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Liege Journals

Tour de Belgium

A July 2004 trip to Liege by ADVENTURERS4

Quote: This is about our Balmoral timeshare experience in Spa, Belgium.

Best Things Nearby:The Tour de France start (2004), Luxemburg City, the underground casemates (2 hours away), grotes (grottos), the underground river tour, the Battle of the Bulge museum, Chateau de Vianden, Maastricht (NL), Marlstone Limestone Caverns, the Spa Monopole tour (in town), Puzzle Planet Maze, and local food specialties were the best things.Best Things About the Resort:It's proximity to a wide range of local activities.Resort Experience:The (Radisson SAS Hotel) Balmoral in Spa is a classy hotel accommodation with the most minimal partial kitchens we have run across. The cooking facility is the size of a computer desk, with a cramped two-bur...Read More

Best Things Nearby:
The Tour de France start (2004), Luxemburg City, the underground casemates (2 hours away), grotes (grottos), the underground river tour, the Battle of the Bulge museum, Chateau de Vianden, Maastricht (NL), Marlstone Limestone Caverns, the Spa Monopole tour (in town), Puzzle Planet Maze, and local food specialties were the best things.

Best Things About the Resort:
It's proximity to a wide range of local activities.

Resort Experience:
The (Radisson SAS Hotel) Balmoral in Spa is a classy hotel accommodation with the most minimal partial kitchens we have run across. The cooking facility is the size of a computer desk, with a cramped two-burner stovetop, minibar fridge, compact microwave, and only the bare necessities to heat and serve one simple meal made by a single cook. Do not plan to store enough food for more than 1 day at a time or conveniently cook in the unit for a family. The JB grocery store at the bottom of the hill is less than 5 minutes away.

Most store employees and over half of the Balmoral staff speak French only, not English. It is far better to speak to the front desk in person than over the phone and find the hotel clerk most fluent in English during your stay to communicate with. There is no auto rental on site. We reserved our car from home and picked it up in Liege, as we were unable to communicate with the Spa rental staff.

The laundry prices at the hotel are exorbitant. The front desk gave us a drying rack for hand-washables, and we found a very clean, reasonable, convenient self-service Laundromat in town: Lavoir de Barisart, open 7am to 10pm at 12 R. de Labattoir (on a quaint side street a couple blocks off the main street).

Ask the front desk at the hotel for a map of Spa! Skip the nearby animal parks. They are a sad disappointment compared to US standards. We really enjoyed our stay, immersing ourselves in the French-speaking culture; sampling the wonderful local specialty foods; and touring the Spa water-bottling plant, local underground rivers in caves, and even the first day of the Tour de France! This is an adventurous destination!