A DAY OUT IN THE ARDENNES.

Last Sunday, OutlawDaughter and I, after a botched attempt the week before on account of atrocious weather, took to the Ardennes again for a healthy walk from Rochehaut over Frahan to Poupehan and back. Although the weather channel predicted again rain, a glance at the rainfront radar more or less convinced me that by the time we'd arrive in Rochehaut, our planned point of departure, the worst of the rain would be off to the east.

And so it turned out to be. At 2pm tops we parked our vehicle on the Rochehaut parking lot overlooking Frahan:




... and the few drips that still touched us turned out to also be the last, for the rest of the day.

So we off on a somewhat circular way that would lead us down the hill where Rochehaut (lit. High Rock) sits perched overlooking the Semois valley, to Frahan, thence along the "Crêtes de Frahan" towards Poupehan, and then back via the Roche Gilquin.




The long slope towards the Passerelle de Frahan, a foot bridge spanning the Semois, does not pose any difficulty whatsoever:



Not even 100 meters beyond Frahan's small church a path leads up and to the right towards the Crêtes de Frahan. Here we are at the very beginning of the Crêtes:



Along the well-indicated path, which follows the ridge of what is essentially a long narrow peninsula terminating in Frahan, one encounters a number of peculiar rock outcroppings:








At the base of the "peninsula" the rock formations are so numerous that they are dubbed the "Château de Montragut". This small platform is the highest in the whole complex.





And from there we continued our way to Poupehan. View from the "Chaire à Prêcher" viewpoint:




Beyond the "Chaire à prêcher" we descended gradually, coming along another POV the "Pic du Midi" (not much picky about it btw) and a good ten minutes later we were at the bank of the Semois again. We crossed it and continued our way first due north, then a little to the east, where we passed the POV "Roche Gilquin":




At 6pm we were back in Rochehaut. The twelve kloms took us exactly four hours. It's a pity the sky remained heavily overcast all during the walk, otherwise the sunrays would have revealed the full beauty of an "Eté Indien" in the woods surrounding the Semois meanders, but on the other hand we should perhaps just count ourselves lucky we did not get back soaking wet.

Nite.


MFBB.

FORGOTTEN VALOR FRIDAY.

Time to start a new gig. For fourteen years I have looked with envy at CDR Salamander's Fullbore Friday, and over the past couple of years I began to think of doing something similar on this here humble blog... but with an emphasis on Belgian Army personalities. I will readily admit that the decision to limit myself to what is in effect a small 'demographic' is that, as a keen reader of history, I have always felt that same history has not been especially nice to our military. As a result, public perception, not in the know about a topic that most find generally boring, even when 'martial' countries are involved, has easily accepted the paradigm that Belgian military prowess is nonexistant at worst, and deserving of being the butt of many jokes at best. This new series is meant to provide another view, a view that is, in my opinion, long overdue.

Mark Felton's got a very well made and instructive video on the first person in what I hope will be a long-lived feature here on DowneastBlog. Ladies and Gentlemen, here is Baron Jean Michel P.M.G. de Selys Longchamps, DFC, who during a daring raid in JAN 1943 raided the Gestapo HQ in Brussels with his Hawker Typhoon:





Only eight months after the attack, in the night of AUG 15/16 1943, Captain-demoted-PO for the unauthorized raid Jean de Selys Longchamps flew a mission over Ostend. Hit heavily by flak, he flew back over the Channel only to find out that his landing gear malfunctioned. Upon touching down on Manston airfield's runway his Typhoon crashed and broke in two. The Baron was killed instantly. He was buried with full military honors in Minster-in-Thanet.




Forgotten valor.



MFBB.

THE END OF THE CORDON SANITAIRE AROUND VLAAMS BELANG?

