Over twenty years of living in Belgium have made the Ardennes familiar to me. Both the tedium of regular shuttling to and fro between Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg, and many a rainy randonnée through fields and woods have made places like Marche-en-Famenne, Houffalize, Ciney, Rochefort, La Roche en Ardenne and Bastogne literally and metaphorically part of the scenery.
I confess that the Ardennes, when not playing the role of the over-familiar 150 km or so of southward-bound motorway, have often been for me a rather poor substitute for the British hills I always loved to tramp over. All a bit tame, too domesticated, too easy, with villages which seemed rather dour and same-ish (albeit populated by friendly folk partial to fine - but different - walker's beer). Nice, with some excellent detail, but let's say it, a bit boring.
Of course, I was aware that these hills and villages were the scene of what most people call the Battle of the Bulge. On those walks around the wooded hills and valleys, I had encountered many small memorials, roadside plaques and even, in Bastogne for example, the odd bit of memorialised World War Two military hardware. Still, it never really sunk in; the mismatch is just too great: the Ardennes for me are a place of unpretentious charm, unreliable (but unextreme and generally varieties of wet) weather, portly day-trippers, grey stone villages, the odd rock valley, damp forests and rolling agriculture.
