April 2025. For the first time since 1968, trams ride on the streets of Liège (Luik, Lüttich). Belgium has now five cities with trams: Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, Charleroi and now Liège. And, of course there’s the Coast Tram or Kusttram in West Flanders, with 67 km the longest tram line in the world. Danny and I went to Liège in May 2025, to sample the tram, eat boulet sauce lapin and visit the Public Transport Museum of Wallonia. 

After we tasted the new tram in Liège, it was time for lunch. We had the emblematic boulet à liégeoise or boulet sauce lapin at the Bouletterie Liègeoise at Place du Marché 39. 

Liège meatball

Boulet à la liégeoise consists of large, tender meatballs served in a rich, sweet-and-sour sauce known as sauce lapin. It’s a dish rich in flavoury made from a mix of pork and beef, seasoned with onions, breadcrumbs, and herbs, and then simmered in a sticky, deeply flavourful sauce based on Sirop de Liège—a dark fruit syrup made from apples, pears and dates—along with onions, vinegar, brown sugar, and often raisins or mustard. 

Despite the name, sauce lapin contains no rabbit. Instead, it is named after Madame Géraldine Lapin, née Corthouts, the wife of a Liège tax collector from the early twentieth century.

The dish is traditionally served with a generous portion of Belgian fries and a dollop of mayonnaise, forming a perfect trio of savoury, sweet, and crispy textures. But we opted for potato croquettes. 

Aristocratic

While the boulet may now be considered a staple of everyday Belgian cuisine, especially in Wallonia, it wasn’t always so accessible.

According to Boulettes Magazine, which takes its name from the dish, boulets à la liégeoise actually have an aristocratic past. The first recorded version of the recipe dates back to the 18th century, where it appeared in a manuscript from that period. 

Interestingly, the meat used at the time was veal, a more luxurious choice than the beef commonly used today. 

Historian Pierre Leclercq points out that this dish was originally festive fare, served only by those wealthy enough to afford ingredients like fresh veal, beef fat, mace or nutmeg. Over time, however, as often happens in culinary history, this once-elite recipe trickled down through bourgeois households to become a cherished staple of working-class kitchens.

Boulet v. boulette

There’s even a quirky linguistic twist to the dish’s name. While it’s common to hear people refer to them as boulettes à la liégeoise, purists from Liège will scowl at the phrase. Technically, boulette refers to small minced meatballs in French, whereas boulet—a word not recognised in older culinary dictionaries—has become the accepted local term in Liège for these hefty, saucy orbs. A French mistake, perhaps, but one that now has strong regional roots. Boulet is larger than boulette. A cannon ball is in French boulet de canon. 

So revered are these meatballs that they have their own dedicated brotherhood: the Confrérie du Gay Boulet. Founded by eleven proud locals, the group’s aim is to promote and protect the artisanal quality of boulet liégeois both in Belgium and abroad. 

Members wear elaborate ceremonial outfits—complete with capes, jabots, berets, and wooden spoons—and each year, they award the Boulet de Cristal to the best rendition of the dish in and around Liège. Past winners include Les Terrasses in the city centre, Aux Chandelles in Grivegnée, and Rive Droite in Chaudfontaine.

In short, boulet à la liégeoise is far more than just meatballs in sauce. It’s a dish rich in flavour, history, and local pride—a comforting classic with aristocratic roots, fiercely defended traditions, and a name that tells its own story.

Liégeois (drink)

As a drink we had a local concoction: the liégeois. 

A liégeois is a drink traditionally made with orangeade (or more commonly, these days, orange soda) and grenadine syrup, served unmixed. This drink originates from the red and gold colors of the city of Liège.

Musée des Transports en commun de Wallonie

After we filled our bellies with meatballs, we wandered towards the Musée des Transports en commun de Wallonie or Public Transport Museum of Wallonia.

The museum, located in Liège, showcases a wide range of historic vehicles, including vintage trams, trolleybuses, and buses. It is open to the public from 1 March to 30 November, with weekend and public holiday opening hours beginning at 2 PM.

The museum can be reached via the Hôtel de Police bus stop, which is served by TEC Liège-Verviers lines 3, 6, and 26. A car park and bicycle racks are available for visitors.

Established in 1985 by enthusiast associations seeking to preserve historic transport vehicles, the museum is operated by the non-profit organisation Musée des Transports en Commun du Pays de Liège. 

It houses around forty fully restored vehicles across 3,500 square metres, ranging from horse-drawn carriages to electric trams, trolleybuses, and buses used from 1875 to the present. Among the highlights are three trams from the Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle, Aken) network.

In addition to the vehicles, the museum displays a collection of old destination signs, several cases containing historic transport equipment such as uniforms and coin-operated machines, and a series of scale models representing trams that once ran in the Liège area.

A visit of the museum

From the outside, the museum looks like the Technik-Museum in Kassel in Germany, because it’s situated in the sale kind of residential neighbourhood. 

Inside, we expected something like the Flemish Tram and Bus Museum – Vlaams Tram- en Autobusmuseum (VlaTAM) in Antwerp.

But we can say the Walloon public transport museum is better than its Flemish counterpart. 

Visitors spoke French, Dutch and German. Two visitors came from Japan! An unexpected place to see Japanese people. As was the case with the Japanese family on the Dendermonde – Puurs Steam Railway.

The museum website is multilingual, some signs in the museum as well, but most information is in French, or German.

While were there, remnants of an officially finished Paul Delvaux exhibition were visible. 

Railway and transport museums 

• REVIEW | ‘Belgian Railways Under Occupation: Between Collaboration and Resistance’ at Train World in Brussels.
• REVIEW | ‘Royals & Trains’ exhibition at Train World in Brussels.
• REVIEW | Orient-Express exhibition at Train World, Brussels’ railway museum.
• REVIEW | Train World exhibition ‘From Peking to Hankow: a Belgian adventure in China’.
• PHOTOS | Train World railway museum in Brussels.
• REVIEW | Conservatoire National de Véhicules Historiques & Musée d’Histoire de la Brasserie de Diekirch car and beer museums in Diekirch, Luxembourg.
• A visit of the Flemish Tram and Bus Museum – Vlaams Tram- en Autobusmuseum (VlaTAM) in Antwerp.
• MONTREAL | Exporail – Canadian Railway Museum in Saint-Constant.
• REVIEW | Motion and emotion at the London Transport Museum.
• BAVARIA | Lokwelt – Locomotive World in Freilassing.
• Railway and transport museums (not) to visit.
• Nuremberg Transport Museum / DB Museum. 
• Slovenian Railway Museum in Ljubljana. 
• VIDEO | Mail Rail and The Postal Museum in London. 
• Plans for a steam train heritage service between Brussels and Mechelen shelved.
• PHOTOS | Museo del Ferrocarril de Madrid Delicias railway museum.
• VIDEO | Museu del Ferrocarril de Catalunya – Catalonia Railway Museum in Vilanova.
• REVIEW | Romanian Railway Museum ‘Muzeul CFR’ and Bucharest.
• PHOTOS | UK’s National Railway Museum (NRM) in York.
• PHOTOS | Swiss Museum of Transport Verkehrshaus in Lucerne.
• PHOTOS | Het Spoorwegmuseum – Dutch Railway Museum in Utrecht.
• VIDEO | Return to Spoorwegmuseum Utrecht for the dining car exhibition ‘Tosti’s, truffels, treinen’.
• VIDEO | Stoomtram Hoorn – Medemblik steamtram light rail in Holland.
• Visiting Odense and the Danish Railway Museum.
• Deutsches Museum’s Verkehrszentrum or Transport Centre in Munich.