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| Notre Dame of Sablon |
K had a business trip to Brussels the week of Thanksgiving. He arrived in Brussels early Monday afternoon, dropped off his luggage at the hotel, and headed into town to see some sights. The hotel was a 10minute walk outside the inner/downtown area, so, with a little guidance from the hotel staff, off he went.
The Palace of Justice was an impressive structure, with large arcades, grand stairways, and a huge inner atrium, topped off with a cupola 100m above street level. Per the guidebook, it took 17years to build.
Next was Notre Dame of Sablon, a gothic church with amazing stained-glass windows. It was a sunny day, so there were splashes of color throughout the building as the sun shone in through the windows.
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| City Hall |
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| Brewer's House |
After walking by the Royal Palace, the official home of the royal family (who knew Belgium was a kingdom?!), K headed to the Grand Place. The square is faced with the 15th-century, gothic City Hall and 17th-century guild houses; an incredible architectural collection. One of the fanciest guild houses was the Brewer’s House, which was open, so K headed in to tour the Beer Museum.
After the museum, K wandered some of the streets around the Grand Place, discovering several other gothic churches, including the Cathedral of Saints Michel and Gudule, a beer store called the Beer Temple, the neighborhoods of Saint Catherine and Saint Gery, and also a little statue, famous world-wide, of a little peeing boy: Manneken Pis. But enough architecture and sights, K was really interested in the beer, so he headed back to the Beer Temple to check out the selection.
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| Manneken Pis |
As Abbey and Trappist ales rank high on K’s beer favorites list, this was his first focus. There are 6 Trappist breweries in Belgium (Achel, Chimay, Orval, Rochefort, Westmalle, and Westvleteren), and five of them distribute their beers fairly broadly, so K had tasted (or at least seen) all of the beers except Westvleteren.
When K and M took beercation 2010 to Belgium, we did a little research. According to the Westvleteren abbey website, their beers are sold exclusively at the abbey store, only after making a reservation by telephone. They’ll only answer one call per month from your telephone. When making the reservation, you register your car’s license plate number. The same license plate cannot return for 60days after the reservation. As this seemed very daunting, we didn’t bother trying for Westvleteren.
So, K was delightedly shocked to find beers from all six Belgian Trappist breweries on the shelf in the Beer Temple. The Westvelteren bottles were noticeably more expensive than their brethren, but available; it seems some Belgian capitalists have recognized the opportunity provided by the Westvleteren abbey’s tight control of supply, and there is a limited resale market. There were two brews for sale, the blonde and the 8, so he purchased one of each; there will be a tasting in the coming weeks/months.
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| Parc du Cinquantenaire |
The next few days were training for work, so no sight-seeing, but Thursday evening, class ended, and K headed back out to see more of Brussels. He headed Esat to visit the Parc du Cinquantenaire; begun in 1880 to celebrate Belgium’s 50th anniversary of independence. 25years later, the park, museums, and triumphal arch were completed.
Heading West back into the old city, he passed through the European Commission area, the capital of the EU. Big, recent office buildings in the heart of Brussels. Apparently, this was a high-rent district prior to the EU, and the government bought-out all the land-owners, razed everything, and built the capital right in the middle of Brussels.
Some further wandering brought K to the Brussels Comic Book Museum, filled with Schtroumpfs/Smurfs, Tintin, and other popular characters.Friday morning, K headed for a whirlwind trip to Brugges. He bought his train ticket at 0759 for the 0800 train; fortunately, the previous train on the platform was 5minutes late, so the timing worked fine. Arriving at Brugges’ train station a little after 0900, K grabbed his guidebook and started walking. For the next 90 minutes, K saw churches filled with art, the city hall with its enormous Belfry, narrow and winding streets, canals, fish markets, almshouses, a convent, and grand squares.
