Edinburgh's New Town, with the Nor Loch in the background
My latest adventure: a week-long trip to Scotland with my 3èmes (equivalent of 9th graders)! This was the first school trip I'd be going on where I wasn't actually a student - weird!
Ferry route from IJmuiden, Netherlands to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England
We had quite the voyage to actually get from Forbach to our ultimate destination of Edinburgh...Step 1: Drive from Forbach to IJmuiden, Holland. Step 2: Take a ferry overnight from IJmuiden to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England. Step 3: Drive up to Edinburgh.
After about 6 hours of driving, we arrived in IJmuiden - the closest port to Amsterdam. We boarded the ferry (along with about 1300 other people, plus cars and buses) and shoved off at about 5 pm, due to arrive in Newcastle at 9 the next morning. In light of the recent tragedy involving the ferry which just sunk off the coast of South Korea, it was hard to be completely at ease, but we had a decent time on our journey nonetheless.
Our ferry, the King Seaways
After dinner, some drinks on the top deck and an evening listening to some cheesy on-board entertainment in the lounge, we settled in to our tiny, clunky cabin for the night, eager to disembark and begin the real part of our trip the next morning.
Sunset over the North Sea
We docked and finally rejoined our bus around 10 o'clock, en route for Edinburgh, Scotland with a side-trip to Greenhead, England to break up the day a bit. At Greenhead there's a Roman Army Museum showcasing the life of the Roman soldiers who lived in the area and who were ultimately responsible for the construction of Hadrian's Wall. Artifacts in the museum show everything from clothing to tools and weapons, and there's even a 3D film you can catch which further details soldiers' lives along the wall.
At the Roman Army Museum in Greenhead, England
Begun in 122 AD, Hadrian's Wall was ordered by the Roman Emperor Hadrian with the purpose of creating a barrier between his Empire and the savage barbarians who were living in the northern part of modern-day Great Britain. Running from Newcastle and the North Sea west across the island to Carlisle and the Irish Sea, the wall is about 73 miles long. Originally about 6 feet wide and upwards of 20 feet tall, historians estimate that the wall was composed of some 18 million stones! It's thought that a soldier could hew one stone every 20 minutes, so you can imagine how many man hours it took to get this massive job done.
Traditionally, the boundaries of the Roman Empire were dotted with watch towers and small forts from which soldiers could guard against invaders. As the Empire in its heyday was constantly expanding, it didn't make sense to waste lots of resources constructing concrete barriers at its limits, as the Emperor's control was constantly seeping further past yesterday's established frontiers. Hadrian's Wall, then, was something new for the Empire - for once, they decided to spend lots of effort constructing a boundary that would essentially halt the expansion of Roman territory. While Hadrian claimed that the wall was to keep out the barbarians who lived north of the frontier, modern historians think that he simply wanted to keep his previously idle soldiers busy. Evidence shows that the barbarians weren't particularly menacing towards the Romans and didn't have ambitions of trying to invade Roman territory, partly because the craggy landscape would have made it extremely difficult anyways. Whatever the real motives, ruins of the wall still stand today and are well-preserved in some areas, like those at Walltown Quarry and Walltown Crags in Greenhead.
Crags separate former barbarian lands (left) from the higher Roman controlled area (right)
I had been told that it's quite windy by the Wall, but I severely underestimate the strength of the gusts we encountered on our trek! We had to pass through some sheep pastures on the way up to the top - I was slightly envious of their thick wool coats at that point.
Hiking through a sheep pasture on our way up to Hadrian's Wall
And then after a bit of huffing and puffing, we finally made it up to the top where we could take in the Wall as well as the beautiful panoramic views of the surrounding countryside.
Bracing myself against the insane wind up at the Wall
Hadrian's Wall
Hadrian's Wall isn't quite as high as it used to be, but considering it's nearly 2000 years old it still amazes me that there is anything left at all!
Sitting on a little piece of ancient history - with super fashionable windswept hair, no less!
And for all my fellow Game of Thrones fans (lots of free time in France = binge watching TV shows online!), the series' creator George R.R. Martin has confirmed that The Wall, which figures prominently in the show and protects the realm from the dreaded White Walkers, was indeed inspired by Hadrian's Wall - and this map of the mythical lands from the show bears a striking resemblance to the aforementioned map showing Hadrian's Wall crossing England....some food for thought!
Map of The Wall from Game of Thrones
Springtime is lambing season, and that means you'll see loads of cute little lambs scampering about! I actually couldn't believe how many sheep there were in general - every field and hillside is covered with the fluffy little critters and their baah-ing resonates across the landscape. Farmers actually spray paint either a number or a colored dot on the lambs (and often on the adults as well) so that in case they escape they can be easily identified and returned to their proper owner.