The most iconic image of this week was, for me at least, Belgian King Philippe I shaking hands with Tom Van Grieken, Chairman of Vlaams Belang:





As I wrote earlier this week, Vlaams Belang was the big winner of last Sunday's federal, regional and European elections. "The big winner" with only 18 per cent of the vote in Flanders? Yes indeed, in a hopelessly fragmented electoral landscape like Belgium's, gaining that much, up from about 6 per cent in 2014, is a game changer. Consider the fact that in Belgium, post elections, it is customary that the King has a short meeting with the respective party chairmen and/or -women. Never before was a VB president among those invited. The party was founded in 1977; in all those years, neither King Baldwin I, King Albert II, or King Philippe I received the Chairman of a political entity which has as its main stated aim the abolition of the Kingdom of Belgium and the independence of Flanders. It is true that in 1978 Baldwin I did invite then Vlaams Blok Chairman Karel Dillen - Vlaams Blok being the predecessor of Vlaams Belang - but that Dillen flatly refused to meet the King. Communautarian tensions were far harsher than now and Flemish rights trampled far more, and Dillen would not have been able to sell such a meeting to his base, even if he had wanted to go.

As the years passed by and Vlaams Belang steadily grew, so did the resistance of the traditional parties against what they regarded as uncouth newcomers. After an earlier major victory by Vlaams Blok in 1991, dubbed 'Black Sunday' by Belgium's extreme leftist media, Jos Geysels, Chairman of the Flemish Greens, masterminded the so-called 'cordon sanitaire', an agreement between all traditional parties to never enter in a coalition with the Flemish nationalists. This isolation only helped to make Vlaams Blok more popular in Flanders, and after a kangaroo court ruled Vlaams Blok 'racist' in 2004, the party had to change its name in Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest). In the same year it captured a staggering 24 per cent of the vote in Flanders, in all likelihood because Flemings have a sympathy for the underdog but also, as always, because VB was the only party having the guts to address the incessant flow of welfare money from rich Flanders to poor Wallonia, eternally in the grip of the hopelessly corrupt Parti Socialiste.

Unfortunately, post 2004 the VB's appeal steadily declined. This had several reasons. First of all voter fatigue, as more and more militants got convinced that their efforts were for nothing since the other parties would forever keep VB in political quarantine. Then internal strife, as several high profile people with less impeccable conservative credentials joined, inevitably giving rise to tensions and petty rivalries. But most of all the emergence of another Flemish nationalist party, N-VA (Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie, some kind of Vlaams Belang Lite), which was not subjected to a 'cordon sanitaire'.

It was this party that was a key partner in the federal government Michel I, which was in charge from 2014 until DEC 2018, and which collapsed because N-VA refused to sign the UN Migration Pact. It should be very well remembered that actually, it had every intention to do so. But it was Vlaams Belang which, through a spirited intervention by Filip Dewinter in federal parliament last October, threw the issue on the table, drawing attention to the devastating consequences of 'Marrakesh'. Thereafter, N-VA, its top brass knowing full well that the grand majority of Flemings would never forgive them the signing of the Pact if they ever got to know its contents, made a 180 degree turn and in the blink of an eye became hostile to the idea of sending a delegation to Marrakesh to sign the scam. Things came to a head in early DEC, N-VA stepped out, and a minority government, Michel II, continued.

During last Spring, a serious attempt was made by leftist organizations and all parties to convince the general public that the climate should be the No. 1 issue, not mass migration, but to no avail. As we have seen, last Sunday's elections not only signalled the fact that at least Flemings were not fooled re the real threat to our prosperity and safety, but also that more and more people want the 'cordon sanitaire' gone.

In short, this very undemocratic construction, invented by a petty green tyrant, and maintained by all other parties - who over the years had and have morphed in fifty shades of red, is now cracking. Even though all party bigshots with the exception of N-VA Chairman Bart De Wever started their 'working' week by exclaiming - for the umpteenth time - that they would 'NEVER' cooperate with Vlaams Belang, it is clear that their bases disagree. A staggering 85 per cent of N-VA voters, comfortable majorities of Christian Democratic and liberal ones, and even 40 per cent of the Greens, want the cordon to be shelved. The base knows (far) better than the 'elites' that this monstrosity is undemocratic tout court, but our moral betters still won't listen (yet).

So all of a sudden, it seems that the question is no longer whether the cordon sanitaire will disappear, but when. And as much as our King has annoyed me in the past with his predictable PC stances on a variety of issues, he deserves accolades this week for having shown the guts to grant the Chairman of Vlaams Belang, 32-year old Tom Van Grieken, an audience:





I do not think that the cordon will disappear overnight. Elites can be as stubborn as they are stupid. But that their 28 year old construction is cracking can now no longer be denied. They will now in all likelihood cobble together a freak show of a rainbow coalition and do everything they can to keep VB out, and N-VA will be complicit in this scheme, because its leadership is composed of traitors who promise their base one thing and then proceed to do the exact opposite. Case in point their despicable chairman Bart De Wever, who has been so frantically busy to keep the Right in Flanders divided (an alliance N-VA / VB would be an unbeatable combination) that over the past months I have begun to suspect he is, in fact, a leftist plant.

