Liege Day 1
After spending a jazz-filled weekend in Luxembourg, our trip moved forward into Liege, Belgium. After our check-in we were given a tour of the city by Professor Guy Janssens. From him we learnt that Liege was a very important city in the history of Belgium. In the 19th century, Belgium had been the 2nd most industrialized country in Europe, after England. At the center of this industrialization process was Liege. It was a very prosperous town with a thriving steel industry. Additionally, it was different from other cities: one of these perceived differences was because of the fact that the city didn’t come under foreign rule until 1795, when the French invaded Belgium. Therefore, the citizens of Liege believed themselves to different. I think that this is a very inane way of differentiating oneself, because eventually Liege like every other city did fall. It doesn’t matter who fell first, or how many times. In the end, each citizen of any city of Belgium is still Belgian first. Nonetheless, the competition between cities exists in every country, and I don’t find it very surprising that the locals in Liege find themselves superior to other cities.
Moving on, we visited a few spots in the city. Amongst them was a mall that was built in 1839. Mr. Janssens informed us that malls in the 19th century were built in rich towns: this was another indicator of the success of the city.
The next place we visited was the Liege cathedral. We learnt that the cathedral was destroyed by the people of Liege themselves to please the French. I found this to be very anti-nationalistic, and contradictory to the pride that the city has of never being under foreign rule until 1795. In fact, it goes to prove how cowardly the city actually was under foreign oppression, and that its sense of being superior to other cities was superficial. Not only that, we also learnt that the people sold the stones of the cathedral, which I believed was another questionable act. However, since I do not know if the citizens were under some sort of duress when they took these measures, I will refrain from passing any comment on this act.
In conclusion, I found the city to be interesting, but not overly exciting. It may have had a very great and glorious past, but currently, the city looks shabby, and poorly maintained. It was an unpleasant surprise to see such poor sanitation and hygiene in the the city, especially after coming from the hyper- clean Netherlands, and Luxembourg. I hope tomorrow holds a greater promise!
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