Florenville, Lacuisine and Orval Abbey

Leaving Bruges was sad but I was really looking forward to heading to Florenville, the closest town to Orval Abbey, a Trappist Monk Monastery that we had planned to visit.

The train trip to Florenville was uneventful, back to Brussels, change trains at Libramont (nasty little station) and finish at Florenville.

The first misgivings hit when we got off the train in Florenville, walked out of the station to find a taxi and saw…..nothing!

We turned back around and headed to over to the station master to ask about getting a taxi….and he didn’t speak a word of English!!  Not only that but he was not interested in even trying to help us.  We had the name of our hotel written in the phone but he wouldn’t even look at it, all he would say was no!

An elderly couple were also there and came to help, although they also couldn’t speak English, they managed to communicate that there were no taxis and then with a mixture of French, pointing and sign language they managed to give us directions to our hotel.

So off we went, dragging our luggage (and those damned skis!!)

It was actually a pleasant walk, about a kilometre down a lovely country road to the next suburb called Lacuisine and the directions were spot on, we found the place with no problem at all :)

We checked in with no hassle and were immediately upgraded to the best suite they had at no extra charge, told what time dinner and breakfast were being served and escorted to our suite.

The owner asked where our car was and when we told her we had walked from the station, she seemed very shocked as she said “You are on feet!?”

We chatted on the way and she asked where we were from, when we told her Australia she said “And you are now lost here?”  Finally found a French person with a sense of humour!!

We told her we were there to visit Orval and she immediately understood.  Within minutes of her leaving us in our suite the phone was ringing and she was telling us that her husband would drive us out to the Abbey the next day and there would be no need for a taxi….so lovely!!

After a quick unpack we headed down for a drink in the courtyard.  I had my first Trappist beer and while it wasn’t as amazing as the Cherry and Raspberry beers in Bruges, it still had a wonderful unique flavour. 

Since we still had time before dinner we decided to walk back to the station to book our tickets to Paris for the following day.  We walked into the station and there was the station master, sitting behind a glass screen with his arms crossed and glaring at us!  When we spoke he begrudgingly got up and walked to the counter but when we asked for 2 tickets to Paris he said “NO!”, we tried again in very poor French “Deux ticket Paris?”…..”NO!”…I opened my mouth to try again but he beat me to it…”NO!”

Fuck!!!!  We gave up and walked back to our hotel with a plan to go to Google Translate, write our request, have it translated, write it all down and just hand him a fucking note!!

Back at the hotel it was time for dinner and what a surprise that turned out to be!!  A four course meal in a beautiful dining room (if you ignored all the past pets that were scattered around the room in all their taxidermied glory). Nathan has written details of the meal so I won’t go into it again but I will say that although the chef looked like Colonel Sanders he made the best French food I have ever tasted :)

Breakfast the next morning was on a sunlight filled glass walled terrace and the atmosphere and wonderful service made up for the lack of imagination with the food.  Not that there was anything wrong with the food but the standard fare of a European breakfast was quite boring by this point.

After breakfast we wandered back to the train station with our French note PLUS the train number, time and connections that we wanted and then heaved a huge sigh of relief when there was a new station manager on!  He also could not speak English but happily took our note, managed to explain somehow that he was unable to print tickets to Paris but he could get us to Brussels with enough time to get our Paris tickets before the next train arrived…hallefuckinglujah!!!! Florenville is lovely but I was starting to worry that we would have to stay there forever!

Back to the hotel where the owner was waiting to take us out to the Abbey.  What a surprise when he led us over to a beautiful Jag!  There was an elderly couple being dropped at the station on the way and the old man’s response when he turned the key made Nathan and I laugh out loud!  He held up his fist and said “Jag-u-arrrr! Haaw haaw haaw!” 

Maybe you had to be there ;)

Orval Abbey was amazing!  Again, Nathan has written about this so I won’t bore everyone with my version.  There are heaps of pics on my Facebook and they tell the story better than I could anyway.

The only thing I regret is that I didn’t get to taste the Orval Cheese that the Monk’s make…but maybe that’s a good reason to go back :)