Re-reading these is a blast. I’d completely forgotten about the 14 year olds.

It’s been an eventful few days. I ended up spending three days in a town called Namur, which is more or less the political capital of the Walloon region of Belgium. It’s basically set in a clearing in a forest at the junction of two rivers, and is a very beautiful city. Another University town, it boasts a very modern, cosmopolitan atmosphere, but still has many of the features one would expect of an ancient medieval city; it’s citadel, for example, which is perched on a deeply forested promantory overlooking the town.

I was very fortunate, however, to arrive in the town on the weekend of the Walloon Festival, completely by chance. The annual festival is a four-day street-party celebrating the history and culture of French Belgium, complete with live music, a massive boat that pumped out music from the middle of the river, and seemingly stupid amounts of booze. The Youth Hostel was overrun, but I was lucky enough to be sharing a room with an English guy called Matt and an Australian called Brad, so the three of us mainly stuck together for the weekend. We took a half-day out to explore some of the outlying towns – Rochefort in particular, which has caves – but spend most of the rest of the time enjoying the carnival.

It was a shame that we could only be there for two of the nights, but Matt had to get home, I had to move on to Luxembourg, and Brad was running out of time to see Brussels; and besides, the Hostel couldn’t squeeze us in for another night. On the first night, I had to duck out early, but Brad and Matt apparently had a good time – they came back with stories of how lying about their ages had secured them the attentions of two French 17 year olds – but I did manage to make it out for the second night, and I’m pretty glad I did.

For the first hour or two I struggled to get into the proceedings. The event seemed mainly designed to allow 14-year-olds to get wasted and-slash-or pregnant, which seemed to amuse them but didn’t do much for me. I did meet Matt and Brad’s 17-year-olds, who I swear were no older than 15 – I had to remind them that teenage girls ALWAYS lie about their ages, especially to drunken foreigners, but fortunately they hadn’t done anything stupid so we moved on. On one of the main stages, a woman vocalist was looking increasingly distressed as a group of gay guys ground against each other and gradually undressed in front of her; she brought her set to a close early and the gays presumably got a room, clearly uninspired by the act that followed, a middle-of-the-road guitar rock band with a bassist who must have been eighty.

Getting into the back alleys of the city, we soon found was where it was all happening. The main stages were simply there to draw away the kids, but the back streets thronged with entertainment, and were mercifully clear of both the stalls selling five random shots for 5€, and the teenagers they attracted. We saw an awesome percussion collective, specialising in Cuban and African drums; the three of us must have stood there for an hour listening to these guys, along with many others, they were simply that good.

At about 11 I headed back to the hostel; Matt and Brad, both pretty juiced, wanted to get laid so I (fearing the 14 year olds) decided to leave them to it. I was pretty lucky; on my way back, I found the river-road to the hostel closed for the centrepeice of the evening, the firework display. I pretty much had a front row seat: The music boat had been turned into a gun-boat, firing off pyrotechnics no more than 100 meters from me; more fireworks came from the citadel in an utterly spectacular hour-long display, one which I had come across completely by chance in a festival I didn’t know about in a city I’d never heard of. I guess I was pretty lucky.

Brad and Matt didn’t get laid, although they did almost get into a fight with a French Goth.

So yesterday I moved on to Luxembourg, which is an amazing city. The town centre is tiny – a ten-minute walk across, if that – but is surrounded on all sides by deep gorges, forested ravines, and fast rivers; meaning that the rest of the sizeable city is seperated from “historic” Luxembourg by a series of bridges. The city began life as the fortress of Seigfried, a German robber-baron, and, after being re-fortified by the Germans, Bulgarians and Spaniards who occupied it over the centuries, it came to be known as the Gibraltar of the North, an impregniable city-state protected by 4 walls, 18 kilometers of caves and a 50 foot drop on three sides. The city and surrounding land was declared neutral in the 19th Century and many of its armaments were raized, but there’s still a lot to be seen here; Luxembourg is one of the richest countries in the world, the birthplace of the EU, and has some dramatic – almost dangerous – geography in the heart of it’s city centre.

The rest of today will be spend in Luxembourg City, as – probably – will much of tomorrow. Wednesday I plan to see some of the other towns in the country, which is tiny enough that I can probably see most of it in a day; then on Thursday I’m heading into Germany. Until then, dearies, I hope you’re all happy and well.