Baaaah!
More sheep facts: black-faced sheep come from Scotland, and white-faced sheep hail from England. Now you know!
In the height of lambing season
Continuing on from Greenhead, we crossed the border into Scotland and arrived in the environs of Edinburgh* later that evening. [*"Edinburgh" does not, in fact, rhyme with "Pittsburgh" - say "ED-in-burr-uh"!] Instead of staying in a hotel during our trip, as in common for field trips in the US, all 39 of us were lodged with Scottish host families in hopes of providing a more authentic cultural perspective - and forcing the students to practice their English, of course!
We stayed in a city called Dalkeith, about a 20 minute drive from downtown Edinburgh. I shared a host family with one of the other English teachers, and we had quite the host mom! Karoline, the tattooed grandma was a chatty spitfire who had a knack for cooking and loved watching Judge Judy reruns. She was quite happy to be welcoming fluent English-speakers, as the past few groups she had staying with her spoke extremely limited English, or none at all. Her trick for communicating with them? She'd jump on GoogleTranslate on her laptop and type them a message! I enjoyed talking with her, even though I occasionally had to ask her to repeat herself because I couldn't get past her thick Scottish accent - if I had issues with it, I can only imagine how our students must have felt upon arrival! All in all, we had at great time at Karoline's and I think the rest of the students enjoyed their home stays as well.
Rachael the Giant!
For our first full day in Edinburgh, we began with a visit to Camera Obscura, a museum of optical illusions. They had all sorts of interactive displays, with things like a mirror maze, human kaleidoscope, magic eye puzzles, and other parlor trick type activities. On the top floor, you go into a dark room (a camera obscura, in Latin) and get to see a live image of the city projected onto a table in the center of the room. Built just for fun in the 1850's by Mary Theresa Short, the device, also called a camera obscura, uses mirrors and lenses to pass a live-feed image of Edinburgh through a periscope and onto a surface in the dark room.
A diagram showing the basic workings of a camera obscura
We had fun checking out all the different exhibits and then the teachers and I headed off to lunch...
My head on a platter!
Not surprisingly, we wound up at a pub - called The Halfway House, it's supposedly Edinburgh's smallest tavern. Of course, we were in search of authentic Scottish cuisine and a refreshing pint, so haggis and hard cider was an easy decision. For the cider bit, the title of this post is the Scots way to say cheers: Slàinte mhath [pronounced: SLANJ-uh VAH] - let's just say we had plenty of opportunities to practice our pronunciation! And what the heck is haggis, you ask? A traditional Scottish sausage, haggis is a mixture of chopped sheep liver, heart and lungs, mixed with oatmeal, suet and lots of pepper, all packed inside a sheep's stomach. I ordered haggis, neeps and tatties: ground up haggis sausage accompanied by sides of mashed potatoes and mashed turnips. Served steaming hot out of the oven, the haggis didn't actually taste too crazy - it had the consistency of lumpy oatmeal and basically tasted like pepper. It wasn't disgusting, but it also wasn't anything I'd expressly order again - but I'm glad I tried it!
Haggis, Neeps & Tatties
Full of traditional Scottish fare, we trotted back up the Royal Mile (the street which runs between Holyrood Palace and Edinburgh Castle) to take a self-guided tour of the latter.
The Edinburgh Castle complex
Perched high above the city on top of Castle Rock, the fortress sits atop the remains of an extinct volcano - it last erupted about 350 million years ago - providing an excellent vantage point on the city and creating a natural defense against invaders.
The Castle's entrance
At the Castle, you can visit the 12th-century St. Margaret's chapel (the oldest building in Edinburgh), the Royal Palace, Great Hall, National War Memorial, and many other structures, including the building that holds the Royal Honours of Scotland (the crown jewels!).
The One O'Clock Gun
At the Castle sits the One O'Clock Gun. Used everyday, it fires at precisely 1:00 pm to serve as a time signal for the city as well as ships at the harbor of Leith and those in the Firth of Forth. An audible signal was preferred as it's often so foggy in Edinburgh that trying to see the time on the face of a clock could be troublesome. And why fire at 1:00? Why not at noon? Well, Scots are known for penny-pinching, and they decided it would be less costly to fire a single shot at 1:00 versus 12 shots at 12:00...
The Dragoon Museum
Buildings at the Castle also house the regimental museum for the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards (aka bagpipers!), and you can go in to listen to bagpipe music from different centuries and admire the crazy kilts and other outfits that these royal musicians wear.
