Delicious Belgian waffles from a street vendor...
Buildings of Brussels, old and new...
We loved Brussels!!
Migratory Byrds
Showing posts with label belgium. Show all posts
Showing posts with label belgium. Show all posts
Friday, December 28, 2007
Europe, Post 4: More about Brussels
The Atomium (built for Expo '58, it stands 102 metres tall and has an elevator going up the centre column to the top sphere, from where there is a panoramic view of Brussels)...
Delicious Belgian waffles from a street vendor...
Buildings of Brussels, old and new...
We loved Brussels!!
Delicious Belgian waffles from a street vendor...
Buildings of Brussels, old and new...
We loved Brussels!!
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Europe, Post 3: Sunday in Brussels
Christmas greetings from Delft in the Netherlands! Hope you've all had a very special time with your loved ones. This may be the last time we have WiFi for a little while, so even though it's just ticked over into Boxing Day, I'm going to tell you some more about our time in Brussels, Belgium...
On Sunday morning, we set off for the 10am meeting. It was a half hour drive away, just down the road from Waterloo, the site of Napoleon's last battle – and, unlike our Ireland trip, thankfully we had no trouble finding the right place this time!
It was a French speaking meeting, but much of it was translated into English for us by the lady of the house, Valerie. Singing in French was another brand new experience for us, but the important things were just the same. Very special indeed!
Afterwards, we were invited to stay for lunch by Lucien and Valerie, who were very good company and had lots of interesting stories! Valerie was originally from London. For lunch we ate shepherd's pie and cabbage, and trifle for dessert. They invited us to stay for the afternoon so that we could follow them to the 5pm meeting at Lucien's brother's house, 20 minutes away. We were also able to gaze out at the convention grounds from Lucien and Valerie's windows!
During the afternoon, Valerie and one of their sons, Daniel, who lives with them, took us to Waterloo for a look. The Battle of Waterloo took place there on 18 June 1815, when Napoleon was defeated by the Duke of Wellington. Many thousands of men from both sides died during the 10-hour battle. There is now a visitor centre at the base of an impressive monument called The Lion Mound – a 43m-high man-made hill topped with a 28-tonne statue of a lion symbolising England's victory. The Lion Mound is on the spot where it is believed the Prince of Orange was injured during the battle, and it was commissioned by his father, King William I of the Netherlands.
The four of us took a tour around the battle fields in a little bus with an audio commentary playing in three languages. The bus would stop at significant locations while the commentary explained what happened there. It was very interesting, although impossible to comprehend what it must have been like during the battle, and how many people died in those paddocks in the space of a day. The paddocks were quite empty and bleak looking now, due to the winter, but Valerie said it is quite pretty at other times of the year.
The afternoon meeting was much smaller, and was translated for us by Daniel this time. Afterwards, we were invited to stay on for a sandwich tea with the couple of that house, Jean and Leah! Jean did not speak too much English, but Leah's was better and we were certainly able to carry on a conversation and understand each other. It was lovely!
After tea, Jean and Leah's son Lucas, his wife Beatrice, and their two daughters Laetitia (11) and Elise (8), who all live right next door, came over for a visit, along with their adorable new puppy, Precious! They brought with them quite an enjoyable state of pandemonium, as Precious skittered back and forth around the room and under the table, Laetitia enthusiastically ran around the table kissing us all on the cheek (as is the custom), Elise grabbed our hands from our laps and shook them vigorously, Lucas was on the phone as he was on call for his work, and they all chattered to each other in French as well as carrying on a conversation in English with us!!
Luc and Bea, who spoke very good English, then invited us to their house! We had a short and entertaining visit with them but didn't let them give us any food or drink as people had been feeding us persistently all day!!!
All in all, we had a wonderful day and met lots of lovely, kind people! Hopefully we will see many of them again within the next year.
Anyway, I had hoped to get through telling you about Monday as well, but it's past 1am and I would like some sleep! We're off to Germany tomorrow. I'll continue this when I can!
Goodnight!
On Sunday morning, we set off for the 10am meeting. It was a half hour drive away, just down the road from Waterloo, the site of Napoleon's last battle – and, unlike our Ireland trip, thankfully we had no trouble finding the right place this time!
It was a French speaking meeting, but much of it was translated into English for us by the lady of the house, Valerie. Singing in French was another brand new experience for us, but the important things were just the same. Very special indeed!
