Belgium: Part 3

My brother and I spent Christmas Eve in Brussels. Tildonk is a little out of the way, so we had to take the train to Leuven, and then another into Brussels.

View over the city

Brussels was... frustrating. There were street signs on the corners pointing towards the various attractions, but we never had much luck. We followed one that pointed down a road to "the Golden Lion", but we never found any golden lions. After failing on that front, we followed another sign towards "the Flower Market". It lead us to a sexual leathergoods shop. We looked amongst the ball gags in the window, but there didn't seem to be any flowers.

Trompe l'oeil facade on a building

Reverse of the building

We had lunch at a restaurant on the Rue des Bouchers. Lonely Planet pretty much calls us mugs for eating there, but we thought it was decent. The waiter gave us a free Belgian beer each for dining there. I faced a bit of a dilemma: I loathe beer - it's revolting, but I'm a New Zealander paying European prices and it was free. I think I can safely say it was the most delicious beer I've ever gagged back.

Shopping arcade

From free beers to three bears

I came to England for several reasons, but one of the main ones was to be able to see more of the world. I'm not very well travelled. But having said that, I'm travelled enough to know a crappy tourist attraction when I see one. Cue the Manekin Pis:

Manekin Pis

To be honest, I don't think it needed the Santa suit. There was no risk of dignity sneaking in anyway. Still, there was a waffle hut a few doors away that sold the best food. If you ever get a chance to see the Manekin Pis, sieze it, then walk straight past the lame statue and order the large waffle with banana, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream. THAT is one of the great sights of the world.

Brussels church

Tower in a Brussels square

La Rotonde, apparently

Brussels street at dusk

Belgium is a country with a wide split between its two main ethnic groups: The Flemish and the Walloons. The Flemish speak a variant of Dutch, and the Walloons speak French. I enjoyed both the languages in Belgium. The Flemish was close enough to German that I could understand the basics, and I held a successful conversation in French (although I had to mime pulling a Christmas cracker, because the people in the shop didn't know them). And if the language was ever a problem, everyone spoke English anyway, with an adorable accent. I think it would be a fun place to live.

Because of the conflict between the groups, everything needs to be labelled in both languages. Take, for instance, the shop we walked past on our evening stroll around Brugge: "Hoorhuis / Spermarie". Don't know what either of those mean - probably a post office or something.

Christmas Day was a good day. Our hosts went all out with the catering:

Flambe!

When I travel to a new country, I tend to judge it with the question: "Would I like to live here?" Our hosts in Belgium seem to have encountered some of the same frustrations that I've encountered in England, but I would have to say "Yes, from what I saw of Belgium, it was really cool". The trip was legen...wait for it....dary.

Okay that's it. Oh, except for this one, the most important:

Tintin! Woot!

Belgium: Part 2

We travelled from Brugge to Brussels, and then to stay with friends of my brother in a town called Tildonk. We stayed there for Christmas. I don't have any pictures of Tildonk, but it was similar to the rural outskirts of Geneva, if any of you know that area.

While staying at Tildonk, we took a day trip to a nearby university town called Leuven. It's a nice place and worth a visit.

Saint Peter's Church, Leuven

The church window from inside

The town hall next to the church is impressive. It's probably hard to see in these pictures, but those are pairs of carved figures standing back-to-back between the windows. The small gables on the roof all had wooden shutters over them. A very striking building.

The late gothic town hall

Late gothic slightly later. When it was lit, it was greater.

The sight that greeted us between the church and the town hall was baffling. There was a long stretch of hanging metal bars, and people would dress up in a bell costume and walk the length, striking the bars. It didn't exactly create a beautiful melody. It was reminiscent of running a lawnmower over a gravel path.

Running of the Bells (I)

Running of the Bells (II)

If you were to summarise the trip to Leuven, it would probably be with the phrase "What the hell?" Beside the bells, we stumbled into some sort of pagan druid dance display. There were also a bunch of old people beating drums, but somehow I only ended up with a picture of the nubile young woodsprites at the front. I've read enough fantasy novels to know that elves don't age, so those old people were just fooling themselves anyway.

