A Stop at Waterloo

My friend Briand took a trip to the Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg) with his wife, Erin, a few years ago and talked it up big. They really enjoyed their time there, particularly in Belgium, so I was excited to get there and see a bit of the country myself.

 

My father and I were keeping a pretty open schedule on our trip, but needed to get to Saarbrucken, Germany in a few days time to meet some distant relatives. This meant we had a bit of driving ahead of us to do this since we were up in the Normandy area.

 

We discussed this a bit and decided to head over to Belgium to see the Waterloo area since we had already learned so much of Napoleon while in Paris. It seemed like a no-brainer, to me, to continue on and see the spot of the famed battle.

 

Brian hadn’t recommended this, I’m not even sure he made it there, and I can see why.

 

The hotel we stayed at in Waterloo was less than impressive, the visitor’s center at the battle site was built around the idea that you were well informed and had a good understanding of the players in the fight, and it was all incredibly tacky, touristy and quite boring.

 

Normally I like touristy, in a kitschy sense of the word, but this was nothing like that. This was great-big-senior-citizen-tour-bus touristy. It was nothing like I had hoped by reading a guidebook description and was less than pleased with the wasted time we spent there.

 

The film was poorly done, the museum was lacking, and the panoramic painting of the battle was being renovated, so the only thing really to do was to climb to the top of Lion Hill.

 

Lion Hill commemorates the spot where the prince of Orange was injured during the battle. It offers a nice view of the surrounding fields, which is worth the climb to the top, but know that it’s not an easy climb if you’re out of shape or have issues with heights.

 

My father and I had a brief discussion after seeing the museum and the hill and decided that we just wouldn’t be doing Belgium any justice if we stayed here for another day. It deserved more of our attention, especially after Brian’s recommendation, and we thought it a good idea just to continue on to Germany, via Luxembourg.