Afterwards, we were invited to stay for lunch by Lucien and Valerie, who were very good company and had lots of interesting stories! Valerie was originally from London. For lunch we ate shepherd's pie and cabbage, and trifle for dessert. They invited us to stay for the afternoon so that we could follow them to the 5pm meeting at Lucien's brother's house, 20 minutes away. We were also able to gaze out at the convention grounds from Lucien and Valerie's windows!
During the afternoon, Valerie and one of their sons, Daniel, who lives with them, took us to Waterloo for a look. The Battle of Waterloo took place there on 18 June 1815, when Napoleon was defeated by the Duke of Wellington. Many thousands of men from both sides died during the 10-hour battle. There is now a visitor centre at the base of an impressive monument called The Lion Mound – a 43m-high man-made hill topped with a 28-tonne statue of a lion symbolising England's victory. The Lion Mound is on the spot where it is believed the Prince of Orange was injured during the battle, and it was commissioned by his father, King William I of the Netherlands.
The four of us took a tour around the battle fields in a little bus with an audio commentary playing in three languages. The bus would stop at significant locations while the commentary explained what happened there. It was very interesting, although impossible to comprehend what it must have been like during the battle, and how many people died in those paddocks in the space of a day. The paddocks were quite empty and bleak looking now, due to the winter, but Valerie said it is quite pretty at other times of the year.
The afternoon meeting was much smaller, and was translated for us by Daniel this time. Afterwards, we were invited to stay on for a sandwich tea with the couple of that house, Jean and Leah! Jean did not speak too much English, but Leah's was better and we were certainly able to carry on a conversation and understand each other. It was lovely!
After tea, Jean and Leah's son Lucas, his wife Beatrice, and their two daughters Laetitia (11) and Elise (8), who all live right next door, came over for a visit, along with their adorable new puppy, Precious! They brought with them quite an enjoyable state of pandemonium, as Precious skittered back and forth around the room and under the table, Laetitia enthusiastically ran around the table kissing us all on the cheek (as is the custom), Elise grabbed our hands from our laps and shook them vigorously, Lucas was on the phone as he was on call for his work, and they all chattered to each other in French as well as carrying on a conversation in English with us!!
Luc and Bea, who spoke very good English, then invited us to their house! We had a short and entertaining visit with them but didn't let them give us any food or drink as people had been feeding us persistently all day!!!
All in all, we had a wonderful day and met lots of lovely, kind people! Hopefully we will see many of them again within the next year.
Anyway, I had hoped to get through telling you about Monday as well, but it's past 1am and I would like some sleep! We're off to Germany tomorrow. I'll continue this when I can!
Goodnight!
Monday, December 24, 2007
Europe, Post 2: Christmas markets in Brussels
Bonsoir from Brussels (Bruxelles)! It's 8:30pm on Sunday night, and we are sitting in our room at our B&B, having just returned from spending all day out and about. Tonight will be our second and last night here, and tomorrow we will be driving to Delft in the Netherlands. First I'll tell you a bit about our B&B, as the last blog post finished as we were just about to arrive!
We are staying in the home of a lovely couple (the man looks like Carl Barron) who have three young children (two boys and a girl) and two cats (one black and white, and the other gray and arthritic). They all (with the possible exception of the cats) speak English as well as French, and the children are very cute and well mannered in addition to being prone to intermittent periods of non-intrusive shrieking.
Their house is one of many old, tall, narrow houses joined together (i.e. no spaces between buildings) along the entire length of the street, at the top of which is the enormous, grand City Hall. There is nothing on the outside to identify it as a B&B, and the front door is bright blue with a Christmas wreath hanging from it. They have a huge, beautiful Christmas tree in their living room on the ground floor, and were baking Christmas cookies and listening to Christmas carols when we arrived.
If you count the half-levels, our room is actually on the fifth floor! It is a lovely, large room with a view out into the backyards of other houses around the block, and a bookshelf housing a collection of English and French language books – anything from an entire Ellis Peters series to the Half Blood Prince! Add to all this the fact that we have unlimited free WiFi (which we are making the most of to keep you up to date while we can!), and you can see why we have decided that this is the best B&B we have ever stayed in!!!
After we checked in here yesterday afternoon, we somehow managed to spend a couple of hours reading the books on offer and/or napping. We then got rugged up into our warmest clothes, including our snowboarding thermals, and ventured out into the night to explore the Christmas markets. By the way, despite what I said yesterday, we found out that it hasn't actually snowed here recently; it's just that the frost is so heavy it looks like snow!! At this rate we might just be getting a “cold Christmas” rather than a white Christmas!
