Beer Pilgrims - Day 2

Day II - Thursday - to drudge

Eindhoven Breakfast

The day after we have a dutch breakfast based on toasts with ham, cheese and eggs. Early morning hit of calories. Here we go!

We take a train to Maastricht and then cross the dutch border to Liège.

Liège - Guillemins station was designed in 2009 by the famous catalan architect Santiago Calatrava and it's a huge but light structure, simply beautiful. After few minutes and lots of photos to every single station's corner, my mates wake me up from my ecstasy and take me to the city center.

Packed lunch and quick tour of the city center and it's time to leave again.

Intermediate stops: Namur - Libràmont and finally Florenville, the nearest city to the Abbey of Orval.

City...300 inhabitants maybe (Wikipedia says 10.000...).  There is a Carrefour, well supplied of Belgium good beers (everything under € 1.50), that can provide you a cheap meal.
When you are there take a step to  Les Chocolats d'Edouard and have an hot chocolate or cappuccino and a taste of their pralines. Edouard is one of the best chocolate artisan of Belgium, speaks italian very well and is very friendly and kind.

There are two ways to get to Orval: a bus leaving from Florenville at about 12:20 (back from the abbey at 16:54) or to call a taxi.

We choose a third solution. We walk.
Please make sure you know better the way to go before starting to walk.
Our information was "just go straight in the wood, at the river turn left".

After about 2 hours we finally get to the Orval Abbey.

It is possible to visit the ruins of the old abbey and have a tour inside the structure. There is a small Orval beer museum, with some old bottles and old beer machineries. Unluckily you can not visit the brewery nor the cheese factory, but you can take a look over the walls of the right side of the abbey, through the big windows.


Let's get straight to the point. At about 300 m from the abbey you can find A l'Ange Gardien, the place where you can taste abbey's products. They have the classic Orval 33 cl bottle, for those who don't know, it is an intense aromatic beer with a dry character. We tried a lot of Orval bottles and we noticed some difference between one and another, especially on aroma and bitterness.
We can also find a Orval 33 at least one-year-aged and a draft Orval, restaurant exclusive.

While the draft beer mantains her sister's features, the aged Orval enhances those, with a stronger body and way more intense aroma.
Basically it is a normal Orval bottle, kept a year in a fresh cellar.
We decided to take a crate and store it in our basement for 2014.
Recommended. Actually, once you are there, taste the three variations.

Talking about food we suggest you a giant omelette and a sample of abbey's cheese.

More to come...