Gaufres and Stairs in Liège

 Hello! 

Yesterday Matt and I had the opportunity to meet and hang out with some of his lovely coworkers (I forgot to ask if I could use their names in my blog so I'm leaving them out for now), who were kind enough to show us where to get some of the best waffles in Liège and give us a little tour of the city. 

Our first stop was in a shopping district that was located next to Cathédrale Saint-Paul de Liège (St. Paul's Cathedral). 

Before wandering and getting a very good workout (as you will soon understand), we decided it was important to fuel up with a famous Belgian waffle, called a gaufre in French. You can see a little bit of the Cathedral in the background of the photo. 

They were soooo good! Matt and I got the ones with chocolate on the inside, which they made by taking sticks of chocolate and shoving them inside the gaufre, and the heat of the waffle then melted them into ooey gooey deliciousness. We will go back and eat more for sure. 

Apparently my secondary goal is to take as many awkward photos of Matt eating as possible. 😆

After eating our waffles, we walked around the neighborhood for a bit. Something I quite enjoy about Europe is seeing all of the old buildings with modern signs and interiors. The juxtaposition of old and new is fun and beautiful. 

Eventually, we ambled our way over to one of Liège's main tourist attractions: the Montagne de Bueren. A staircase. Yes, you read that correctly. The Montagne de Bueren is no ordinary staircase, however. It has 374 steps, which may not sound like that much until you see it. 

This staircase is HUGE. And did we climb up it? You betcha' we did. 

 

Here's a nice view of the city below for scale. Matt's coworker told us that on Sundays he and some of his buddies jog up the stairs 5 times in a row! So impressive. 

After climbing to the top, we walked a little bit towards the Citadelle de Liège, which had a couple more stairs (but definitely not as many!). There was also a great view of the city below so we took a couple of photos. 

By the way, we think that mountain in the distance there is in Germany. I didn't realize we were so close to the border!

After taking some nice photos we ambled our way back to the city. I didn't take any pictures of it, but we found a very zigzag-y path to take that was half mud and half stone. During our walk Matt's friends told us some fun facts about living in Belgium and we told them about the differences between living here and in America. 

I asked them if there's a silly phrase in English that they all learn in school that is not very practical but everyone still knows, like how we learn "Où est la bibliothèque?" in French or "Vamos a la playa" in Spanish (they knew the Spanish one). They told us the phrase they had to learn was, "Where is Brian?" 

Matt and I tried looking it up later and came across this funny comedy bit about it. I don't know if this was their exact experience with it but it's worth a watch anyways. 

That's it for now! Until next time, 

Zoe