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".

Les Grignoux (where to see an English-language film, in English.)

Tchantchès and I are firm believers that it's best to see a film in its original language, that is to say that we feel what an actor does with their voice is a big part of acting, and we prefer to hear the real voice of the actor onscreen as opposed to a voice dubbed in.  Fortunately there is a group of cinemas in Liège that allows us to indulge this preference, as they routinely present films in their "version-originale" or "V.O.".  This group of 3 movie houses is called "Les Grignoux", and they present a variety of films ranging from mainstream to art-house and festival flicks, almost always in their original version (with French subtitles, of course.)

Because the English-language film industry is one of the largest in the world, a great number of current Anglo-films play at these 3 cinemas throughout the year.  The only trick to finding a film you may hope to see here is to remember that it is common for English films to be given a different name in order to make the title as enticing as possible to the French audience.  Although the films may be presented in V.O. at Les Grignoux, the names given on the listings of film times and locations will likely be the French name.

"A Beautiful Mind" = "Un Homme D'Exception"

Handily, the Grignoux's website is well constructed, and by clicking on the name of a film (you can do so directly from their opening page,) you will be directed to an information page for the film which shows the films poster art, a brief synopsis of the premise, language, and runtime, and quite often an embedded video window will allow you to view a cinematic trailer (which will also be in the original language of the film.)  If you've very little French, it takes a tiny bit of clicking about the site to figure out what films you may be interested in seeing, but it's pretty easy.

To Note: Release dates for films can at times, vary greatly between places.  Les Grignoux is respectful of the laws concerning release dates, and therefore will not play a film before it is legal to do so in Belgium, even if the film may have been released weeks before in other parts of the world.  It is common for those of us in Liège to have to wait a few additional weeks for the release into cinemas of an English film.

A weekend, holiday, or evening viewing (after 6pm) at Les Grignoux costs 6 euro.  If, however, you are seeing a film that starts before 6pm on a weekday (one which is not a holiday,) you can expect to pay a reduced ticket price that ranges between 4 (for films with noon-hour starts) and just less than 5 euro (for films starting after 2pm but before 6pm.)  As well, those with official identification proving they are not yet 21 years of age may receive a reduction in their ticket price.

If you happen to be spending a longer period of time in Liège and enjoy the cinema or if you live in Liège, Les Grignoux also sell a 10-movie pass, which costs 45 euro, has no expiry date, and which allows the pass-holder to use more than one of the "10 films" at the same time (meaning you can bring a date/friend(s) to a film with you by using up another spot(s) on your pass.)

There is also a member card for Les Grignoux, which costs 3 euro and reduces the price of each evening seance you attend to 5 euro from the normal 6, provided you present the card when purchasing your ticket.

Two of the cinemas (The Churchill and The Sauvenière,) are located in the downtown area of the city, with the last (The Parc) being located a little further out from the downtown in the area known as Liège-Droixhe.

To reach the website for Les Grignoux (which includes film times and locations,) click here.

The Muguets of May Day.

Like in many countries of Europe, Belgians have a day off on May 1st, this being recognized as a labour holiday.

But there is another annual event strongly linked to May 1st here in Belgium, and that has to do with "les muguets":

otherwise known as "Lily of the Valley" to you and I.

If you find yourself here on May 1st, you will see people all over the city with baskets or buckets of Lilies of the Valley, offering to sell you a small bouquet that includes a few sprigs and a rose (usually for around 2 Euro) or a simple sprig or two (un brin) for one Euro or less.  It is tradition here to offer Lilies of the Valley on May 1st to those in your life that you wish happiness and good luck.

This dates back to 1561, the year when King Charles the 9th decided to offer Lilies of the Valley to all the ladies of his court.  The gesture was passed among members of the court, and became an annual tradition where the flowers came to be the symbolic bringer of good spirit, good wishes, and good luck.

In French, something that embodies these sentiments is called a "porte-bonheur", (a bringer of good things.)  While we feel they are dainty and smell lovely, Nanesse does find it a little peculiar that they are seen as a "porte-bonheur" since the flowers, leaves and stems of the plant are toxic if ingested, (which would not make them a bringer of good things if given to very small children or pets!)

If you are visiting at this time of year, why not take part in this tradition and offer a "brin" (small bouquet) to a friend or family member?