Antoing

HOT.  

I went for a walk early, to beat the heat.  First I walked to the old ruins alongside the canal then up to the castle.  

Nice mural

I discovered these were old lime kilns

An old gatehouse.

The road up to the castle

The main entrance to the castle

And this is what it looks like inside

General de Gaulle spent 2 years studying here

A real Camelot style castle

It is open to the public but not at 8.00 in the morning, and neither was the Tourism office next to the main gate so I didn’t manage to find out what time it is open.  

This evening we were invited to drinks on one of the barges (there are 2 here that over-winter in Diksmuide – only 4 boats here and 3 of them are from Diksmuide, how cook is that!).  It was 30 degrees and I was looking forward to sitting outside under a large awning or in the cool interior of a big barge – WRONG!  That boat has no opening windows and there were 8 of us sitting inside in close proximity and I swear it must have been at least 35 degrees with not even a zephyr to offer relief.  We took along a really good bottle of red wine; they opened a cheap one.  The only other choice was beer or sangria so I chose that – but it was sweet and nasty so I didn’t finish it.  There were quite a few nibbles, which were nice, but we never got offered a second drink – we got served a desert instead.   Odd to say the least, but to each their own, we are all different.

We are staying here for the weekend to watch the Monaco GP and do the laundry, conveniently there is a big clean laundrette just a few yards away.