Brussels
This weekend we decided to see how far across Europe we could get in one hit and went to visit our friend Nick in Brussels. It turns out that an eight hour journey is a lot more relaxing and easy to handle if: a) you're not doing the driving; b) you can get up and walk around at any time; c) you have comfy seats and a laptop showing movies; and d) you are travelling at between 250 and 300 km/h! If there was a high speed train out to the lake we'd be there every weekend without question. Just a fantastic way to travel. Especially when the train is on time, clean, comfortable and fairly reasonably priced.
It was a bit of a weekend of high speed actually. Rhett and I left work at noon and had to be back at the flat and pick up the girls so that we could get on the tram to the train station at 12.47. It's normally a 35 to 40 minute drive from work to home, so we pushed on to see if we could make it a little quicker to give us more time. It's a little easier to do this when you're driving on the autobahn. Instead of cruising at 160km/h (100 mph) you just go a little faster! We discovered that the VW Golf will make it over 200km/h, but only just... Needless to say we got back in a record 30min and had plenty of time to pick up our bags and get on the tram.
The train went via Frankfurt where we swapped to another train and continued on to Cologne (Köln). Ruth, Rhett & Josie left us there to spend the weekend admiring the incredible Cologne Cathedral and exploring the downtown cafes and restaurants. We got on a third train and a few hours later were met in Brussels by Nick. Back to his place in a cab where we surprised Keely and her Mum with our arrival and then straight back out again to a great little restaurant a few blocks away.
There's a strange dichotomy at work in Brussels. A city, and a country, famous for its food and beer, and some of the slowest service we've ever seen. We'd been warned by Nick that the restaurant had great food if you could ignore the service, but experiencing it first hand was another thing altogether. It was a very hip and happening little place, cosy without being too crowded and full of a loud and boisterous crowd of thirty somethings (which we fell smack into the middle of as well). Once we'd secured a table it seemed like our waiter was more interested in chatting with everyone in the place than in ever coming over to take our orders. Unfortunately we weren't quite on the ball and when he did arrive with a flourish we only managed to get our drinks order in before he disappeared into the shadows again. Half an hour later after much reminding and nagging from us we got our drinks, minus one of them which took another five minutes and then another 20 minutes later we managed to lassoo him on his way past and get our food orders in to the kitchen. It was actually well worth the wait once the food arrived and even though our waiter was comical in his absence the whole night was really fun. I managed to try 3 different Belgian beers that evening - all of which were outstanding.
The next day was one of mixed missions. There was news that the Battle of Waterloo was being re-enacted that weekend and since Nick and I were history buffs and the girls could think of nothing worse we decided to divide and conquer. We started off following a comic mural trail, wandering the streets of the inner town and stumbling across some fantastic wall art painted by the famous comic book writers that have come out of Belgium.
Asterix & Obelix lead the charge - by Uderzo and Gosciny
There's actually a surprising number of really well known comic book artists that have come from Belgium, including Herge (Tin Tin) and Morris (Lucky Luke - one of my childhood favourites). Uderzo and Gosciny (Asterix & Obelix) are French but collaborated with the Belgians a lot and have a lot of ties to Belgium so I guess they're like the Crowded House of the Belgian comic book world.
At about lunchtime Nick and I headed off, leaving the girls to follow the trail or go shopping (or both), aiming to get a bus for the 20min ride out of town to the site of the most famous battle of all. Waterloo is a tiny little village/town just on the outskirts of Brussels and since the famous defeat of Napoleon there by the combined English and Prussian armies (under the command of Wellington and von Blücher) there have been over 150 different places called Waterloo. And one famous song that was stuck firmly in my head all that day.
We arrived at the visitors centre where you can buy a ticket for the audio visual presentation (pass), the Butte de Lion(awesome), the Panorama(impressive) and a guided tour of the battlefield(pass). We climbed the Butte de Lion which was only built after the battle and dominates the landscape. In fact it's probably more famous now as a visual for the battlefield than the farms and towns of the area.
The Butte de Lion
We also discovered that the re-enactment proper wasn't happening until the next morning and that there would be a smaller skirmish that night at 9pm(have I mentioned that the days are really really long now?). There was an encampment of re-enactors though on the other side of the battlefield from which some intriguing explosions and occasional musket fire was coming so we wandered over there to see what we could find. It turned out to be the English camp and they were drilling for the evening's and next day's battles. It was really quite impressive, during the public hours everything that they do in and around the camp is as close to being like it was in 1815 as they can make it, so there were lots of open fires, linen tents, cool uniforms and very long and heavy muskets. We ended up chatting with some friendly guys from the Essex regiment and found out that there's going to be a huge re-enactment to celebrate the 200 year anniversary in 2015 so Nick and I have made plans that we'll be back in 7 years and take part in it ourselves!
Me with some Prussians
We made it back to the city to catch up with the girls who had been remarkably restrained in their shopping and had a few beers in an outdoor cafe on the square. A great way to relax after a long day in the sun.
All the lovely folks (and beers)!