Continuing to shun the VB will only result in things getting worse (criminality, mass migration and population replacement, islamization), and in time VB will reap the rewards of this. In many towns the party was the biggest one last Sunday, a trend already visible in the municipal elections of last autumn, when support for VB reached very huge scores (40 per cent plus) in towns like Ninove and Liedekerke.

Anyway, Mr Van Grieken had his audience, both this young chairman and the King, it must be said, behaved gentlemanly - call me old fashioned, but I actually like Van Grieken's show of respect by slightly bowing to our sovereign - and the King's gesture in all likelihood is a sign of hope that before long...





... the awful cordon sanitaire will belong to the past.



MFBB.

THANK ALLAH IT'S FRIDAY!

Short film shot from a drone, starring Ghent. Less well known than Bruges, but definitely worth a visit.





I started my engineering studies there in 1984 (and finished them in 1991), and if all goes well, our daughter will start studying there later this year. That'd be a full 35 years later than her old man.

And I ask myself...

.... where the h*ll did these 35 years go???


Hat tip my oldest sister. I just wonder why they left out the Gravensteen or the Lievekaai?

Have a nice weekend.


MFBB.

BAF F-16 DETACHMENT IN JORDAN, SOME PICS.

In early summer, the Belgian government dispatched a small squadron of six F-16 fighter-bombers to an air base in Jordan. Since then, they have been deployed against ISIS targets in both Iraq and Syria. Some non-specified but atmospheric shots:
























All photos courtesy the MoD website.


There's a story to be told here about the F-16s going into battle with the regular ordnance instead of the small diameter bombs (GBU39s) the Dutch Air Force is already using. It seems that, since we do not yet have the SDB's, the ones we use are on loan from the Dutch. When the BAF's start to arrive - they have been ordered, but there seem to be delays in either production or delivery - a corresponding number to the ones used should then be given back. Or so I'm told.

Anyway, I'm not an expert, but the ordnance I see on these pics doesn't seem to be SDB's. I do see a strange grey capped bomb or pod slung under the fuselage center though. Also visible are the sniper pods.


MFBB.

SUNDAY NIGHT ART SNACK: AN AFTERNOON IN BRUGES.

Spent the afternoon with my family and my aunt in Bruges. Some impressions:




The baroque façade of Saint Walburga Church, a former Jesuit Church, now a parish church.

The Basilica of the Holy Blood is a Roman Catholic minor basilica in Bruges, Belgium. The term "Basilica" implies something grand, but this building is actually quite small - that's because it was originally built in the 12th century as the chapel of the residence of the Count of Flanders. It consists of the Chapel of Saint Basil below, in Romanesque style, and the Chapel of the Holy Blood upstairs. The latter, on the photo below, is home to the famous Relic of the Holy Blood, allegedly collected by Joseph of Arimathea and brought to Flanders from the Holy Land by Thierry of Alsace, Count of Flanders.




To the right, there's an elevated altar of some kind where the relic is displayed:



I stepped up the stairs and prayed for what I deemed necessary. Don't worry, it had nothing to do with me personally.



Then it was off to the Groeningemuseum. There's a plethora of Flemish/Belgian works spanning five centuries to be seen there, and I was unable to take a photo of possibly the most famous of them all, a work by Jan Van Eyck, foremost of the Flemish Primitives. I will thus have to resort to just post this internet pic:



The Virgin and Child with Canon Vanderpaele (1434-1436).

Then a magnificent work by François-Joseph Navez (Charleroi 1787 – Brussels 1869), a very successful neoclassicist painter:



Portrait of Théodore Joseph Jonet and his two daughters (1832)



Emile Claus (Sint-Eloois-Vijve, 27 september 1849 - Astene, 14 juni 1924), is considered the most important representative of Belgian Impressionism:



The river Lys at Astene.