Staring down a cannon into the city
Some of the Royal Armor collection
Many exhibits showcase Scottish military history, displaying royal armor, medals of honor, weapons and other sorts of military paraphernalia, such as Mons Meg, the Castle's infamous cannon. Dating from the 15th century, the cannon weighs over 7 tons and has a 20" caliber, making it one of the largest cannons in the world. First used in sieges, the cannon later was only used for ceremonial occasions until its barrel burst in 1680, permanently retiring the bombard.
Mons Meg can fire cannonballs weighing 330 lbs!
The Scottish flag waving over the city
The theme of our next day in Edinburgh was rather sinister: we visited Mary King's Close and the Edinburgh Dungeon....
Inside Mary King's Close
What's a "close," anyway? In British English, a close is a narrow street along which you'll find private houses or apartments and little shops. Who was Mary King? She was the daughter of Alexander King, a 17th century lawyer who owned multiple properties along the close - closes were usually named after a prominent resident or had something to do with the purpose of the street (ex: Fleshmarket Close was named after the meat market in Edinburgh and the close led to the city's slaughterhouse). Today, Mary King's Close is, quite literally, closed in - parts of the close's buildings were razed to make way for the Royal Exchange and City Chambers which were built on top of it. This close was originally 7 stories tall, and the picture above illustrates just how narrow it was - back in the Middle Ages, I don't think you'd be seeing much sunlight down at the bottom!
The Plague Doctor and his raven-like costume
Due to various factors, closes became quite unsanitary places to live. Overcrowding, unsanitary conditions (people shouting "gardyloo!" would ritualistically empty their chamber pots into the streets twice a day), vermin infestations and lack of clean air helped turn the closes into prime breeding grounds for the plague.
Originally thought to have been caused by "bad air," the plague was actually spread by fleas tagging along on rats who lived alongside the people in the closes. The fleas would jump off the rats and bite the humans, infecting them with one of two types of the plague: pneumonic (in the lungs) or bubonic (in the lymph nodes). Medicine during the Middle Ages wasn't quite as advanced as it is today, and consequently the chance you'd survive the plague once infected wasn't very high. Plague Doctors would treat the sick, dressed in a raven-like costume made of a floor-length leather robe and beaked mask (full of aromatic herbs thought to purify the air they breathed). They believed that this get-up would keep the "bad air" away from them and thus lessen the likelihood of them getting sick. Interestingly enough, it did protect them - from the fleas, not the air! In addition, if your family was sent off to quarantine once infected, a "foul clegner" (or "plague cleaner") would come to your home and burn your belongings in the center of a room, in hopes of cleansing the air and eradicating the sickness. Curiously, the smoke from the fire would make the rats (and their piggy-backing fleas) vacate the area, thus taking the source of the sickness with them. Two interesting instances of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons!
Gardyloo! comes from the French garde à l'eau meaning "look out for the water"
The tour through Mary King's Close gives an interesting look at how people lived on this street between the 16th and 19th centuries - you can check out some small homes and workshops to see just how cramped the people who lived here must have been! But visitor beware: the close is supposedly haunted - our tour guide shared some local legends and spooky locales within the street.
Next stop: the Edinburgh Dungeon! Over the course of an 80-minute tour of a haunted house-like attraction, live actors in period costume lead you through 1000 years of Scottish legend and lore. Each room of the tour has a different theme, from a medieval courtroom to cannibalistic swampland, torture chamber (where I was picked to be locked in a cage!) to anatomy lab. It's really a visit for all the senses: there are rank smells diffused to match the different surroundings, startling sound effects, total darkness, water jets and more. We got quite the education on William Wallace, the body snatchers Burke & Hare, and Half-Hangit Maggie, just to name a few. I won't give away all the surprises - if you're in the city you should check it out yourself!
A print showing witch hangings in Edinburgh during the 16th century
To continue on the same gruesome wave, much like the famous Witch Trials that occurred in Salem back home in Massachusetts, Edinburgh got quite wrapped-up in the 16th century Witch Hunts as well. Many women accused of sorcery were given unfair trials and ultimately sentenced to death: by hanging, being burnt at the stake or drowning in the Nor Loch. In an effort to be "fair," the judges decided that they'd let the Nor Loch decide your fate: the witch's thumbs would be bound to her toes and she'd be thrown into the lake. If she sank, congratulations - you're not a witch! But you're also dead. If she floated, she must be a witch, so they'd burn her at the stake instead. Needless to say, Edinburgh has loads of ghost stories and haunted locations, for those who wish to believe...
