I am a bad F1 journalist. When Joe asked what I thought of when I heard the word Chimay, my response was 'beer'. Then I got Jimmy from South Park in my head.

When he told me the correct response was racetrack, I had to admit I'd never heard of it.

Never one to promote willful ignorance, Joe proposed that we swing by the town on our way back from Spa and see if we could complete a lap of the track.

Well, the plan was for a lap, but - like all the best laid plans of mice and men - ours went slightly awry.

We were lapping the circuit blind, using the crash barriers to guide us round what we presumed was the track. Joe had a rough outline of the classic circuit in his head, and as we powered up the main straight, approaching a blind brow, we expected to come upon a swooping right-hander. Instead, we had to slam on the brakes as we came upon a T-junction! Oops.

Turns out the circuit was modified in the 1980s for motorbike races, and we'd made a wrong turn onto the shorter course.

So we completed our high speed triangle, headed back to the start/finish straight, and tried again. This time, we found ourselves on the sort of track that even puts Spa to shame.

The fearsome Chimay circuit recalls the good old days of Spa, when the Masta Kink and Straight saw drivers powering their cars along a narrow road lined with trees and houses. Chimay is comprised of two long straights, high and low-speed corners, and exactly no run-off area worth the name.

You can attempt an overtake between a chapel and a wall, but only if your balls are big enough. If they're not - whose are? - then how about a fast right-hander that runs up a blind hill onto the straight? Just mind the stone buildings on the corner, you wouldn't want to run into one of those.

Oh, and then there are the trees to take into account. Going off line and into the forest is never a good plan. Chimay's hey-day was pre-Armco and catch-fencing, and even the modern safety precautions are rudimentary at best.

In the video at the bottom of this post you can see highlights of the 1972 Formula 3 Grand Prix des Frontieres; the video also includes footage of the support events. The F3 race was won by David Purley.

The only Chimay Grand Prix to be given Formula 1 World Championship status was the 1954 race, won by Prince Bira, who was behind the wheel of the legendary - and beautiful - Maserati 250F.

For more photos of our laps round Chimay, check out my slideshow.

You either love kitsch, or you don't. I'll freely admit that my tastes run to the lawn flamingo end of the tacky scale - if kitsch has a sense of humour, I'm all over it.

One of those long-term plans I've never got round to putting into practice is a US road trip in a pastel '50s Cadillac, stopping off to view such monstrosities as the World's Largest Ball of Twine while doing my utmost to become the World's Largest Kate Walker, courtesy of diner food, breakfast tacos, and all the delicious junk the good ol' US of A has to offer.

So when Joe and I were en route to Spa and he mentioned we had the chance to stop off and check out the world's largest wild boar, I knew it was an opportunity far too good to miss.

He's not the best-looking creature in the world, that much you can say for certain. But wild boars aren't really known for their looks or charm.

Woinic - for that is his name - can be found in the French departement of Ardennes, not to be confused with the Ardennes Forest that plays host to the Belgian Grand Prix.

You can't really miss him. He's right next to a motorway, and stands 10 metres tall, 14 metres long, and 5 metres wide. The shot below gives you a sense of scale - Joe can be seen in the photo.

The boar is the brain child of the presumably mad Eric Sleziak, who spent a decade building and soldering before Woinic was unveiled in 1993. It took 50,000kg of metal, 6,500kg of solder, and 328 bottles of gas to complete the beast.

The snap below, which comes from the information stand, is worth enlarging for a read. It's one of the best-written pieces of tourist info I think I've ever read.