which is beautiful and bright and open.   It is clean and the palm trees bordering it make it very attractive.  We were also surprisingly pleased by the state of the beach in Alicante because and that is good praise as we are spoilt for good, long, sandy beaches here in Northern Ireland.

Photo Credit:  Pixaby

But after that there was no time for that coffee before we had to drive back to the airport.


As my sister got into the car I remember her saying

"Well what was Alicante like?  Is it worth us going to see it?"  

and we all laughed when I explained what we had spent the afternoon watching - well it was somewhat appropriate as Fred & I were the ones no longer living in our home country where parades are a regular occurrence just as they are in Spain.

Have you ever been to Alicante? Check this out to see if it is worth visiting.

Later I tried to do a little bit of research to find out about the procession we had seen, well you know what I mean  -  I googled it.

Apparently for several days in the month of June they have a celebratory Festival of Fires and this was the "Feria Procession" that happens on one of the days and on other days they have different events some including fires in the evenings.  Quite appropriate as in NI we also have bonfires the night before some of our parades.

And did I mention that here we were two couples coming to this area also for a celebration?

We were celebrating my birthday and my sister's wedding anniversary. 

Yes

 my older sister got married on my 13th birthday and that's a story for another time.