Daffodils pepper the hillsides of Edinburgh's Princes Street Garden
The following day, we departed Edinburgh and headed up to the Scottish highlands on our bus. We had a very informative guide named Helen with us for the day, and she imparted much useful - and some useless! - knowledge on me (she must have known I have a penchant for that!). I always find the story behind word origins fascinating, and now I can quickly share two with you:
Blackmail: The infamous 17th century cattle driver Rob Roy MacGregor was essentially the Scottish Robin Hood - he stole cattle from some people and protected the cows of others. Farmers would pay Rob Roy tribute money (like with mob bosses) in order to protect their herds, usually composed of black cows - if they failed to pay, he'd be back to steal the cows in the night.
Posh: The story goes that rich passengers on ships travelling from England to India would write a special request on their ticket - P.O.S.H., short for port out, starboard home. They wanted a cabin on the port (left) side of the ship on their way to their destination, and a room on the starboard (right) side on their return trip in order to stay out of the heat of the sun. And now you know!
Our ultimate destination that day was Loch Lomond, where we were headed to take a picturesque cruise of the lake, but to break up the long drive through the Trossachs National Park, we stopped by the Famous Grouse Whiskey Distillery for an education on the infamous Scottish libation. The particular distillery we visited produces Glenturret Highland Single Malt Whiskey (meaning what's in the bottle came directly from this one place) in addition to supplying spirits for The Famous Grouse Blended Whiskey (whose mixture of whiskeys comes from various distilleries).
Casks of whiskey aging outside the blending room
Not being a huge fan of whiskey, I didn't really have any idea how it was made. I had been on the Heineken Brewery tour in Amsterdam, though, and found that the process of making whiskey was similar to beer-making. The tour brings you through various buildings where the different steps in the distillation process take place, and we had a great guide to explain it all to our group. Unfortunately for our students, he sometimes used complicated words and his Scottish accent somewhat hindered their understanding. English teachers to the rescue! I took turns with another teacher interpreting what our guide had just explained in English and conveying the message to the students in French. Yes, I've been trained to be a medical interpreter, so the principle is the same, but no, I didn't brush up on my bilingual whiskey distillery vocabulary before I came! It was a little stressful at times (when you're not quite sure what some of the fancy terms mean in English, it can be difficult to accurately explain it in a second language!), but all in all I felt confident and am fairly certain the kids at least understood what I was saying more clearly than when our guide spoke!
Towser, the Distillery Cat and Mouse Hunting World Champ
There was a cool statue I saw on the way out of the distillery which payed tribute to Towser the cat. Living to the ripe old age of 24, this cat lived here in the Glenturret distillery where she was on mouse patrol - all the stores of barley which were needed to make the whiskey were very inviting to mice! She's credited as the World's Best Mouser after catching a whopping 28,899 mice during her career and is even mentioned in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Haymish the Highland Bull
Speaking of animals, we took a couple stops during our voyage to Loch Lomond and there happened to be Scottish critters at each rest stop. Besides the omnipresent sheep, we saw the bizarre long-haired, curly-horned Highland cows, sheep dogs and Shetland ponies - I guess we got quite the Scottish farm experience!
A Shetland pony
After one heck of a twisty drive through forested roads in the Trossachs National Park, we finally reached Loch Lomond. Yes, it's that famous Scottish lake from the only Scottish song anyone ever knows (see below)....although why we had to learn it in 3rd grade music class is still beyond me! And no, there's no monster living in this one, unless Nessie came here for spring break too (Loch Ness is about 3 hours further north). A few Scots words that I learned during my travels - and which also appear in the song: loch = lake, bonnie = pretty, attractive or good; braes = hills or small mountains, ben = mountain (ex: Ben Lomond), and gloaming = dusk/twilight.
We made a pit-stop in the town of Luss to get a nice view of the lake before we continued down the shore to hop on our cruise...
Loch Lomond
Quaint cottages line the streets in Luss
After a quick group photo, we finally made it to the boat and set off for our relaxing cruise - the lake was beautiful, despite the overcast weather!
The kids I had the pleasure of teaching and travelling with
Cruising on Loch Lomond
After taking in all the delightful scenery on the lake, we drove all the way back down to Edinburgh for our last night in Scotland. We had a couple hours in the morning the next day to do some souvenir shopping (I was overjoyed to find some Cadbury caramel eggs in a local supermarket, as Easter was coming and I had resigned myself to missing out this year - thankfully I was mistaken!) and even made it over to the National Museum of Scotland, home to Dolly the Cloned (and taxidermied) Sheep.
