Showing off Leuven to my Canadian family

After taking my far Canadian cousing B to Aachen, I had taken a day off to show him around Leuven.  

We first dropped the boys off at school and then I started walking him around Heverlee where we stopped at the Park Abbey and the Arenberg castle. 

We walked through the castle park and KUL campus grounds to arrive in at the Unesco Heritage of the Beguinage. 

I zigzagged through the city, delivering my promise that I'd show about 20 kms of sightseeing in my town. If you are my guest, I take showing you around very seriously and if I tell you to wear comfortable shoes, I was not joking.

Via city walls, the botanic garden, the 2nd beguinage, another abbey, ...we arrived at the port of Leuven which is in a spectacular transformation. Of course it was important to show our beer heritage with the old and new buildings of AB Inbev and the Stella brewery but also the old brewing hall in De Hoorn. 

"Leuven's liquid gold runs here"

We returned to the city center and went to visit the university library hall and climbed the tower where we learned all about the history of the fire of Leuven in 1914. 

We just made it back in time to pick up the boys from school and were totally relieved to give our feet an hour of rest.

Since the Christmas lights were just turned on since that weekend, I had ensured to book a restaurant downtown to ensure we'd walk along the beautiful lighted buildings once more. No rest for the wicked. 

 It was a really fun day and plenty of time to talk together and get to know each other better. always welcome to come back!