Een fijne weekend

Hasselt is a relatively quiet city. Clean, low crime, friendly people. The city does a helluva job promoting itself too 'cause there are no huge cathedrals, no beer breweries, no old castles, no winding rivers, yet it attracts a lot of tourists.

The one thing Hasselt is known for is jenever. And they have a festival every year to celebrate it. We missed it last year because this is the week Jim went back to the States to fetch the dog. I didn't even realize there was a festival going on so this year we decided to mark the calendar.

Jenever.

A juniper-flavored, strong, alcoholic liquor from which gin evolved.

It was originally sold as medicine. Of course.

There's even a National Jenever Museum in downtown Hasselt.

We visited it on our very first trip to Belgium.

And this coffee is well worth the €6 per cup it costs :~|

So this festival basically consists of tents and carts set up all around town selling little cups of jenever.

This fountain pictured above with a crowd around it is in downtown Hasselt. It usually circulates water, but during the JeneverFest, it pours out jenever! At least for a little while.

I took this picture on a quiet day since I figured I wouldn't be able to get close to it during the festival. And I was right.

So we tried several flavors . . . pomegranate, lemon, cactus, mandarin-grapefruit, melon & cream, hazelnut & cream, and original. My favorite is the hazelnut & cream (tastes sorta like Bailey's).

Turns out that's Winslow's favorite too. He drank all that!

This - from a dog who won't drink beer or wine.

Ross also came to Hasselt, spent the weekend with us, and made chicken and dumplings!

They were delicious and so was the fried chicken Jim made as a side dish :)

Then on Sunday we drove to Gent and had lunch.