La Rentrée

It is that time here in Belgium, known as "La Rentrée".  The time we all buckle down and return from our lazy vacation mentalities.

And so here we are, Tchantches and I, sorting through the potential material gathered over the months of Summer adventures.  You didn't think we'd abandoned ship, did you?  No, no.  Just vacationing and enjoying the odd day of sunshine here or there when it occurred, that's all.

With any luck, by next summer those visiting this site will have many more ideas on where to eat, what to do and see, not to mention the scoop on many more of the annual celebrations that occur in the area.  And there you have it.  Your roving reporters have returned.

Breakfast at Hema... One serious bargain!

Can I tell you something?  Tchantches and I are guilty of snobbery.

We have often walked by this sign, just outside of Hema, (a quirky and democratically priced store of Dutch origin,) located in the Galleries St. Lambert.

Between 9am (when they open) and 10am, the breakfast pictured above is 1 Euro in the Hema café.

We chuckled to ourselves, saying it must be a marvelous job in food photography, to show something that looked that good when the reality was probably something rather different.  We giggled because normally even just a coffee by itself (let alone a freshly ground rainforest-alliance-certified one) will run you between 1.50 and 2 euro here in Liège.  We asked ourselves if the whole breakfast might not be incredibly tiny in size...

The other day we found ourselves in the Place St. Lambert, and it was before 10am.  As we were in the right place at the right time, (and empty-bellied to boot,) we finally allowed our curiosity to overcome our snobbery.  In we went, walking to the bistro-buffet/café situated in the rear of the store.  We had to know: How good could a complete breakfast for just 1 measly euro be?

Pretty darn good, actually.  See for yourself just below here how the real thing measures up to the advertising.

Seriously.  I gave the cashier just one Euro and walked away with this.

Croissant: One pretty standard croissant for size, taste and texture.  Baguette: between a quarter and a fifth of a baguette size, which is normal.  The bacon in the sandwich is a proper full sized slice.  The omelette was fluffy and somewhere between 1 and 2 eggs worth (we both agree it's closer to 2.)  The coffee was good, though not the best that can be had in Liège, and the added blessing here for both of our sleepy heads was that it wasn't a small coffee.  I was delighted to actually receive more than what is pictured on the sign outside the store, because everyone could take a speculoos cookie to go along with their coffee at no additional charge that day.

Jams (strawberry and apricot) were the choices available for fruit-spreads and we spotted a rarer option in these parts, (peanut butter,) in an adjacent basket.  The strawberry jam wasn't fabulous, so next time I believe I'll be reaching for the peanut butter, and Tchantches will likely test-drive the apricot.  In any case, the croissant and sandwich were good enough that I had no real use for my packet of jam, but the option is always nice.

Language is not really an issue here, as the café functions in a buffet format: you take a tray, plate and utensils, and select your croissant and omelette sandwich yourself from the buffet-cases and baskets.  Just beware that if you want to take advantage of this deal, you need to take it exactly as it is. Tchantches added a chocolate croissant to his tray, and paid €1.25 extra for it.

You can bet with an unbeatable deal like this that we'll be going back when next the stars align and we find ourselves hungry and near the Place St. Lambert before 10am.

EDIT ***We have since been back to Hema, though this time it was much closer to 10.  I tried the peanut butter, and it was disappointingly off the mark as most peanut butters in Belgium seem to be.  The apricot jam is better than the strawberry according to Tchantches, but it's not great either, so there you have it.  On the second visit, there were no cookies by the register to go with the coffee, and our sandwiches were a little less fresh.  We figure this was because it was almost 10am when we showed up, and perhaps they'd been sitting in the buffet for almost an hour at that point.  Lessons learned?  If you want the very best of this deal, we'd say try to be there closer to their opening at 9.

The Hema in the Galleries St. Lambert is open from Monday - Saturday, 9am to 6:30pm.

Hotel discounts: Spend an extra night in Liège

From June through October 2011 the City of Liège and several of its hotels have come together and created a deal designed to entice those wanting to discover or rediscover the Cité Ardente.

In these hotels (which range between 3 to 5 star accomodations,) you will receive your second nights stay free, with breakfast included.

A welcome kit will also be given to you as part of this offer and will permit you to visit Liège under the best of conditions: It contains a City pass with which you can enter (free of charge) 13 museums, a discount for the Meuse-cruise as well as for the Tourist-tram, and provides you with a map of the city and the catelogue of the Grand Curtius Museum.

