Trappist Thanksgiving Day 2 – Achel, Rochefort, and Chimay

Wow! We got busy early this day. About 0900 we drove over to the Westmalle Brewery to see it during the day.

We then drove about 1 hour to Hamont-Achel to visit the Saint Benedictus Abbey. We were able to purchase everything we wanted here (I’ll be posting a few other things on this stop later). This was a nice locale.

After a short tour around the Monastery (and I mean short–not much to see), we drove 2 hours to Rochefort to visit the Abbey of Notre Dame de Saint Remy. This was a very secluded monastery–but we were able to get a few nice photos (again i’ll post a longer blurb on this later).

We were a little ahead of schedule, so we broke out of our Trappist Tour and drove over to Dinant, Belgium (about 20 KM from Rochefort)–this city is home of the Abbey of Leffe (where Leffe beer used to be made) AND the home of the creator of the saxophone. This city is worth a detour if you travel to Belgium … beautiful–even in the rain.

You’ll notice this picture matches the one on the top of my blog — yes, I finally made it to Dinant. From there, it was a short 1 hour drive down to Auberge de Poteaupre close to Chimay where we were staying overnight. My beer for today was a beer made by Chimay only available at this restaurant — it is called the “Chimay Speciale Poteaupre.” A sneaky “witte bier” with hints of coriander and other spices. It is 4.5% alcohol. Before sampling this beer, we had a Chimay Blue along with a cheese tray of all the Trappist Cheeses from Chimay.