And finally the foremost reason we came to Bruges on this sunny Spring afternoon:



A very fine example of Roman Catholic Marian art, the Madonna with Child by Michelangelo, on display in the Church of Our Holy Lady. One of the very few works by the famous Renaissance artist outside Italy. It wasn't until a regular reader, KR, corrected an error in an article by Giulio Meotti two weeks back that I learned of the existence of this breathtaking marble sculpture (shame on me). Unfortunatly, since there's no way of getting closer than 15 feet, and since there's bulletproof glass in front of it, the photo is of inferior quality. But far more decent ones can easily be found.


MFBB.

LOCKDOWN IN BRUSSELS: VLAAMS BELANG VINDICATED.

Since 2 am Saturday morning, Brussels is in a heightened state of alert. State Security "has indications that an attack was planned with guns and explosives". PM Charles Michel has stated that "the threat is grave and very close". The Threat Level is at 4, the highest one. The Brussels metro does not function. Army and police patrol in the city.











For decades the Vlaams Belang has warned of the grave dangers imposed by unchecked immigration and especially from muslim countries.

It's only reward was a "cordon sanitaire", a barrage of insults, anti-racism laws, lawsuits, intimidation campaigns, vandalization of property of its members and party infrastructure, the blocking of ads, exclusion of VB publications on the yearly Boekenbeurs (the national Book Fair), and severe restrictions on the appearance of VB politicians on state-controlled TV stations.

Today, the chickens have come home to roost.


MFBB.

SULTAN ERDOGAN VISITS BRUSSELS: SHOPPING WIFE BLOCKS MAJOR AVENUE, BODYGUARDS RUN AMOK, CHALLENGE BELGIAN STATE SECURITY.

Turkey's would be dictator visited Brussels to attend Europalia, a major annual arts and cultural event highlighting a different country and/or culture each year. This year the focus is on Turkey, and the Belgian state invited Erdogan to the festival. Given the civil war on Turkey's southern border, this was to be more than a cultural visit and talks with the Belgian government, with European Council President Donald Tusk, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, and European Parliament President Martin Schulz were also scheduled. To top it off, a visit to the Belgian King, Philippe I, was also planned.

The Turkish delegation behaved in an appalling way.

Not only was Erdogan his usual arrogant self, holding an impromptu electoral meeting before between 2,000 and 3,000 AKP supporters on top of a tourist hop on/hop off bus adorned with the Turkish flag. How they were able to commandeer that vehicle is beyond me. Anyway, on November 1 there's general elections in Europe and Erdogan used the opportunity to cater to supporters abroad (the Turks here as elsewhere are allowed to vote in Turkish elections, see how wonderfully integrated they are). But to every self-respecting Head of State, it should be crystal clear that, at least outside his or her country, he or she has to maintain a strict neutrality and act as the president of all his subjects. What Erdogan did is simply not done, he should have upheld at the very least a semblance of impartiality. But then his was simply a replay, be it on a smaller scale, of a visit earlier this year in the province of Limburg.



Photo courtesy The Wall Street Journal.

Then his wife found it necessary to go shopping in Brussels' prestigious Louizalaan/Avenue Louise.... with an escort of around 7 black vans with bodyguards, completely blocking all traffic. Thousands of Bruxellois, expats, tourists... suddenly got stuck in their cars, buses, trams because Madam Erdogan needed a handbag or something. It could have been worse for them: those people present in the shops she visited were unceremoniously rushed out:



Visite de Recep Erdogan à Bruxelles, infos en direct



Omen of things to come? Erdogan's sour, ugly bitch of a wife tries to kill Belgian Queen Mathilde with her eyes on the Europalia event. The grey-haired man with the blue tie behind her is the Belgian King, Philippe I.

And then finally, as Sultan Erdogan had his own private army of security officers with him, there were a couple of brushes with Belgian security services and State Security officers. The Turks behaved in an immensely arrogant manner, litterally challenging the Belgian officers. At one point, a Turkish bodyguard crudely shoved a Belgian policeman aside...



... and that was apparently a bridge across the Bosphorus too far. The man was quickly taken in a vise grip and wrestled to the ground. Thereafter things calmed down a little, although tensions between both services remained high during the entire visit, which lasted from 4 to 6 October.


