Tweet14-05-2010 om 12:39 by Sueli Brodin

There are not many things one can do when standing in a crowded metro train except read the advertisements on the wall or dream away at the names of the stations passing by. When I lived in Paris, the name “Liège” on metro line 13 used to intrigue me. “Why is this metro station named after cork material?”



Metro station "Liège" in Paris

I only learned the existence of the Belgian city of Liège when my husband and I first visited Maastricht and in fact, it was a decisive factor in our choice to settle down here.

The idea of living close to a large city in French speaking Wallonia reassured me in many ways. If finding work in the Netherlands proved too difficult because of my insufficient proficiency in Dutch, I could also try my luck in Belgium.



Liège

And should I feel homesick or the need to escape, it would be easy to hop in the car or on the train or even on the bike and find myself in a more familiar, French orientated cultural environment just across the border.

In fact, in the first years after moving here, I visited Liège fairly often. I enjoyed hearing people speak French around me, discovering new French language books and music, buying French food products which could not be found in the Netherlands, and coming back home with familiar impressions that had reminded me of France. And naturally the Belgian twist made my trips even more special.

The urge to go to Liège came back strongly last Saturday. My parents had returned to Paris on the previous day and after speaking French with them during their week long visit, I felt the need to reposition myself in a French cultural context.



My parents took the highspeed train back to Paris at the new train station in Liège

The video portrait of urban planner Roel Meertens that I saw the same day on the Maastricht Region website further convinced me that too much time had passed since my last visit to our neighbour city in Wallonia. I enjoyed watching the images of the congenial Dutchman as he strolls through the old streets of the city on a sunny Sunday morning, climbs up the picturesque “Montagne de Bueren”, buys a delicious looking piece of (French?) cheese, in French, at the famous market of La Batte, and explains why he finds the place inspiring, why he likes its roughness, and why he thinks children in this cross border region would greatly benefit from better learning each other’s languages.



Dutch urban planner Roel Meertens buying cheese at the Sunday morning market in Liège

When I arrived in Liège, the recent metamorphosis of the area around Place Saint Lambert struck me more than usual and I was taken by its vibrant and cosmopolitan flair. The varied mixture of people of local and foreign origins in the streets, the billboard advertisements for French cosmetic products, the French songs playing on the loudspeakers in the shops and in the pedestrian streets, the sight of typical French chain stores such as Eram, France Arno, 1,2,3 or Pimkie, made me almost believe that I was back in Paris.



New shopping centre in Liège

I even laughed when I recognized the age-old slogan: “Il faudrait être fou pour dépenser plus” in the Eram shoe shop. “Incredible, they haven’t changed it for more than 20 years!”

But unlike in Paris on a Saturday afternoon, I was able to quietly browse through all the books and listen to all the CDs that caught my attention at the FNAC, try out clothes without waiting on line, and even joke with relaxed shop employees.



The FNAC in Liège

I was shocked however to discover that most of the titles on display at the FNAC and the songs I heard in the streets were new to me. I wrote down some names of artists and authors on my notebook, such as the French singing Amadou and Mariam, known as “the blind couple from Mali”, or the winner of the Prix Goncourt 2009, the French-Senegalese Marie NDiaye, and her novel “Trois femmes puissantes”.

As I was standing in a shop, gazing at a lovely purple summer dress that had my name written all over it, I heard a young man next to me comment on the tunic shirt his girlfriend was trying on: “Hmm, elle n’est pas fort cintrée”. His use of the adverb “fort” reminded me that we were in Belgium and made me smile.



Place Saint Lambert in Liège

On the highway back to Maastricht, with my new dress and Gerald de Palmas’ lastest CD in one bag and five Turkish pides for dinner in another, I opened the windows, turned on the radio and heard the cheerful voice of Thomas Dutronc on a Walloon channel singing out loud: “J’aime plus Paris…”

“What’s that happy look on your face?” my husband asked me when I arrived home.

“Liège is only 25 minutes away from here,” I grinned.

Comments

Leave a reply