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Monday 19 December, prehistoric Weris, Radhadesh Castle
Belgium - part VI
Elisabeth & Teije2006-07-19 20:17:38
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New snow has replaced the snow that has disappeared yesterday. It is cold and wet outside and a heavy layer of mist conceals the landscape. We spend the morning doing nothing in our cottage, but there is still so much to see around here that we have to go out, if only for a few hours.
The roads are very slippery today so we have to be careful, especially on the narrow tracks that lead us to the cairns around Weris, which are called dolmen here, and some of the menhirs. This is the southern dolmen with 20 heavy rocks and there are some menhirs standing around it.
The northern dolmen lies in a ditch (maybe excavated in later times?) and on the picture to the right you can see that a special stone with a sort of door in it has been used, or the opening might have been chiseled into that form, we are not sure. But we have never seen a stone like that in a dolmen or cairn, quite unique.
There are also lots of menhirs, standing stones, around this place and we come across a few of them, and the 'Lit du Diable', the Devil's bed, used for (human?) sacrifices some people think. We wanted to do the long walking tour that would take us to most of these ancient sites, but it is so wet and cold that we decide to use the car as much as possible. It is almost impossible to imagine how people could survive here with this kind of weather. The ice age was already long over when people build these ancient monuments but we imagine they had cold winters, too.
We are cold and wet when we drive to Durbuy to have a warm coffee in a warm restaurant. This time we approach Durbuy from above and have a nice view on the castle; it looks more imposing from here than from the village itself.
And we still haven't visited the castle nearest to our holiday park: Radhadesh, or Chateau de Petite Somme. Originally a 13th century castle, it has been completely renovated and is now the headquarters of the Hare-Krishna community of
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See photographs from:
Belgium Gallery