Anyway, we parked our car on the roof of a 10-storey car park that had a nice view of the city in all directions, including a beautifully lit Ferris wheel some distance away, where we assumed the Christmas markets were. After a short walk, we came across part of the markets, and discovered the following sights and sounds over the next few hours...
* Lots of market stalls - little wooden huts, hung with Christmas lights and decorations, housing displays of various goodies and wares on offer...
* Toys, crafts, baubles, glass ornaments, Babushka dolls, chess sets, clay figurines, little painted wooden boxes, candles, etc...
* Belgian waffles, Belgian fritters (like hot potato chips), enormous woks of potato au gratin (our dinner), assorted handmade chocolates (our entree and dessert), lollipops, etc etc etc!
* Mulled wine (i.e. hot wine with citrus and spices – a delicious European Christmas specialty), various tropical fruit and liquor punches, champagne...
* Huge, stately old buildings and quaint cobbled streets...
* Buskers... one guy playing really nice panpipe music with relaxation-type backing, and an American-Indian-costumed trio playing a couple of bamboo flutes/recorders and 1.5-metre long panpipes!
* ...And the most awesome carousel we've ever seen!
Evidently, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves despite the fact that Brussels doesn't even seem to rate a mention in discussions of Europe's biggest and best Christmas markets – Vienna and Germany must really put on a show!!!!
Following is a little description of the most spectacular and highly pleasant surprise of our evening...
As we walked around a corner and suddenly found ourselves in the incredible Grand Place, the square was packed full of people and an operatic light and sound performance was currently underway! The Grand Place is a very large city square bordered on four sides by huge, amazing old buildings. In the square was a large Christmas tree covered in lights that changed colours, and a life-size nativity scene that included the entire barn. You can see three sides of the square in the panorama shot below. However, the side that I had my back to while taking that panorama had by far the most impressive building of all - the 15th century town hall - which you can see in most of the other photos below!
The costumed performers, professional opera singers, were on one of the balconies of the town hall, singing (according to a sign we saw) a contemporary requiem (not sure on the terminology; does that mean one song or a whole collection?). There were massive speakers so that the music, sound effects and singing filled the huge open space. Coloured spotlights were shining on the performers and the entire building from the far side of the square, which explains why the photos show the town hall with a variety of different colour themes! Anyway, it was wonderfully dramatic and very very impressive!
A panorama showing the other three sides of the square...
A video compilation of the square during and after the performance...
The funny thing was that as we left the markets and started driving home, we finally came across the section with the Ferris wheel, and it looked like that may have been the “real” markets! There is also an ice skating rink somewhere there, but we didn't see it. So perhaps we only saw the fringes after all. :)
Anyhow, I was also going to write about today, which was thoroughly enjoyable in a completely different way, but I feel I have written enough for tonight! I'll be back soon! Please keep the comments coming as we really enjoy hearing from you. :)
Bonne nuit!
We are staying in the home of a lovely couple (the man looks like Carl Barron) who have three young children (two boys and a girl) and two cats (one black and white, and the other gray and arthritic). They all (with the possible exception of the cats) speak English as well as French, and the children are very cute and well mannered in addition to being prone to intermittent periods of non-intrusive shrieking.
Their house is one of many old, tall, narrow houses joined together (i.e. no spaces between buildings) along the entire length of the street, at the top of which is the enormous, grand City Hall. There is nothing on the outside to identify it as a B&B, and the front door is bright blue with a Christmas wreath hanging from it. They have a huge, beautiful Christmas tree in their living room on the ground floor, and were baking Christmas cookies and listening to Christmas carols when we arrived.
If you count the half-levels, our room is actually on the fifth floor! It is a lovely, large room with a view out into the backyards of other houses around the block, and a bookshelf housing a collection of English and French language books – anything from an entire Ellis Peters series to the Half Blood Prince! Add to all this the fact that we have unlimited free WiFi (which we are making the most of to keep you up to date while we can!), and you can see why we have decided that this is the best B&B we have ever stayed in!!!
After we checked in here yesterday afternoon, we somehow managed to spend a couple of hours reading the books on offer and/or napping. We then got rugged up into our warmest clothes, including our snowboarding thermals, and ventured out into the night to explore the Christmas markets. By the way, despite what I said yesterday, we found out that it hasn't actually snowed here recently; it's just that the frost is so heavy it looks like snow!! At this rate we might just be getting a “cold Christmas” rather than a white Christmas!
