Thanks guys. Just if you're wondering why it is called a "waterburgt", look at this closer shot of the castle. It's very typical, the outer wall of the courtyard is also the outer defense, while water prevents attackers from climbing the walls easily. Still, early in it's existence, this castle was defeated. Quite a feat I would say.
I've got a couple more, interesting shots of some other historic places. The following is on top of Eben Emael. You as ww2 buffs should know what that is. I visited the great fortress once more a couple of weeks ago. The top is a beautiful, peaceful place. Here you see gun placements sticking out on top, aimed at France (Belgium was neutral and had to defend against both, Germany and France). Hard to imagine there is 5 km of tunnels below, isn't it?
And while we're at forts and castles, behold, the only 'mountain top build castle' in the Netherlands. The 'mountain' in this case is Heunsberg, a 145 meters high hill in the south. These are the ruins of Castle Valkenburg and is an impressive sight, especially by night. The first part was build in the year 1070, but was later destroyed. The oldest part of the current ruins were build in 1122, to be finally destroyed in 1672.
Okay, last part of the history lesson, we go to mines. The hill of the castle exists of chalk. Chalk under great pressure will change into flint, known here in the Netherlands as Vuursteen or 'firestone'. Flint was used in the prehistoric stone age for all kinds of tools and was very valuable. They mined in under ground and here you see remains of prehistoric 'flint mines' near Valkenburg castle. Here the hill was excavated to make way for a street. By accident these tunnels were unveiled. For many years nobody knew what they were, only recently was it discovered that they are actually very old mines.