After another great fun night catching up with Nick, Keely and her mum (and a few more varieties of Belgian beer) we jumped on the ICE train and headed back to Leipzig, happy in the knowledge that we'd indulged in all the right things: history, shopping, art, chocolate and of course beer(I think I sampled 11 different varieties in the end)! We'll be back for sure and try to catch a few more of the murals, buy some more yummy chocolate and hopefully be at the right time of the year to enjoy moules et frites (mussels and fries, with mayo) the Belgian way.
It was a bit of a weekend of high speed actually. Rhett and I left work at noon and had to be back at the flat and pick up the girls so that we could get on the tram to the train station at 12.47. It's normally a 35 to 40 minute drive from work to home, so we pushed on to see if we could make it a little quicker to give us more time. It's a little easier to do this when you're driving on the autobahn. Instead of cruising at 160km/h (100 mph) you just go a little faster! We discovered that the VW Golf will make it over 200km/h, but only just... Needless to say we got back in a record 30min and had plenty of time to pick up our bags and get on the tram.
The train went via Frankfurt where we swapped to another train and continued on to Cologne (Köln). Ruth, Rhett & Josie left us there to spend the weekend admiring the incredible Cologne Cathedral and exploring the downtown cafes and restaurants. We got on a third train and a few hours later were met in Brussels by Nick. Back to his place in a cab where we surprised Keely and her Mum with our arrival and then straight back out again to a great little restaurant a few blocks away.
There's a strange dichotomy at work in Brussels. A city, and a country, famous for its food and beer, and some of the slowest service we've ever seen. We'd been warned by Nick that the restaurant had great food if you could ignore the service, but experiencing it first hand was another thing altogether. It was a very hip and happening little place, cosy without being too crowded and full of a loud and boisterous crowd of thirty somethings (which we fell smack into the middle of as well). Once we'd secured a table it seemed like our waiter was more interested in chatting with everyone in the place than in ever coming over to take our orders. Unfortunately we weren't quite on the ball and when he did arrive with a flourish we only managed to get our drinks order in before he disappeared into the shadows again. Half an hour later after much reminding and nagging from us we got our drinks, minus one of them which took another five minutes and then another 20 minutes later we managed to lassoo him on his way past and get our food orders in to the kitchen. It was actually well worth the wait once the food arrived and even though our waiter was comical in his absence the whole night was really fun. I managed to try 3 different Belgian beers that evening - all of which were outstanding.
The next day was one of mixed missions. There was news that the Battle of Waterloo was being re-enacted that weekend and since Nick and I were history buffs and the girls could think of nothing worse we decided to divide and conquer. We started off following a comic mural trail, wandering the streets of the inner town and stumbling across some fantastic wall art painted by the famous comic book writers that have come out of Belgium.
Asterix & Obelix lead the charge - by Uderzo and Gosciny
There's actually a surprising number of really well known comic book artists that have come from Belgium, including Herge (Tin Tin) and Morris (Lucky Luke - one of my childhood favourites). Uderzo and Gosciny (Asterix & Obelix) are French but collaborated with the Belgians a lot and have a lot of ties to Belgium so I guess they're like the Crowded House of the Belgian comic book world.
At about lunchtime Nick and I headed off, leaving the girls to follow the trail or go shopping (or both), aiming to get a bus for the 20min ride out of town to the site of the most famous battle of all. Waterloo is a tiny little village/town just on the outskirts of Brussels and since the famous defeat of Napoleon there by the combined English and Prussian armies (under the command of Wellington and von Blücher) there have been over 150 different places called Waterloo. And one famous song that was stuck firmly in my head all that day.
We arrived at the visitors centre where you can buy a ticket for the audio visual presentation (pass), the Butte de Lion(awesome), the Panorama(impressive) and a guided tour of the battlefield(pass). We climbed the Butte de Lion which was only built after the battle and dominates the landscape. In fact it's probably more famous now as a visual for the battlefield than the farms and towns of the area.
The Butte de Lion
We also discovered that the re-enactment proper wasn't happening until the next morning and that there would be a smaller skirmish that night at 9pm(have I mentioned that the days are really really long now?). There was an encampment of re-enactors though on the other side of the battlefield from which some intriguing explosions and occasional musket fire was coming so we wandered over there to see what we could find. It turned out to be the English camp and they were drilling for the evening's and next day's battles. It was really quite impressive, during the public hours everything that they do in and around the camp is as close to being like it was in 1815 as they can make it, so there were lots of open fires, linen tents, cool uniforms and very long and heavy muskets. We ended up chatting with some friendly guys from the Essex regiment and found out that there's going to be a huge re-enactment to celebrate the 200 year anniversary in 2015 so Nick and I have made plans that we'll be back in 7 years and take part in it ourselves!
Me with some Prussians
We made it back to the city to catch up with the girls who had been remarkably restrained in their shopping and had a few beers in an outdoor cafe on the square. A great way to relax after a long day in the sun.
All the lovely folks (and beers)!
After another great fun night catching up with Nick, Keely and her mum (and a few more varieties of Belgian beer) we jumped on the ICE train and headed back to Leipzig, happy in the knowledge that we'd indulged in all the right things: history, shopping, art, chocolate and of course beer(I think I sampled 11 different varieties in the end)! We'll be back for sure and try to catch a few more of the murals, buy some more yummy chocolate and hopefully be at the right time of the year to enjoy moules et frites (mussels and fries, with mayo) the Belgian way.
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