Advertisement
Published: June 29th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Xmas in Belgium, a grand little adventure? Perhaps....
The trip started via the Eurostar - as smooth and as fast as advertised. Definitely the preferred option over flying where possible - carry your bags on, 5 minute custom’s check on the departure side and simply walk out of the station on the arrival side - brilliant!
Arrived in Brussels and it was time to pick up the hire car - hmm, drivers side on the left, gear stick on the right... i have a very odd feeling about this. And driving on the right side of the road? The little driver within was screaming - You're on the wrong side of the road, WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!! The first day of driving was very deliberate, being so accustomed to the right side of the car being just there outside my window I had to be very aware that it was now a metre or so away and not to take a right hand turn too sharp or stray too far to the right of the road so as to not sheer Saz's half of the car right off when entering a tunnel or some such.... And then, to help
with navigation, it took us a day to work out that Belgian street signs (which are tiny plaques on the sides of buildings by the way, way to make it easy for the out of towners...) are not 30 letters long, ie Rue de la Belliard Mettelgettelstraat, but actually a combination of the French street name (Rue de la Belliard) and the German street name (Mettelgettelstraat). Only minor issues though (I hear Saz laughing mockingly - 'minor'? it wasn't so 'minor' when you blew a gasket over the piss-ant sized street signs and gobbledegook 30 letter street names, ah good times....), and all part of the fun of exploring a new country.
As with most European cities, especially in the town centres - they're old, and Brussels is no exception (goes with the territory I guess, most of these buildings are older than Australia!). Gives a very 'gritty' experience I would say. Brussels was nice enough, but not somewhere I head back to having 'seen it' - it felt rather bleak and dreary, in a public service (headquarters of the European Union etc) dominated city kind of way. Or maybe it was just the middle of winter and everybody
had buggered off for Xmas with the family at the country home...? Manekin Pis (the little boy statue peeing into the fountain and the acclaimed beacon of Belgian cheekiness) was a little disappointing, its all of about only 12 inches high! The fake ones in the gift shop were bigger! The main attractions/cities of interest (well, at least to me) lay outside the capital.
Waterloo was simple but powerful. The monument was erected 10 years after the famous battle in the early 1800's and is simply a huge mound of grassed over dirt (and I mean huge - its 226 steps to the top!) with a massive Lion statue on top to commemorate the dead. The view from the top is spectacular and the surrounding geography is largely unchanged over the past 200 years, so you get a real good feel for the battlefield. Lets just say there would have been nowhere to hide that day, the ground is basically flat and the 'hill' Napoleon supposedly sacrificed his troops on by continually sending them up it into the English guns is little more than a slight incline. Wouldn't have been a pretty sight at all.....
Bastogne is a
little town in the Ardenne forest in the south eastish of Belgium and is famous for its role in thwarting Hitler's last throw of the dice in WW2 - the 'Battle of the Bulge'. Like Waterloo, this would not have been a fun place to be in the winter of 1944. We spent time wandering around the historical centre, the monuments and the town itself, it's still a tiny little rustic town and 'lest we forget' would be the town motto - signs of remembrance are everywhere - but it may just have been the time of year, the battle around bastogne took place over xmas. And I can believe the reports of the severe weather conditions endured that winter - its the coldest I've ever experienced without snow on the ground and the mist/fog that descended around midday was near impenetrable.
Brugge is a fine 'medieval' city. Its story (stop that groaning - knowledge is power): it was a major port city back in the 1200's but the river silted up and everyone just buggered off for about 400yrs and thus the city centre is largely preserved in original form. Spent an enjoyable day just wandering the (cobbled)
streets. We had lunch at a pub that had a separate beer menu for 450 beers - 450!! And the quirky thing about Belgian beers, they all have their very own individual glass that goes with the beer! So the waiter brings out the bottle and a different glass every time you order a different beer. And I was a right b*stard - I didn't drink the same beer twice the whole time we were in Belgium, with 450 (450!!) to choose from why would you?
Antwerp, while we didn't spend a great deal of time there (we were on the prowl for my new bike, muhahaha), seemed to be the funkiest and trendiest place in all of Belgium (ed note: 'in all of' for dramatic effect....). Somewhere I'd like to go back to and spend a day or two, maybe on the way to Amsterdam perhaps?
Advertisement
Tot: 0.046s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 7; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0263s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb