Today we are heading Northwest, just past Ghent to stay in the rural village of Landegem. But first, because we can’t check in until after 1pm, we visit the Castle of Belœil. Originally a medieval fortress, the Castle as it stands today was home to the Princes of Ligne since the 17th century, surrounded by formal French gardens in the Versailles style (but of course!). We arrive a little before opening time enjoying the emptiness that allows us to take photos of the stately mansion and surrounding lake.
At opening time, we are the first inside – fortunately ahead of a tour group – phew! – exploring the castle in relative peace. It is a lovely castle, filled with collections of 17th and 18th century art and furniture, as well as a massive library containing over 20,000 rare and precious books covering a wide variety of topics everything from philosophy to science to history to literature.
Unfortunately, no photos are allowed – except in the “selfie” room where at least you can see the wallpaper and fireplace behind me!
We make short work of the castle, arriving back outside to explore the gardens in less than ½ hour. We’d rather be out in the sunshine anyway, and the gardens are expansive with over 60 acres to explore.
At the far end of the gardens, there is some sort of circus or fair set up, which sort of mars some of the beautiful long shots of the huge grand pond from the house and the cool Neptune statue at the end of the pond, but still makes for a fun little exploration – elephants!
From the circus grounds, though the views back to Beloeil are quite gorgeous, as are the other vistas as we finish our circuit around the gardens.
It is almost time for lunch (our time at least) and there is a restaurant here on the property, but everything we read said it wasn’t open until noon. But, the doors are open and there are waitresses in there, so we ask and are lucky enough to be able to have cappuccino on the courtyard in front of the castle.
A little while later, we ask if they are serving food yet, and they say they can – so perfect! All works out well as we have beer and wine on the courtyard and then a lovely lunch of cheese croquettes and garlic shrimp.
Then we are off, driving through the countryside, passing terribly weird sculptures of ants crawling over a white square and what appears to be a melting angel, maybe? Then it is really out into the corn fields before we reach our sweet little upstairs apartment at Butterflies and Bees!
Adorable! In a converted attic, the apartment is very well equipped with a nice seating area, excellent kitchen, 2 bedrooms (ok, the king bed is really in the alcove behind the sofa and closet, but still) and a nice big bathroom. Plus my favorite, the stuffed Teddy Bear that is “Just here for the food.” Yep, my motto. And, as a sweet little bonus, we get fresh eggs every day from the host – as well as 2 bottles of beer as a welcome present. So very nice.
As we are here so early, we decide to head back out to explore the area – passing by the host’s adorable little truck that we have learned they have driven all over the continent, parked next to the house.
The little village is in a really rural area – surrounded by farmland and what appears to be some decent hiking trails. Navigating through the little lanes and other little residential outposts, we follow AllTrails directions to what is definitely NOT a parking area at the confluence of two trails, which could be nice to hike except for all the bicyclists. Oh my! There are tons and tons and tons of bicyclists all over these little narrow trails – that essentially run through the corn fields. Yeah, not a really great comfortable feel. Bummer.
The bonus though was that we were close to the restaurant where we had reservations for tonight, so we went to check that out (yay, a nice big parking lot) and then found another area to hike with a parking lot at a cemetery – but still a parking lot! We took a short stroll down the road, past weird looking crops that turned out to be quinoa – had no idea it looked like that. And then past the old windmill, dated from 1905 when the original wooden windmill (from the 1500s) was destroyed by a storm. In use until 1958, it is now a residence. How cool would that be? To live in a windmill!
Past the windmill we find a nice little loop trail that we mark on our map and save for our walk tomorrow or the next day.
Then we return to the car and Butterflies and Bees for an afternoon apertif.
Later we make our way through the narrow little lanes back to The Barn for our evening meal. Everyone is sitting outside, but it is too hot and sunny for us, so we stay inside – in what is basically our private restaurant as we are alone in there for over an hour with no other clientele. Quiet and cozy, with wonderful service and staff – we started with bread and this great lard spread, then Kroket Van Rundswang (beef cheek croquettes) for me and Vol-au-vent for Ed (which came out beautifully plated, but on the small side, then an entire huge bowl was delivered to the table – no worries on quantity!).
Dinner done, we navigate back to the apartment, past the cows and down the little narrow lanes, to spend a quiet evening with our beer and wine in the cute gnome glasses (that I want to steal).
Andiamo 