The participating hotels and the price at which they offer this package (2 nights with breakfasts and welcome pack included) are:

Crowne Plaza Liège (5 star): €215

Ramada Plaza Liège (4 star): €120

Hotel Mercure Liège Centre (4 star): €120

Husa de la Couronne (3 star): €99

Best Western Hotel Univers (3 star): €99

Ibis Liège Centre Opera (3 star): €99

To view the conditions of this offer and/or to make a reservation, visit here: http://www.liege.be/tourisme/campagne-promotionnelle-de-la-ville-de-liege-1/campagne-promotionnelle-de-la-ville-de-liege-en

La fête de la musique

What could be better than a celebration of music?  How about a city-wide celebration of music with free concerts?

Annually in the month of June, "La fête de la musique" happens in Liège.  For several days free concerts may be found all about the city, including a wide variety of bands and musical genres.  Most performances are on outdoor stages, though there are a few indoor venues used during the fête, where space may be limited.

The listings for concerts are numerous, and so we're at a loss regarding how to cover them.  The website for the fête is fairly navigable though, and offers up listings that can be sorted by music type, or venue, or by date, whichever works best for you.  It is a French site, but poking around and finding what you're looking for is still relatively simple.

http://www.fetedelamusiqueliege.be

Local Public Transit (the TEC)

In Wallonia, the local public transit is referred to as the "TEC".

photo: Aron de Jong

If the TEC is running, it will probably be running on time, and will do a satisfactory job of taking you where you were hoping to go.  If you are an "English-only" visitor to Liège, you will be able to use the TEC website to determine how to get from point A to point B using the "Itineraries" tab.

A single fare in Liège is €1.60.  We recommend that if you are planning to take several trips that you purchase either a single-day pass (unlimited trips in one day for €3.20), a three-day pass (unlimited trips over three consecutive days for €6.40).  The same sort of unlimited-travel pass is also available to cover trips anywhere in the Walloon region, with the single-day ticket costing €7.00 and the 3-day ticket €14.00

One problem with the TEC however, is that if you are an "English only" user you might not know when they are on strike.

illustration: Stephan Pire

In theory, the TEC is supposed to run every day of the year, starting around 5am and finishing around midnight daily.  The problem is that the TEC often go on strike here in Liège.  In the past 6 months, Liège has seen 7 TEC strikes, many of them lasting more than one day, and several being illegal strikes without advance notice to the public (who rely on them to get to and from work and school, among other things!)

It is not an easy bit of information to find on the TEC website even in French, to see if there is a strike.  If you're using the English version of the site, you'll simply see "under construction" on the page where this information should be present.  So, how to find out if the buses are running?  One must select the "Group TEC" tab on the site, and then choose the appropriate sub-tabs of "votre TEC régional" and then "TEC Liège-Verviers" to see about any service disruptions.  (To my English mind it seems a little like the administrations embarrassment; tucking this important information away in the corner like that.)  If you're on your own and don't speak French, click the link we've posted just above, and look for the words "grève" (strike) or "perturbations de reseau" (disruptions to service), while hoping the site has been updated quickly to reflect the strike, particularly if it is of the impromptu variety.

We'd like to take this moment to point out to the TEC (as clearly they have someone who handles their English communications,) that this sort of thing can ruin a tourists experience of Liège.  It's not just that visitors to the city can't get around so easily, but there is also the greater potential that a transit strike could cause someone to miss their train or plane, putting in absolute disarray their return home, their flight connections, or their hotel reservations elsewhere.  It does no good for business in Liège either if people can't get to their meetings and conferences on time, and in the end it does little good for the TEC, since every day the busses don't move, thousands of dollars in revenue for the TEC itself are lost.

As you may have guessed, Tchantches and I are not fans of the TEC.

I was ok with them until they stopped working.  Tchantches informs me that though it is particularly ridiculous right now, the TEC has been disfunctional for as long as he can remember.

We feel strikes like these are not only pointless, but that it's extremely disrespectful to the inhabitants of Liège, the visitors to the city, and the businesses that power its economy that such internal troubles in the TEC organization are publicly aired in a way that hurts the rest of the city.  Commentary in local newspapers show that much of the population in and around Liège is quite upset with the situation.

We rate the TEC to be a poor-value service, as its primary function is to have the buses rolling, with regularity, and on time.  Clearly, regularity of service is a concern.  We'd love to suggest that the TEC do what many other transit systems of the world do when expressing grievances with their management: strike by refusing to collect riders fares.  This is a tactic that I'd assume draws much more concern from management than the tactic of holding the public hostage.  The public is more likely to support you in your labour action if you don't anger them by mucking up their work/school lives or travels.

If the TEC functioned as it ought to, which is to say daily, with minimal disruptions in service for good reason (such as heavy snow,) we would say it was ordinary and satisfactory, as transit systems go.  But for the time-being it isn't, and so we feel it fair to warn you.  Due to all the disruptions in service over the past months, we've taken quite a shine to using our bikes or a car when needed, and we recommend that when coming to Liège you have a "plan B" tucked up your sleeve, too, just in case.  By doing this you can assure yourself a "bon voyage".