Yesterday was just one of those absolutely gorgeous, perfect fall days. The perfect day for the local nature organization to hold their annual "Walk for biodiversity". The fun thing was, it was right in our city, and part of it included our boys' school and the environment around it! So we biked over to the school (it wasn't easy to convince them to go to school on a Sunday) and signed up for the walk...
The major attraction on the walk was the Park Abbey of Heverlee, below:
This was a Norbertine abbey established in the 12th century and includes fish ponds and a classic medieval herb garden placed on the south facing wall of this building, which creates a warm micro climate perfect for growing medicinal herbs:
At the Park Abbey, there is a very active beekeeper - this is one of the cool places the bees can build their hives, right in one of the old abbey doorways:
The back gate of the Abbey:
After leaving the abbey we were back in the fields heading towards the school.
We also walked through some traditional "holle wegen" - roughly translated: sunken lanes. These are old roads that have been worn hollow through hundreds of years of use:
Saw some sheep along the way:
Also passed by a pair of lovely horses:
And finally ended up back at the boys' school (which used to be a monastery) where they had set up tables on the playground and were selling juice, coffee, beer and wine for the walkers! Hey, that's my kind of biodiversity ;-) and it was a nice treat to drink a cold beer on such a lovely day.
14 comments:
That's a lovely way to spend a Sunday morning. And so nice that we can share it with you vicariously.
What a lovely walk, thanks for sharing.
It certainly was a perfect day for a walk. We went to the forest with Bella and we weren't the only ones. It was almost a traffic jam :)
Beautiful! Love the bees! Let's here it for biodiversity!
What a cool place! It's so interesting to hear what they are doing with these old buildings. The bees in the door are super neat!
What a special Sunday: It's easy to see it was a lovely walk and the annual meeting for biodiversity was held around interesting places. I love walking routes which goes around historic buildings.
This looks fantastic, good weather, family time, a walk through beautiful surroundings, some history! I love the idea of sunken lanes from years of use. And I don't think the boar was wild. I think a family owned it as it was in a yard. Do people let boars run wild?
I just googled wild boars in Vermont and we all know googling is always 100% accurate and there are wild boars in Vermont. But would they be in a yard near a dog? Now I am confused and not sure if it was wild or belonged to someone.
Hmmm, that is weird. I never heard of keeping a boar as a pet either...
I don't do enough walking like this - it looks great.
Wish my son's school looked like that and was next to a nature area! What a lovely walk.
I commented on an older post about the book.
A very special day. A beautiful place to walk through.
Nature, animals and ancient buildings: fantastic!
If you can't find that book tell me and I'll mail my copy to your mother.
I thought I just commented but I don't see it. If you can't find the book tell me and I'll mail my copy to your mother.
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