This week (31) we had a visitor - one of our female half's (many) sisters. So there were a lot of activities, like cruising, but without any doubt talking by far being the most important part of it all... Therefore, no 'normal' blog this week. Next week: back to business again! (CORRECTION: see the next 10 pictures.)

A short story about this week after all. Short because we’ve had the pleasure to entertain a visitor – and therefore week 31’s blog was postponed for a week. Furthermore we’ll skip almost all the pictures of the places we used for an overnight stop. It is very similar to the ones we’ve been during the upstream journey, that’s why. Our visitor arrived at Waulsort on Tuesday the 2nd of August. We left the next day, Wednesday the 3rd. This picture tells everything about the weather that morning…

After the first overnight stop at Dinant we continued our journey the next morning towards Namur. The weather-conditions were a lot better, as proven by this picture.

Namur was left behind on Friday the 5th. On the way in the direction of Huy (Hoei) we were stricken by this gorgeous outlook. After a bunch of boats (including us) has left any given lock we’re always left behind by all the other ones…

Before reaching Huy we had to wait for a long time upstream of this lock. (We forgot the name.) The interesting thing is that only half of the lock (with sliding gates) is in use here. That is visible on the wall: 50% of it got wet -which shows the difference in level- the other 50% remains dry.

After Huy, where we stayed for one night again, we traveled towards Liège (Luik). Close to Huy a nuclear power plant is situated on the bank of the river Meuse.

Before reaching Liège we noticed this former church. It’s an exception, the Belgians do generally maintain their (Roman Catholic) churches. It might be a silent witness of the war.

We arrived in Liège on Saturday the 6th of August, hoping for a space inside its marina. Breasting up proved to be the solution. Phew!

Sunday the 7th we followed, almost immediately after leaving Liège, the Albert Canal. In order to be able to reach The Netherlands one has to descend Lanaye (Ternaaien) Lock followed by rejoining the river Meuse (Maas) again. Perhaps we offered you this picture before, but this one (this version) is too nicely coloured to skip it. The Albert Canal continues its course to the left, eventually ending up in Antwerp (Antwerpen).

Maybe a second time(?), but this is what Lanaye Lock looks on the inside. It’s really, really deep!

Maastricht, and therefore our home country, was reached around 1:00PM, followed by entering its historic city-marina “’t Bassin”. We were lucky to be able to moor where we had moored at the end of last April – of course it’s a lot busier now. Everyone who has been there will know how much we enjoyed our stay in Maastricht – the city tempted us to stay for 4 (expensive) nights. That’s it for this week.