An exhibit hall in the National Museum of Scotland
Dolly the Sheep, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell
A statue of the terrier named Greyfriars Bobby, who loyally stood watch over his master's grave in the adjacent churchyard for 14 years
After a whirlwind zip through the museum - and a delicious pulled pork sandwich from a restaurant called Oink! for lunch - we packed back into the bus bound for Newcastle where we'd take the ferry overnight again to get back home. By this point we were all exhausted - it had been a very busy trip - and our journey back to Forbach seemed to drag. Ok, it did drag: we left Edinburgh at noon, our ferry left the harbor at 5pm, we docked in the Netherlands at 9am the next morning and didn't make it back to good old Forbach til 6:30pm - over 30 hours after we had left Edinburgh!
Sunrise over the North Sea
We arrived back in Forbach on Good Friday, but it didn't seem much like Easter weekend here by myself. Meike had moved back to Germany to continue her studies earlier in the month, so it's been rather quiet around here lately! I took advantage of the time to catch up on my sleep and begin the arduous task of packing. I only have one week (read: two days) left to work, and then I'm off to Paris to see my friends Lisa and Sam who are coming to visit for a week before we all fly back to the US. I can't believe it's been 8 months already - on one hand, it seems like I've been away from home forever, but on the other I feel like I've just gotten here! In any case, I'm really looking forward to seeing them and highly anticipating my return back home in just under 2 weeks; it's crazy how time flies!
Edinburgh's Memorial to Scottish novelist, playwright and poet Sir Walter Scott
Next stop: Belgium! After meeting up with Meike, we boarded yet another train bound for Brussels, the capital not only of Belgium, but of the European Union as well. Located only an hour and twenty-five minutes away from Paris, Brussels is located in central Belgium, more or less between the country's two main regions: Flanders and Wallonia. To the south of Brussels is French-speaking Wallonia, and north of Brussels is Dutch-speaking Flanders (technically they speak Flemish, or "Belgian Dutch" - I always want to cough after hearing the word 'Flemish'!). Brussels is, in fact, officially a bilingual city, but most people here speak French, and pretty much everyone speaks English as well.
A Map of Belgium
"Belgium" comes from the Latin Gallia Belgica, the name of the Roman province that once existed there. With such ancient roots, Belgium has a rich, albeit bloody, past. Situated between France and Germany, Belgium suffered greatly during both World Wars but today is a melting pot of culture and history.
Musée de la Ville de Bruxelles
Upon arriving in Brussels and checking into our hostel, we headed straight to the Grote Markt/Grande Place/Main Square. Named a UNESCO World Heritage Site, visitors to the Grote Markt are instantly awed by its stunning architecture. Surrounded by guildhalls, the Town Hall and the Breadhouse, the square is incredibly beautiful and a must-see in Brussels.
Town Hall
Not too far from Grote Markt is the most famous boy in Brussels: Manneken-Pis! Known as "Little Pee Man" in Marols (the Dutch dialect dating from the rule of the Habsburgs), Manneken-Pis is a rather unimpressive, 2-foot tall bronze statue of a boy peeing into a fountain. He is one of the famous symbols of the city, however, and there are always throngs of tourists clustered around his fountain (us included!).
The one, the only: Manneken-Pis!
The original statue dates from 1619, but the current version is much newer - since he gets stolen every once in a while, the latest Manneken-Pis was "born" in 1965. (Fret not - the original has been restored and is housed in the Breadhouse for visitors to see...more on that in a minute!) While the exact reason behind this particular fountain is unknown (there are many legends, all including a boy urinating on someone...), statues of this nature were often erected in the Low Countries by the tanners' guilds. The statues would mark a collecting point for urine (poor people could sell theirs to the tanneries) which was used in the stinky process of tanning leather....you learn something every day!
"Manneken-Peace" street art
Manneken-Pis is so well-loved throughout Brussels that the Bruxellois have paid homage to him all over the city - one example is this street mural entitled "Manneken-Peace," although I can't really figure out why!
A selection of all the waffles you could try! (Plus a chocolate version of Manneken-Pis, of course)
Another Belgian staple: waffles! You can't visit the country and not try their delicious waffles - all you can smell while wandering the streets is the aroma of these sweet, sugary pastries! There are apparently multiple types of Belgian waffles, including the Brussels waffle, the Liège waffle, and the stroopwafel. While I don't pretend to be a waffle aficionado, I'm pretty sure we indulged multiple times in the Liège variety. Much to my surprise, the "Belgian waffles" we have in the US aren't anything like those prepared here: Liège waffles are made more from a type of bread dough than actual batter, and inside the dough are little mini sugar cubes which caramelize deliciously during cooking, making for a sweet treat that doesn't need any additional toppings to be enjoyed. Never one to pass up on local cuisine, I of course sampled quite a variety during our 4 day trip! (Although I must say, the plain variety takes the cake - or waffle, as it were!)