To sum it up, the Turks behaved in a miserable way, absolutely scandalizing their host. I hope that this visit opens many eyes... especially those of still far too many fools who would like Turkey to become part of the EU.



MFBB.

A DAY OUT IN THE ARDENNES.

More precisely in and near Durbuy and around Tellin and Resteigne.






Photo of Durbuy along the Ourthe river, western Ardennes. Taken from the Belvédère, actually a rather crudely designed concrete tower on a ridge overlooking "the world's smallest city" (pop. 400). Mind you, NOT my photo. When my daughter and I had climbed the ridge it appeared that the Belvédère was closed.




Then it was off to Tellin for a walk of about 11 kloms. This photo was taken some 4 kloms from Tellin's centre, on a small terrace overlooking the Lesse valley.




Rock wall in a quarry near Resteigne.




Walking along the Lesse near Resteigne...




Lesse close up.


Nite.



MFBB.

A DAY OUT IN THE ARDENNES.

Sunday, June 7, 2015.

Weather good? Check.

In the mood for a walk? Check.

Daughter also willing to go? Check.

So we off to the Ardennes, more precisely the central part. There's a plethora of good walking guides but I almost always use my trusted Julien Van Remoortere books, and today I picked (two thirds of) a walk near Nadrin, some 7 kloms east of La Roche en Ardenne (La Roche for short).

Somewhere near Grimbiémont, on the N888:





When almost in Nadrin, I took a sideroad in the little village of Bérismenil. If you follow that sideroad for 1.5 kilometer, you arrive at a small spot that's being used as a launching pad for paragliding. I don't do paragliding, but I appreciated the view. That's the tiny village of Maboge down there.




Incidentally, Bérismenil is also the place where in May 1944 a B17 came down. There's a small memorial consisting of a prop of the bomber on a rock pedestal:




A commemmoration plaque has some info on the B-17, which it's crew had christened "The Joker". The plaque explains that most of the crew could bail out and were either able to flee occupied Europe with the help of the Resistance, or where taken captive, spending the rest of the war in some Stalag. At least one crew member though, James Young, the dorsal gunner, perished. IIRC it was his charred remains that were discovered in the wreckage. I suppose that by this time, all of the surviving crew have deceased too. RIP gentle heroes.




Our walk started near Ollomont cemetery:




The view on the road from Nadrin to Filly, looking towards the wooded Ourthe Valley:




Before the Ourthe becomes, well, the Ourthe, there's the Eastern Ourthe, actually called the Ourt, and the Western Ourthe. This is the confluence of the two:




But barely downstream, the river is kept in check by a dam, thus creating a long, narrow horseshoe shaped "lake", the Lac de Nisramont. The crest overlooking the Lac is so wooded that you can barely make out a sliver of water though. Pity, for once trees are ruining the view.




Okay, to the left you can make out the Barrage de Nisramont. I know, the Hoover Dam it ain't.




Pic of La Roche:




No way to escape the (spoils of ) the Ardennes Offensive in the Ardennes. Driving out of La Roche, you can't miss the M10 tank destroyer still holding guard over the town. La Roche was heavily contested between US and German troops in winter 44/45. Now, there's a something to be investigated here. To the best of my knowledge, the Brits did not fight in La Roche. Yet this particular M10 has some kind of commemmoration plaque fixed to its front claiming it belonged to the 51st Highland Division. In which case we should rather speak of a Wolverine, since that's how the Brits referred to their M10's. My best guess is that the town authorities needed an AFV to commemmorate the battle, somehow couldn't get their hands on an American one, and fetched a Wolverine from the 51st Highland Division. Some blokes then painted a white star on the vehicle. I guess I won't be that far off.




As for the M10/Wolverine, it was not a "tank", but a "tank destroyer" - specifically designed to chase and destroy enemy tanks. It was equipped with a 3 inch (76.2mm) gun and was a relatively potent weapon. What you can't see is that the turret is open-topped. This may sound foolish, what with enemy infantry being able to lob grenades in, but somehow this configuration did make some sense. The open top allowed for easy observation by the turret crew in all directions, plus facilitated communication with accompanying infantry. Also, in case the TD was hit, or if a grenade was lobbed in, at least the gunner, commander and loader were able to get out quickly. The driver however...


So. That's all for today. Nite.


MFBB.