Exploring Tongeren

It was a glorious weekend early May and we debated what to do together with our Canadian visitor.  The typical must do's of Belgium might be pretty crowded (especially Bruges was to be avoided with the opening of BRUSK).  Canadians are very much outdoor people and we wanted to profit from the sun and not spend time inside musea... and as Belgians we didn't want to drive too much either. 

We opted out for all big historic cities but Jan all of a sudden proposed to visit Tongeren, our oldest city. I hardly know Tongeren myself so I was happy to discover something new too.  Tongeren combined with some wine domains in Limburg etc triggered us through a small road trip in our eastern province.  Of we went.

We walked via the old city walls to the city center. After a sunny lunch on the market square (that wasn't too busy in this sunny weekend),we started a city walk towards the old Roman remains and the reconstruction of the old Roman temple. 

Showing off our first "Belgian" ruler

We explored the reconstructed old Roman temple which must have been a huge complex and important in the region. I had no idea and had never been here before.  It was a quite interesting discovery even if you can't spot the original remains anymore. 

Our walk led us via the old Roman wall that is still largely visible in and around Tongeren. 

A real Roman milestone

Next we took another break downtown at the Gallo-Roman museum (which we didn't visit this time), in the shadow of the cathedral to tast some local vlaai. 

Via the local beguinage which looked a bit messy to me but which turned out to be much bigger than at first sight, we slowly returned to our car.  (It seemed messy since not all buildings have been preserved and there's more modern houses in between but also garages etc that don't do the view much good in all corners). 

 

Well Tongeren was a lovely discovery and I want to return and visit the Gallo-Roman museum with the children next time.