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| Brugges' Belfry |
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| Brugges City Hall |
Little wonder that this “Venice of the North” is a UNESCO world heritage site; it’s very pretty and worth much more time, but there’s no more time on this trip! The walk brought K back to the Brugges’ train station at 1034 to catch the 1035 train to Brussels; followed by a walk in the rain, K arrived back at the hotel at 1156, in plenty of time for the 1200 checkout.
After lunch and a taxi-ride to the airport, K had an uneventful flight and train ride home to Neuchatel, where Major and Minor were waiting for dinner.
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| Thanksgiving in U.S. |
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| Vin cuit |
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| Strasbourg Christmas Market Stop 1: Wine tasting |
Even though Strasbourg is only 3 hours away from Neuchâtel, it took us a bit longer with all the pit stops for M. We made it to Strasbourg just before lunch, and the first Christmas market village we encountered had a Wine and Baked goods theme. (What a wonderful way to start a Christmas market stroll!) After Charlotte and Ken tried some local white wines and M drooled over baked goods, we moved along to the some of the other "villages."
We meandered past the stalls selling candles, ornaments, ceramic houses, and wooden decorations. Most of the town was decorated, and the main streets within the Christmas market region all seemed to have a different decorating theme/style. It was hard not to get into the holiday mood with all the decorations and people enjoying themselves.
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| Choucroute alsacienne |
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| M and Charlotte with Neuchatel Santa |
Every year, the market has a guest country of honor; this year's was Switzerland. It was funny to see a bunch of stalls selling Swiss tchotchkes and selling raclette and fondue. After winding around the stalls, we started to look for lunch. By the time, we got to looking for food we were having trouble meeting the demands of having a vegetarian dish, having Alsatian sauerkraut for K, and the restaurant not being full. Finally, we settled on a restaurant we had seen on our previous trip. K and Charlotte split a double order of Alsatian sauerkraut (choucroute alsacienne) with 6 garnies. Although this sounds like six garnishes, the giant plate of sauerkraut came with 6 different pork preparations (ranging from sausage to pork belly to pork knuckle) and some boiled potatoes.
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| Strasbourg Christmas light display chandelier |
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| Strasbourg marché light display |
After lunch, we meandered once again through the stalls, saw the outdoor ice rink, and went into the cathedral to hear the children's choir sing Christmas carols, primarily in English, and admire the stained glass windows. After getting sort of lost, we found a stall that makes fresh belgian waffles on sticks and then coats them in chocolate. (This was definitely one of M's favorite finds of the day.) Shortly into our late afternoon meander, the daylight was already beginning to wane so the Christmas light displays were coming on. (The street with the chandelier displays was one of the more breathtaking.)
After oohing and aahing at the pretty lights, we headed back to the car and started our drive to Stuttgart. Our original intent was to spend a few hours in Heidelberg (a cute, old college town also known for its Christmas market), but we ran out of time and decided it would be better to save it for another day. After about two hours, we got to Stuttgart, checked into the hotel, and went out to dinner with Charlotte and two guys that work for her.
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| Mercedes Benz Museum |
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| Mercedes Benz Museum Daimler's first motorcycle: 1885 |
The next day, we decided to use the morning to see the Mercedes Benz museum in Stuttgart. We went with Charlotte and one of the guys from dinner the previous night. Drooling over cars is not really our schtick, but we actually quite enjoyed it. The museum was five or six levels and went through the history of car design and the history of the Mercedes Benz company. They had cars/vehicles from the 1880s to 2011.
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| Stuttgart Weihnachtsmarkt |
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| Snow in Neuchâtel |
Lessons learned:
1. Brussels is cobbled. This probably means the sidewalks will last forever and it’s quaint. But after long walks, on constantly uneven surfaces, it gets tiring.
2. In the 14th Century, Brussels was a walled city. The one remaining gate, the Port de Hal, is a castle standing in a small park surrounded by the city. As you walk along busy city streets, it’s a bit surprising to turn a corner and find a castle!
3. For all the fame, Manneken Pis is quite small. If it wasn’t for the crowd around the little Pis boy, K would have walked right by.