Meike's strawberry and chocolate smothered Belgian waffle
Enjoying my waffle with two types of chocolate sauce
Stuffed full of waffles we continued on over to
the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula. Begun as a simple chapel
during the 9th century, the church slowly evolved into a grandiose cathedral
and was finally finished in 1519. While the church is built in the Gothic
style, it lacks the characteristic rose window above the central portal.
The Brussels Cathedral
While the church is beautiful both inside and out, there was a pretty little park situated right in front of it that was covered with daffodils and periwinkle blue flowers. I'm not used to seeing flowers in early March - back home in Massachusetts our yard was still covered with a blanket of snow! - so it was pretty refreshing to get an early taste of spring this year (even if that means an early dose of allergies as well).
Spring has sprung in Belgium!
We were falsely led to believe that the city's art museums were open late the night we were first there - thank you outdated guidebook! In any case, on our way to discover that they were closed we got to see another part of the city which was filled with more little parks and impressive architecture, complete with the Royal Palace.
Palais Royal de Bruxelles
We started our second day in Brussels with a trip to the City History Museum, whose main highlight is a wardrobe showcasing a rotating fraction of the over 800 costumes belonging to Manneken-Pis. For whatever reason, foreign dignitaries visiting Brussels often come bearing gifts - usually a traditional costume from their country for the statue to wear. The statue is regularly dressed (you can view a calendar of when he'll be wearing what) and makes for a unique photo op every time you visit the city - although he happened to be going au naturel the day we were there! He wears military and soccer uniforms, Elvis getups, Santa's red suit, outfits belonging to comic book characters, Dracula's cape...you name it, he probably has it in his closet!
Some of Manneken-Pis' costumes
The rest of the museum showed various crafts produced in the city - lots of ceramics, paintings and textiles. Never one to resist a good pun, I snapped a picture of this vegetable - the translation of "Brussels sprout" in French is chou de Bruxelles, literally "Brussels cabbage"...hence this ceramic cabbage...in Brussells...please try to suppress your laughter at my cheesy joke!
Chou de Bruxelles!
Brussels is an important city on the European scale - it is the capital of the European Union, after all! Consequently, the European Parliament is here, located on the outskirts of the city, so we decided to swing by to check it out.
Flag of the European Union
We had to wait forever to get in to the European Parliament's visitors' center and after all was said and done we were actually pretty disappointed. It's free to get in, so of course it's always packed. We happened to be there on a day where there were multiple school groups clustered all throughout the exhibit halls which explain exactly how the European Parliament works. I had taken European Politics to fulfill a social science requirement in college - it was boring to me then and six years later amazingly I found it equally dry! - so at least I had a bit of a background on how it all works. It was slightly frustrating though, because all of the signs/articles/interactive displays were posted in all the official languages of the EU (somewhere around 24, I think?), making it time-consuming to sift through to find the panel(s) you can understand and nearly impossible when there are kids running around yelling and doing a scavenger hunt for information. In any case, I can now say I've been there, done that...and have no need to ever go back!
Faces of the European Union at the European Parliament building
Next stop: The Atomium! Informally known as "The Eiffel Tower of Brussels," this bizarre building was constructed for the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels and represents an iron crystal magnified some 165 billion times. Random, I know. You can visit five of the spheres, including the uppermost which provides a panoramic view of the city of Brussels, but it was a bit pricey so we decided to just take in the view from the outside instead. Little did we know, we were in for a bit of free entertainment!
At The Atomium
Standing underneath the Atomium, I was looking up to take the following picture when I saw something strange on my camera's screen...
The reason I was looking up in the first place...
Wait, what's that dangling from one of the spheres? It appears to be a paramedic accompanying a litter which is being lowered down from a trap door...
Hmm...
Quite a ways up there!
Then the news showed up...
After a few tense minutes they finally made it to the ground
We weren't able to figure out what exactly was going on, but there was a groaning person inside the litter who was quickly whisked away in an ambulance after making the hazardous journey down to the ground. The news cameras were all over it, but try as we might we couldn't find anything online about what had gone down - more specifically, why didn't they just take the elevator back down? In any case, I'm assuming it was something pretty serious if a perilous exit through a trap door was necessary....
The city's cherry trees were in full bloom - magnifique!
