Ardennes in autumn // Travelling with kids

Three family-friendly days in the Ardennes to fill up our tanks and tend to a little hint of Heimweh. A perfect herfstvakantie trip including nature walks, caves, castles and lots of exploring.

I must admit: Sometimes I miss Austria. And I don’t mean the grumpy faces on the Viennese U-Bahn, but rather the green hills of Southern Burgenland where my grandmother lives. And the adventurous feeling of getting lost in the woods on a hike.

So after a very beach-filled summer in Scheveningen we decided to take our kids to the Ardennes in Belgium for their herfstvakantie. A little reminder of what nature looks like back in Austria. You know … “The hills are alive!”

Up in the mountains

When we explained to Sophia, we’d be going to ‘the mountains’, she got overly excited. She even planned on bringing oxygen tanks for us 🙂

Once we left behind the cities on our way, Rotterdam, Antwerpen, Liège, the landscape became hilly, greener, almost too lush for it being end of October. The roads got smaller, winding, flowing through nature, with grey stone houses left and right, a little church here and there. Little villages, quiet, almost trying not to disturb the raw beauty of nature around them.

Fairy tale stay in Soy

Just when the sun set on top of the hills we reached Soy, our little home-away-from-home for the next few days. We stayed at the B&B Au Bord de la Source and got to enjoy a beautiful room, yummy breakfast and charming hosts. A magical place indeed!

Playful nature at Parc Chlorophylle

With the mild autumn weather we got to spend a lot of time outdoors without rain boots, exploring little gems in the area. One of those being Parc Chlorophylle, a natural park for the whole family where you can easily spend half a day or more. The kids loved the nature-themed playgrounds, hiding inside a wooden wild boar, sliding down winding slides, ‘reading’ tree rings and looking for perfect wooden hiking sticks on the ground.

Knight tales of La Roche-en-Ardenne

Later we visited the little town of La Roche-en-Ardenne and its medieval castle up on the hill, another highlight for the girls. The bare walls and open spaces of the old castle were the perfect setting for their imagination running free: Haunting down ghosts, discovering the dungeons and imagining what the cook would have prepared for the big ridder feast.

Grottes de Han: Underground hike into the past

A trip to the Ardennes would probably not be complete without a visit to one of the many grottes. So when the weather looked a little wet for day two, we decided to tour the Grottes de Han, some of the biggest and certainly beautiful caves in Europe. Taking an old tram to the entrance of the caves and learning about the early visitors in the 1800s put a nostalgic touch to the visit. We wondered at the different shapes, colors and certainly the sparkle on the stalactites and stalagmites that cover the caves.

Durbuy: Deliciously small

Before heading back home we took the girls out for dinner in Durbuy, apparently the smallest city in the world, and really it is tiny and cute 🙂 When we walked into Le Fou du Roy, I thought: “Oh, oh, there will be nothing on the menu for our picky eaters :p” But apparently our gourmet children are totally fine with pork roast, goose liver and potatoes, so we finally got to eat a proper grown up meal without pommes frites on the table 🙂 Hooray!

Streetart ralley through Antwerpen

On the way back to Den Haag we stopped for lunch once more in Antwerpen and went on a hunt for some of the colorful stripmuren that decorate the city. A great way to make miles with two rather lazy little walkers 😉

Sometimes it only takes a few days, a weekend even, to refresh, to clear the cashe and see things from a different perspective. We just got reminded, when we miss ‘home’, when my palate is craving a different treat, we’ll just have to drive a couple of hours and can fill up our cups again.

And next time, maybe we’ll bring those (empty) oxygen tanks and actually fill them up with fresh air 🙂

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Evamaria Kulovits