Fashion accessories from the House of Bjork

We went to a Pizza Hut around the corner for lunch. As part of my ongoing attempt to get to the core of foreign cultures, I ordered the only exotic looking drink - called a Fristi. The waitress laughed at me because apparently only children drink Fristi, but I'm a cultural anthropologist, so she can get stuffed.

It's strawberry milk, in case you were wondering.

Not bad, actually

We returned to the square outside the Pizza Hut later in the day. They had lit a large mirrorball which looked very pretty in the dusk.

Leuven: A pretty town.

Posts on Brussels and the long-anticipated Norwich trip soon.

Belgium: Part 1

Xander: So where were you? Did you go to Belgium?
Buffy: Why would I go to Belgium?
Xander: I think the relevant question is: Why wouldn't you?

Why wouldn't you indeed? Belgium was great. What a great holiday. We went to Brugge, Leuven, and Brussels. There will be a jillion photos, so I'll break this into parts. Have your imaginary passport ready, here we go...

We caught the Eurostar train to Belgium. I'm trying to keep my footprint as low possible, which is pretty much the only reason that I'm not jetting off to a different European location each weekend. The Eurostar not only has the lower fuel usage of ground travel, but it's also carbon neutral. That's pretty cool. It was a good way to travel. A lot better than air travel. The part going through the Chunnel took 34 minutes, and the total from London to Brussels was about 2 hours. I'm really surprised that it's so quick.

I've changed the template to try and stop Blogger from truncating the photos. If you want, just follow the jump. There are also some pictures there that I haven't linked to on the blog: http://www.jamesmcl.BruggeBelgium.photoshare.co.nz

The ticket to Brussels gives you free travel anywhere within Belgium, so we went straight to Brugge. We had dinner, stayed there for the night, and roamed around. Here's the meal we had. Mine was a fairly average pasta, but my brother had a fantastic scampi dish. We asked the chef and he said it was flavoured with the drink Ricard (it had an aniseed flavour). Note the frites to the left and Belgian beer to the right.

A Brugge square at night

A Brugge sweet shop

Another lit square

Gatehouse over the canal

One of the four windmills on the outer canal

House on the canal

Shop with lights

Organ grinder on the street (those liberal Europeans)

Horse carriage in the main square

Brugge from the belltower (I)

Brugge from above (II)

Brugge from above (III)

Brugge from above (IV)

Another of the windmills

A tower

Buildings on a canal

More houses on a canal

Locals walking among the old buildings

Christmas market

Decorations in the hotel garden

Mirror image in a canal

The reason that Brugge has remained so historic-looking is a little tricky to decern. Centuries ago, people left the city. Lonely Planet is woefully vague on the reason why. Wikipedia is little better, but seems to attribute it to silting of the river. Anyway, they've maintained the appearance in modern times. However, I guess they are still building too:

Cranes on the Brugge skyline

More to follow.

King's Chapel

Okay, it turns out that wasn't my last post before we leave - that was a complete lie. Here are a few shots of King's Chapel in Cambridge from today's walk.

Most of them suffer from my usual problem with Blogger, that they don't fit on the screen correctly. Either click the wider ones, or to see them in a halfway decent size, jump to my Photoshare site at http://www.jamesmcl.kingscollegechapel.photoshare.co.nz/

Stained glass window

The vaulted ceiling

The wider chapel

The organ pipes

Patterns from the stained glass windows

An array of candles

Light flaring through old windows

King Edward's lectern

Candle jar in front of stained glass

Another shot of the wider chapel

The entrance to Queen's College

I can't remember if I've already posted a picture of this, and it's too late at night for me to go trawling back through old posts. Pretend it's new...
The entrance to the classical style Fitzwilliam Museum