Aug 24: Tongeren

Tongeren is billed as the oldest city in Belgium. It was an organized settlement at least 200 years before Christ. A fellow named Ambiotrix is documented to have led the natives of the town in a (temporarily) successful defense against a Roman Legion led by none other than Julius (later Caesar) himself. (Of course, Julius Caesar came back a few years later and won the second time. This was in 57 B.C.)

Here is the statue commemorating Ambiotrix, standing on the Tongeren town square in front of the Stadshuis.



Tongeren is pretty far south. It's almost 3 hours from Antwerp, south of Brussels, on the way to Luxemburg. Even so, however, it is still (just barely) inside the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium. It has the traditional bell tower on its primary church, which today is technically a Basilica and not a cathedral since Togeren no longer has its own bishop.



Debbie's back is better but her tummy is upset today. We took a very long, but leisurely, walk around the old city walls, which turned out to be amazingly lengthy! Those walls enclosed a LOT of territory... several square miles. We stumbled across a nice little park with a lake and paddle-boats, and a little zoo with emu and several kinds of deer that we aren't familiar with. No signs. Does anyone recognize this kind of deer?



Below: here are Debbie and DJ taking a load off their feet and wetting their whistles at the local pub inside the Beguinehof. That's them sitting at the table at the corner of the church at the left.



Tongeren is famous because it is one of the few cities in Belgium that has preserved and/or excavated its Roman-era city walls. A tremendous archaeological effort has gone into digging up and discovering the Roman layout, defences, homes, etc. In the process, they've uncovered the medieval walls, too. You can actually tell the difference by looking -- the construction is different.

For example, here is a tower and city gate, built in 1357, part of the medieval wall




Below is the view through the tower gate, showing the steeple of the Beguine church, where Debbie and DJ were enjoying their cold drinks while I took this picture.



Here is another section of the medieval wall.




And another shot of the 13th-century wall, even though this has arches which you normally associate with Roman architecture:



Contrast the construction above, with the tower below, which is part of the Roman wall, built in the second century (the 100's) by the Romans. Also see Debbie's blog for more pictures of the Roman walls.