A rained out tour of Leuven with my mother

At the start of August my mom proposed to come to Leuven instead of my bi-weekly trip to my old hometown. I loved the idea right away since I love getting visitors and I also love avoiding car trips... especially when I expect busy traffic as always in summer if you need to partially drive in the direction from or to the Belgian coast. 

I had the idea to walk my mom around through Leuven as she probably only knows some touristic hotspots like the big market and old market and the Bondgenotenlaan connecting those to the train station.  So let's zigzag through the city that she doesn't really know and use the opportunity to go out for lunch. 

We met her at the train station and I was a little surprised to see her nice light summer outfit, given our whimsical summer and unpredictable forcast.  But hey, let's try. 

First we headed to the Dijle along the vest and we discovered that we have a "Voetschraper" project in Leuven too... Did you already notice the voetschrapers of old houses and the potential miniature treasures they can hold? You better look around because at least Antwerp and Leuven are decorating them and I assume other cities will follow the example. 

 

Along the Dijle on the backyard of our harbour we admired the new city development with the new Leuven modern skyscrapers rising up for the new hip neighbourhood, replacing the old obsolete industrial brewery area. 

We stopped for lunch in the old brewery De Hoorn, while the children played outside in the Sluispark. More specifically they played in the water fountain park at the end and enjoyed getting themselves soaking wet, so they formed a dripping puddle under their chair in the restaurant.  Euh great...just when Kabouter got rid of his cough.  

We enjoyed our lunch and I also enjoyed the old building and went admire the old brewing hall on the first floor.  Ha, you can't erase 10 years of professional history in breweries. 

And when we left, I could no longer ignore the dark clouds coming up and the rain radar. We switched the children into their rain jacket (ha how ironic, they were already soaking wet, but we had managed to keep the sweaters dry).  I looked a bit worried at my mom, taking out a tiny umbrella out but it was too late.  The clouds broke open and we could only storm into a garage entry where more people were escaping but the wind was even blowing the smashing rain quite far inside.  

We waited out the worst, while my rain radar predicted a gloomy scenario and I weighted our options:   1 victim offering themselves to go home to go get a car but that scenario would have the others wait here for over an hour in the cold wind,  continue another 15' to catch a bus but then we'd be so wet we might as well continue the last 15' to home as well.   Calling a cab would be difficult with the 4 of us and 2 little bikes, ...
If only we had walked another hour in the sun before we took lunch, we could have hidden in a restaurant downtown but now alas, we found ourselves at the furthest distance by foot we could be in Leuven. 

But Jan was optimistic, the worst was gone, so we continued.  As they children biked faster than we could walk and I wanted to show my mother the little beguinage (a popular shooting street for Thuis!), we somehow got seperated and soon after the rain was just drashing down again.   We just kept going as long as we could until we reached totally soaked a shopping street where we could wait out the worst again in a shop entrance just before the demolished old hospital site...another huge development project in Leuven.  We also saw the velodrome that has been built and that I intended to take the children on today while they were both downtown on their bikes....There was not a soul outside in this type of weather.  

Finally it became "umbrella" acceptable rain levels to continue to walk but the harm was done: we were both soaked . With every step I took, I splashed my feet within my shoes and my pants were sticking to my legs. My mom had held her little umbrella uneven and had taken the drip of her own shield all over her back. 

I continued to point out some points of interest while we rushed home. The boys had arrived first and welcomed us in their pyjama's and bathrobe.  Then it was our time to strip into dry clothes and my mom took the opportunity, out of lack of spare clothes, to iron hers all dry.  

I guess we'll have to reschedule our touristic discovery walk of Leuven to another time since this summer of 2021 seems to only drash ourselves out.  Bleh.