Anyway, we parked our car on the roof of a 10-storey car park that had a nice view of the city in all directions, including a beautifully lit Ferris wheel some distance away, where we assumed the Christmas markets were. After a short walk, we came across part of the markets, and discovered the following sights and sounds over the next few hours...
* Lots of market stalls - little wooden huts, hung with Christmas lights and decorations, housing displays of various goodies and wares on offer...
* Toys, crafts, baubles, glass ornaments, Babushka dolls, chess sets, clay figurines, little painted wooden boxes, candles, etc...
* Belgian waffles, Belgian fritters (like hot potato chips), enormous woks of potato au gratin (our dinner), assorted handmade chocolates (our entree and dessert), lollipops, etc etc etc!
* Mulled wine (i.e. hot wine with citrus and spices – a delicious European Christmas specialty), various tropical fruit and liquor punches, champagne...
* Huge, stately old buildings and quaint cobbled streets...
* Buskers... one guy playing really nice panpipe music with relaxation-type backing, and an American-Indian-costumed trio playing a couple of bamboo flutes/recorders and 1.5-metre long panpipes!
* ...And the most awesome carousel we've ever seen!
Evidently, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves despite the fact that Brussels doesn't even seem to rate a mention in discussions of Europe's biggest and best Christmas markets – Vienna and Germany must really put on a show!!!!
Following is a little description of the most spectacular and highly pleasant surprise of our evening...
As we walked around a corner and suddenly found ourselves in the incredible Grand Place, the square was packed full of people and an operatic light and sound performance was currently underway! The Grand Place is a very large city square bordered on four sides by huge, amazing old buildings. In the square was a large Christmas tree covered in lights that changed colours, and a life-size nativity scene that included the entire barn. You can see three sides of the square in the panorama shot below. However, the side that I had my back to while taking that panorama had by far the most impressive building of all - the 15th century town hall - which you can see in most of the other photos below!
The costumed performers, professional opera singers, were on one of the balconies of the town hall, singing (according to a sign we saw) a contemporary requiem (not sure on the terminology; does that mean one song or a whole collection?). There were massive speakers so that the music, sound effects and singing filled the huge open space. Coloured spotlights were shining on the performers and the entire building from the far side of the square, which explains why the photos show the town hall with a variety of different colour themes! Anyway, it was wonderfully dramatic and very very impressive!
A panorama showing the other three sides of the square...
A video compilation of the square during and after the performance...
The funny thing was that as we left the markets and started driving home, we finally came across the section with the Ferris wheel, and it looked like that may have been the “real” markets! There is also an ice skating rink somewhere there, but we didn't see it. So perhaps we only saw the fringes after all. :)
Anyhow, I was also going to write about today, which was thoroughly enjoyable in a completely different way, but I feel I have written enough for tonight! I'll be back soon! Please keep the comments coming as we really enjoy hearing from you. :)
Bonne nuit!
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Europe, Post 1: Crawley to Folkestone to Bruges
Bonjour from Belgium! It's 2:15pm on Saturday afternoon and, after spending the night and morning in Bruges, we are en route to Brussels (typing this in the car; will post when I next have net access). Here's what we've been up to so far...
Yesterday afternoon we left Crawley at 4pm, going via Horsham to visit Trev and Sharon and post our assignments. Then we drove to Folkestone, where the Eurotunnel starts. Traffic was good most of the way despite yesterday being one of the busiest days of the year for English roads – heard the figure estimated at 18 million cars full of people travelling home for Christmas etc!!!
Once we reached the Channel Tunnel at 6:20pm, an hour early, we queued up for the self check-in, parked the car and walked into the “Eurotunnel Shopping” building, queued up for over 50 minutes at Burger King (there were two lines of probably 60 people each!!), dashed back to our car in answer to our boarding call, and queued up about four more times before finally driving onto the train. :)
We were parked end to end with other cars, and above us was another layer of the same. Very strange thought to know you are sitting in your car under the ocean floor!! After we popped up in France about 30 minutes later, the fact that it only took about 5 minutes to disembark and get onto a highway seems to point to the validity of the statement that English people simply queue for the fun of it!!
Anyway, after driving for about an hour through France and into Belgium (right-side drive in Europe, by the way – it takes some getting used to so I'm glad only Ben has driven so far!), we arrived at our hostel in Bruges a little after 11:30pm. The weather was very cold but there was no snow or ice on the roads.