As I mentioned earlier, Belgium has many famous food specialties - chocolate included! Brussels is home to the Musée du Cacao et Chocolat, a museum explaining the rich history linking Belgium and the chocolate-making industry. (Everyone knows Godiva and Leonidas chocolates, I'm sure!) For a small entry fee, you can visit multiple floors dedicated to the journey a cocoa bean makes on its way to becoming a delicious chocolate candy. There are different chocolate chips to sample at various parts of your visit, all made with beans of different global origins and composed of various percentages of cocoa - it was basically like a wine tasting but with chocolate! Signs at each of the tasting stations alerted you to chocolates that tasted earthy, peppery, smoky, etc. - quite the education! The tour ended in the kitchen, where a chocolatière demonstrated how to make pralinés, the famous filled chocolates invented here in Brussels by Jean Neuhaus in 1912. It was a cool museum and a yummy way to spend part of our afternoon!
Our chocolate-making demo
Hats and dresses made entirely from chocolate
Our gastronomic tour of Belgium continued with dinner - a heaping portion of moules frites! The origin? Mussels are cheap seafood common along the Flemish coast, and fried potatoes were often eaten during the Belgian winters when there was limited fresh food available. Put them together and you've got dish that you can find in nearly all Belgian and French restaurants - surveys have shown that in France it's second in popularity only to duck. The mussels are steamed (and also served) in a big pot in one of a variety of sauces. The most common choice, moules marinières, is a mixture of white wine, shallots, butter and parsley - in Belgium they added celery to that mix too. The fries are then double-fried in animal fat, served golden and crispy with a side of creamy dijon mayonnaise to dip them in - no ketchup here! I'm a big fan of mussels, so I took full advantage of this local specialty during a couple of meals.
Moules frites and a glass of crisp vin blanc, mmm!
With two days of vacation left, Meike and I left Brussels bright and early the next morning and headed northeast up to Bruges. Known as "The Venice of the North," Bruges is famous for its wealth of canals, bridges, and medieval architecture - very similar to Amsterdam (minus a few canals), in my opinion. Contrary to Brussels, however, in Bruges the preferred language is Flemish/Dutch or English (not French!). It was actually a nice break for me to go back to speaking English for two days!
Grote Markt, Bruges
Just like Brussels, Bruges also has a main square called the Grote Markt - it's considerably larger than the one in Brussels and has a wider variety of buildings surrounding it. The city itself isn't very large, but you can easily fill two days just wandering along all the canals, eating and checking out its many museums.
Provincial Courthouse in Bruges
The city's most famous landmark is surely the Belfry Tower (Belfort, in Flemish), and you'd really be missing out if you visited the city without climbing all the way to the top to get a bird's-eye view of your surroundings. After a brief wait to get inside the building (only 70 people can be in the tower at any given time), a very steep and narrow staircase with 366 steps awaits! Thankfully there are various rooms to take a break in on the way up - one which formerly contained the city's archives, one containing the music box type drum which runs the bells, and the bell room/observatory itself.
Belfort (the famous Belfry Tower)
The earliest parts of the tower which stands today date from 1280, with the more recent parts at the very top dating from the 1820's. Historically, the tower was used as a library for archives, a watchtower for fires, and of course its bells helped regulate daily life in the city. Different tones were rung to announce everything from the start and end of work shifts, fire alarms, various religious, social and political events, and of course the time. Believe it or not, the bells have rung at least every 15 minutes for the past seven and a half centuries!
The "music box" inside the bell tower
The room with the massive drum which controls the melody of the bells was really interesting. Gears, pulleys, levers, ropes and wires all formed a head-spinning contraption to control the 47 bells which ring in the room above. The music box can be programmed to play different songs - on the metal drum are pegs (one column of pegs for each bell) which are arranged to lift hammers in a certain order, and thus ring the bells in song. The song is changed every two years just to spice things up! We happened to be in the music box room when the drum started moving and the bells began to ring - quite the noisy spectacle!
Inside the bell room, looking up into the ensemble of engineering rigged up to ring them all
We didn't get the chance to hear the bells from the upper bell room, but the video below gives you a good idea of how all the machinery works to ring the bells, quite impressive!
And of course the view from the top makes all the steps worth it! Here's what the city looks like when you're perched 83 meters (nearly 275 feet) up off the ground...
Canals wind through the medieval buildings clustered below
The Burg, as seen from high above
In need of a little sustenance after our hike up and down the belfry, we stopped by a chocolate shop and each bought a delicious rijstwafel (basically a giant ball of dark chocolate covered Rice Krisipies). Re-energized, we set off to roam the canals and check out some more cultural attractions.
Just me and my rijstwafel!
Strolling around some canals
And now for an art history ramble...
