House and neighbourhood

We live in Wespelaar, a quiet neighbourhood, but within easy reach of all possible shops and services, and only a short distance from Brussels (25 km: one long direct road), Mechelen (12 km, idem), Leuven (13 km, idem) and Antwerp (40 km). You will easily locate the place on any map of Belgium. Wespelaar is a village that is part of a larger commune of some 20,000 inhabitants, called Haacht.

Leuven, internationally probably better known as 'Louvain', is the university town where Michael used to work, full of both medieval buildings, modern campuses and light-industry buildings. Needless, we think, to start summing up all the historically interesting features of the towns mentioned, with their beautiful remainders of the past. Once we have agreed on exchanging homes, we can send a first choice of leaflets and brochures and/or refer you to relevant websites, to help you prepare your stay here. More information materials will be waiting for you in our house. For such internet references: see under Belgium

The house is built in a modern style, with inside as well as outside all building materials visible: bricks and wood and some concrete support elements. All floors and ceilings are in soft pine wood, which prefers walking on socks or slippers indoors (to avoid unnecessary scratches). No plaster or wallpaper is used either. Living-room, kitchen, fire-place, reading-corner and part of the office area are in fact one integrated room-with-many-corners. The fire place is two steps down and can be (and normally is) completely covered with cushions.

(Intervac members find many more pictures of our house in the Intervac database)

Central heating takes care of the colder days. Warm water heating is controled by us through internet, so to be negotiated. and the smallest sun-beam is caught by large windows. The kitchen has all modern electric cooking facilities.The oval-shaped bath downstairs is large enough to contain two adults, but there's a small bath and a shower upstairs. There's a small isolated sauna garden in front of the bathroom window, and from the bathroom you have access to the sauna). The garden behind the house is sufficiently secluded for after sauna-relaxation, and for sunbathing in general. Moreover, the neighbouring gardens are hidden behind high beech hedges.

The 4 bedrooms have resp. 1 large double bed, 1 single bed, a "baby-room" with two small children beds (for the grandchildren) but with an extra spare bed-frame (for which a mattress from the fire-place can be used), and 1 single bed. All beds have new 'latto-flex' systems (a set of separate flexible wooden boards). There's a mezzanine (duplex floor) above the fire-place, where we keep toys and games. We have a good number of English novels.

TV is digital and offers many, many channels: in English (including BBC1 and BBC2 and MTV, BBC World and the American CNN), French, German, Italian and Spanish, and of course several in Dutch, the language we speak here, as this is Flanders, the Flemish (Dutch-speaking) region in Belgium.

The garden is more of a walking and playing park, rather than a vegetable growing garden, but a good deal of berries are there for your enjoyment (June and July are the best months for that).

The neighbours next door (N° 28) and a number of good friends in the neighbourhood) will be pleased to assist you with any questions you might have, but, of course, we will see to it that you have all the necessary information about doctors, chemists, garage, etc.

Our cars are a small red Toyota Yaris Hybrid (automatic) and a somewhat larger, white Toyota Cerso City (with automatic gear). Both run on unleaded petrol. Which of those you could use when you're here will be open for negotiation and depends on whether we ourselves will be travelling by car or not and the exchange partner's driving experience and preference. We conclude a separate car exchange agreement following the Intervac model.

The neighbourhood is very quiet. The garden is to the south-west of the house. The direct neighbourhood already offers a couple of nice lowland walks, in a wood and along the canal nearby. A bit further off, to the other side of Haacht, the river Dyle meanders (the Vikings came this far over this river and were defeated here at the end of the 9th century) with walking paths on both sides.

A rough floor plan of the house can be sent if useful, and here is a location map of the local area.