We stayed at a nice little place called Art Hostel, which was on a street corner across from a river, a little way out of the city centre. We ended up having our 4-bed dorm all to ourselves, which was good as it was extremely tiny!
This morning, we savoured the feeling of waking up without an alarm clock at about 9am! Then we got ourselves ready, checked out, and had a look through a couple of shops next door. Bought a few little bits and pieces!
After that, we headed into the city centre. Bruges is a very likeable city, with interesting old buildings, cobblestone streets, accommodating people, and lots and lots of delicious-looking food! Many of the tall, narrow buildings have a stepped, A-shaped facade along the line of the roof. Difficult to describe, but refer to the photos!
We found some local markets with a fresh fruit and vegetable section, flower stalls selling Christmas candle wreaths and fresh mistletoe, and lots of clothing stalls! Ben got some socks and a hat, and I got a jumper, some patterned stockings and another hat. :) There was a large fountain with metal sculptures around it near the markets, and the water was completely frozen over! There seemed to be a few gloves frozen into the ice for some strange reason...
For breakfast/brunch, we bought a couple of sweet buns from a bakery, and later on we had some savoury thingies for lunch (my descriptive ability is a bit lacking, sorry!). Also had a yummy slice from another bakery, which had so many delightful treats on offer that it was almost physically painful to choose just one.
After that, we decided to leave for Brussels earlier than originally planned, to give us some free time before we head in to the Christmas markets tonight. We're staying at a B&B for the next two nights, so it will be nice to settle in a bit!
Well, that's all for now; we're coming into Brussels. Oooh, it's been SNOWING here!! Au revoir!
Yesterday afternoon we left Crawley at 4pm, going via Horsham to visit Trev and Sharon and post our assignments. Then we drove to Folkestone, where the Eurotunnel starts. Traffic was good most of the way despite yesterday being one of the busiest days of the year for English roads – heard the figure estimated at 18 million cars full of people travelling home for Christmas etc!!!
Once we reached the Channel Tunnel at 6:20pm, an hour early, we queued up for the self check-in, parked the car and walked into the “Eurotunnel Shopping” building, queued up for over 50 minutes at Burger King (there were two lines of probably 60 people each!!), dashed back to our car in answer to our boarding call, and queued up about four more times before finally driving onto the train. :)
We were parked end to end with other cars, and above us was another layer of the same. Very strange thought to know you are sitting in your car under the ocean floor!! After we popped up in France about 30 minutes later, the fact that it only took about 5 minutes to disembark and get onto a highway seems to point to the validity of the statement that English people simply queue for the fun of it!!
Anyway, after driving for about an hour through France and into Belgium (right-side drive in Europe, by the way – it takes some getting used to so I'm glad only Ben has driven so far!), we arrived at our hostel in Bruges a little after 11:30pm. The weather was very cold but there was no snow or ice on the roads.
We stayed at a nice little place called Art Hostel, which was on a street corner across from a river, a little way out of the city centre. We ended up having our 4-bed dorm all to ourselves, which was good as it was extremely tiny!
This morning, we savoured the feeling of waking up without an alarm clock at about 9am! Then we got ourselves ready, checked out, and had a look through a couple of shops next door. Bought a few little bits and pieces!
After that, we headed into the city centre. Bruges is a very likeable city, with interesting old buildings, cobblestone streets, accommodating people, and lots and lots of delicious-looking food! Many of the tall, narrow buildings have a stepped, A-shaped facade along the line of the roof. Difficult to describe, but refer to the photos!
We found some local markets with a fresh fruit and vegetable section, flower stalls selling Christmas candle wreaths and fresh mistletoe, and lots of clothing stalls! Ben got some socks and a hat, and I got a jumper, some patterned stockings and another hat. :) There was a large fountain with metal sculptures around it near the markets, and the water was completely frozen over! There seemed to be a few gloves frozen into the ice for some strange reason...
For breakfast/brunch, we bought a couple of sweet buns from a bakery, and later on we had some savoury thingies for lunch (my descriptive ability is a bit lacking, sorry!). Also had a yummy slice from another bakery, which had so many delightful treats on offer that it was almost physically painful to choose just one.
After that, we decided to leave for Brussels earlier than originally planned, to give us some free time before we head in to the Christmas markets tonight. We're staying at a B&B for the next two nights, so it will be nice to settle in a bit!
Well, that's all for now; we're coming into Brussels. Oooh, it's been SNOWING here!! Au revoir!
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