Sunday 11th April 2004 Houdeng to Ronquiéres (almost) and back.

The tower at Ronquieres. (photo from 1993)

Our son Peter, his girlfriend and her parents were visiting, so I had planned to do a roast which we would eat on board at lunchtime. We took our visitors for a boat trip to Ronquiéres to look at the inclined plane. Unfortunately, as the canal was closed, the Belgian waterways had dropped the stop gates for safety, so we couldn’t get within five kilometres of the boat lift. We turned round and headed back for the mooring at Houdeng, had some sandwiches for lunch and then went by car to Ronquiéres. The road through Manages was closed, as there was a fair in the main streets of the town, so we had to find our own diversion route. Luckily we’d brought our big Belgian waterways guidebook with us and I used that to navigate our way to the lift. We had a walk around, then discovered that the tower and visitor centre were open. 

The tower from beneath the twin tracks for the caissons
(Photo taken in 1993)

There was an audio-visual display set out in twelve rooms, showing the life of the Belgian bargees, we each donned a set of headphones to give us a running commentary in English as we toured the tableaux. The tower was open, so we rode the lift to the ninth floor and walked up the last two flights to see the panoramic view. On the ninth floor there was a cinema showing a short film of tourist information about the region. We returned to the boat on the motorway rather than try to backtrack through the villages. It was 6.30 p.m. when we got back to the boat. Too late to start cooking a roast. Peter said there was a Chinese restaurant right opposite the hotel where they were staying and we could get a meal there if they were open, so they drove back to hotel and we got ready and went to join them. The restaurant was very smart with a marble ceiling and patterned parquet walls, bonsais and curly bamboos adorned the bar and the window alcoves. A pretty young Chinese girl took our orders. Our five course meal was excellent, it cost 108 Euros (about £12.50 each) which wasn’t too bad, as that included several rounds of drinks. After we’d paid the bill, the girl came with presents, “portes bonheurs” she said, gifts to bring good luck - painted gourds for the men and china eggs for the ladies - wasn’t that nice? A special for Easter, perhaps! We went across the square to have a drink in the Italian bar. We said goodnight and drove back to the boat at 10.30 p.m.