Michelangelo's sculpture today known as The Bruges Madonna
Inside the small and unsuspecting church called Our Lady of Bruges sits an artistic masterpiece - after speaking with a Belgian I was told that she's as important to Bruges as the Mona Lisa is to Paris. Sculpted out of marble by Michelangelo in 1506, the Bruges Madonna is known for being the artist's only sculpture to leave Italy during his lifetime.
The sculpture in situ at Our Lady of Bruges
Even though I minored in Art History, I had only recently learned of the sculpture while reading Robert Edsel's book "The Monuments Men" over the winter. (I was surprised to later find out that this book was turned into a movie and recently released back in the US - news doesn't travel so quickly over here in France!)
To make a long story short (and to prompt you to read this fascinating book to find out more), there was a special group of Allied soldiers created during World War II called the Monuments Men, charged with locating and safeguarding Europe's cultural and artistic treasures from the atrocities of war. The Bruges Madonna had been taken by the Nazis as a spoil of war and was hidden deep inside an Austrian salt mine at Altausee - they had actually stolen it from the church by wrapping it inside a mattress and stuffing it in the back of an unassuming Red Cross truck before driving it to Austria. Thankfully, the Monuments Men came upon a huge hoard of art inside the salt mine and recovered this particular, successfully returning it to Bruges where all can admire it today. Anyone who is a fan of World War II era history and/or a lover of art will find Edsel's book captivating - I highly recommend it and am looking forward to seeing the movie once I return home. Here's a link to an article which gives further information if you're interested!
The Monuments Men securing the Bruges Madonna to ropes and pulleys in order to get it out of the salt mine and back to Bruges
So, being the nerdy art and history lover that I am, I was thrilled to get the chance to pop in and see this statue. You can only view it at a distance, but it was beautiful nonetheless!
A canal with the belfry in the background
We rounded out our evening with a delicious meal at a restaurant called "Poules Moules" (Chicken & Mussels, in French) which was located on Simon Stevinplein. Best mussels I had during our whole trip - I got them with a garlic cream sauce this time, délicieuses!
Simon Stevinplein
We still had plenty to see on our last day in Bruges before our 3pm train left to take us back to Forbach. We steered away from the main square to a secondary plaza just down the street called the Burg, home to the Bishop's Palace, Town Hall, Old Civil Registry, and the Basilica of the Holy Blood. The latter is famous because of its relic: an alleged vial of Christ's blood. Said to have been collected by Joseph of Arimathea (the guy who donated his stone tomb to Jesus), legend has it that the relic was then transferred from the Holy Land to Bruges during the Second Crusade in the 12th century.
Basiliek Van Het Heilig-Bloed, the Basilica of the Holy Blood
While it's free to get inside the church, the relic is guarded by a priest who sits behind a massive money box surrounded by posters in every imaginable language trying to guilt you in to donate money - just like in the Middle Ages, churches depend upon the faithful's donations to see relics. There's even a parade through the city called the Procession of the Holy Blood which takes place each year on Ascension Day. For this parade, the relic is secured inside a 66-pound gold, sliver, and jewel-encrusted case and walked through the city - they take this relic pretty seriously here. There was a long line and I didn't feel like paying money to see a crusty scab in an old glass tube, so we just checked out the church and kept moving. You can't take pictures in the basilica, so here's a pic I found online so you can see what the fuss is all about...
Tada - The Holy Blood Relic
Continuing along the canals, we happened upon a gorgeous little area of Bruges quite by accident. Founded in 1245, the Begijnhof (béguinage, in French) is a peaceful walled community of houses used by Beguines, or nuns, who wanted to serve God without completely leaving their home community or having to live in a strict environment like a convent. Today it's home to sisters belonging to the Order of St. Benedict, and springtime visitors who wind their way into the central courtyard are in for a treat.
A house at the Begijnhof
The Begijnhof's quad
Whitewashed buildings form a rectangle around a garden full of tall, leaning trees and absolutely peppered with daffodils! It was extremely beautiful, quiet and calm - quite a treat to stumble upon! Visitors here can also check out the tiny chapel and the Begijnhof museum, but we were content just to stroll along the paths through the radiant flowers.
Snuggle bunnies
Our wanderings brought us through various Saturday markets as well - you can find clothing, flowers, antiques, freshly-butchered meat, produce, and even live animals here. I especially liked the market which was selling ducks, rabbits, chicks, guinea pigs and other farm animals, so cute! We wrapped up our visit to Bruges with a delicious bratwurst sandwich from the market and a walk back to the train station - I had all I could do to stay awake on our 5-hour journey back to Forbach via Brussels and Paris (the minute I step foot inside a train, all I want to do is doze off!). All in all, I had a great time travelling throughout Belgium: there are loads of beautiful sights and all the yummy food you could ask for!
