Holiday Tour Part 4 : Ligny and Waterloo

Even If you aren’t, I’ll be glad to get this 4th and fInal post of our holiday recorded on the blog. We travelled in the last couple of days SW from Maastricht. Along the River Meuse. Our first stop was at the Citadel at Huy. One of several huge forts along the Meuse the hill it is located on has been fortified since around 900 AD and possibly before then. Rebuilt and destroyed several times the current fort was constructed around 1818 when this part of Belgium was Dutch.

It has an imposing position and a currently broken cable car, although it has a lot of steps to get to the top when we looked back at the cable car my son was glad it wasn’t working !

The forts main function other than strategic defence seems to have been as a prison

Of which there is much evidence

And lots in interesting information in the museums. Strange yo and this does vary across Belgium none of the exhibits or info was in English ! And due to the thickness of the walls google translate wouldn’t work, we enjoyed it all the same as well as a lovely lunch down in the town square.

Our next stop was Ligny, it being a Monday we knew the museum wouldn’t be open but we parked up outside as it is a good spot to park when walking around the village. Just as the kettle was boiling a gentleman knocked on the window, I thought he was going to tell us to move on as the museum was closed…..instead he explained he was the owner of the museum and would love to open it just for us 😀😀😀 this lovely bit of luck easily made up for the parking ticket I got in Maastricht the day before.

It is relatively small museum but has a host of interesting artefacts, some from the battlefield others collected elsewhere, far too many to show photos of.

Some interesting bills of payment for putting up the French army the night before the battle

The obligatory Shako

I snapped this one having just painted them, one wonders what takes this brass plate could tell ?

I will be honest I had to do some reading before we visited Ligny not knowing the battle that well. Several sites can be seen in the village, although I understand the ferocity of the fighting was such that much of the village burned down.

One of the two surviving farms in the village so characteristic of this part of Belgium.

With a nice plaque outside. Sadly the buildings are in a poor states of repair and won’t last for ever unless there is some sort of investment

The church is a prominent feature, I’m not sure if or how much this was damaged during the fighting

After the short walk about the village we jumped in the van and toured the wider battle field, the village of Fleurus with the well visited Battle Plaque and the remains of the windmill used by Napoleon as his st during the battle.

We then went to Saint-Amand

A view looking SE from the higher ground of the Prussian Army

Couldn’t resist snapping this picture as you drive back into Ligny 

Other visiting be aware the museum is also a micro brewery and as the owner has been so kind to open it we felt obliged to purchase several bottles of Ligny Blonde to wash our evening meal down….yum

Our final morning and we headed to Waterloo, although I have been a couple of times before we had two main objectives the museum is been completely rebuilt and upgraded and Hougoumont has now been opened to visitors which was the case on our last visit. As befits such a battle they have an excellent diorama of the battle.

The museum has some interesting stuff although I actually found the little Ligny museum more interesting

A lot of the new museum has been given over to this large life size displays of uniforms. Depicting many of the soldiers which were present. The vast majority of this is modern reproductions. We were also slightly disappointed that the museum has chosen to lean very heavily on technology again nothing is in English and the only way to access is via various apps etc which you have to download…..these actually didn’t work very well.

However, I just couldn’t get bored of visiting Waterloo

We wandered down to Hougoumont, they have spent a lot of money cleaning it up

Some parts are still occupied

But you can get a real feel for the place, the chapel above was the only part of the Chateau to survive the fires of the battle.

The barns are of course very characteristic

As is the surrounding wall, looking from a French point of view 

Finally then a wider view from the Lion Mount across perhaps the most famous battlefield ? Well certainly in Europe.

So there we have it a wonderful week of military history for us both, sharing many memories and learning a lot too. The highlight for both of us was Eban-Emael. Where next, well a trip to the Ardennes seems a likely option. Anybody else visiting after any advice please give me a shout although I can only give you my own biased view.

Thanks as always Matt