Europe Trip - Day 6 (16-Sept-2012)

Day 6 : Bruges, Belgium

Bruges ( Brugge in Dutch ), also known as the "Venice of north" is a UNESCO world heritage site. It’s a picture postcard city with quaint little bridges, houses and canals. Though we had heard that its very touristy, we were very excited to explore this small town of Europe and experience something different not found in the big cities.

This was a “car free” sunday in Brussels so we either had to head out before 9 am and come back after 7 pm or take a train. We chose to go by train as we couldn’t leave by 9. Only taxis, buses, police and vehicles with special permit were allowed. The special permit vehicles had to maintain a speed limit of 30 kmph. Also another wonderful thing was that the public transport was free on this day. So you could just hop on and hop off buses, trams and metro without buying a ticket! This concept impressed us a lot and I can only visualize Bangalore having a day like this!

So we hopped on to a bus and got to the train station. After an enjoyable train ride of 1 hour, we reached Bruges. Before I explain more about Bruges, I would like to add that it’s a fairytale place with picture postcard beauty and old world charm. Old stone buildings, windows with dainty lace curtains, bright colourful flowers adoring the windows, creepers on the walls, century old small bridges and narrow canals, rows of chocolate shops made up Bruges. The whole town looks frozen in time about 100 years back. The only signs of modernity are the scores of tourists hoarding this small place. This remains one of my most favourite places from the trip.

Lake of love

As soon as we stepped out of the train station, we entered one of the narrow roads as per the map. We soon saw a beautiful park with lot of swans relaxing in the water. This is called the “Lake of Love” or the Minnewater. It was the ideal spot for some beautiful pictures. This is the place where the coastal river Reie enters the city. It is then canalized through the town.  Legend has it that a fisherman’s daughter Minna hid in the woods to escape an arranged marriage and to wait for her warrior lover Stromberg. While he did return from war, she was too drained out with the wait and died in his arms. He built a dam and buried her here.

Minnewater lake and park

Swans at Minnewater

The swans also have legend. In 1488, Bruges executed one of the town administrators belonging to the court of Maximilian of Austria. The family coat of arms featured a white swan. Legend has it that Maximilian punished Bruges by obliging the population to keep swans on their lakes and canals till eternity.

Buggy ride

Also, as we walked along, we saw several horse driven carriages ( buggy ) adding to the charm and the romance of the place. Also it was heartening to see several women driving these carriages. We wanted to take a ride around the city but by the time we decided on that activity, all the carriages had retired.

After a quick lunch of fresh waffles (chocolate and strawberries of course!), we were waiting in line to buy the ticket for the canal cruise. The café had an interesting display of 2 large boards with world currency pinned on it. On taking a closer look, it was revealed that the guests here have left a bit of their native currency (sometimes along with hand written notes) on the pin board representing a world map. Such a cute and innovative idea! I too wanted to pin a 10 rupee note onto this, but I couldn’t find one handy.

Another pinboard

World money !

Waiting for Canal cruise

After buying the tickets we were all set for the cruise. We were the first ones in the line, so we were made to sit in the very end of the boat, giving us a good view. The guide spoke in English and explained the various landmarks of Bruges. Some of the bridges were hundreds of years old and shows signs of moss and decay. Some of them were so narrow that we had to duck our heads to avoid a bump! This is the oldest bridge dating back to the 14^th century and it has not needed much repair as well!!

Oldest bridge from 14th century

The most endearing sight was of a dog sleeping out of a window, gazing at the canal below. My friend’s husband said that he saw the same dog on his previous visit too. Must be a regular activity for this dog then ! I later came upon several pictures on the internet similar to this one. I also saw a picture postcard dedicated to the doggy. So this must be one famous (not to mention lucky) Dog!!  

As the boat turned for the return, we saw the dog again, with its head turned to the other side.

One of the tiny bridges

Pretty windows and dainty curtains

Floral decorations all over

Frites with Mayo

After the delightful canal cruise, we went back to the same café for some snacks. We got the most amazing cone of frites ( Belgian fries ) topped generously with Mayo. It looked absolutely sinful. Belgian fries are double fried, making them very crispy. Our friends had veggie burger and omlette. It was all very delicious and much better than the fries sampled yesterday at the highway restaurant.

We the promptly got tempted by the display of cupcakes in a shop and my friend picked up a few of them.

Cupcake with burnt cream

Display at The Chocolate Line

The streets were lined with chocolate shops and the displays were tantalizing. On the way to the market square, we soon spotted the famous Chocolate Line store. I was pretty excited.  This is highly rated as one of the best chocolate stores in Belgium. Once inside, I was overwhelmed with the variety. We even spotted a chocolate lipstick (lick able of course :P ). 

The chocolate line store

 Yogurt cherry chocolate

I finally settled on a slab of yoghurt and cherry chocolate. This seemed exotic and never tasted before. The store person broke off a piece and packed it for us by weight. It tasted different and wonderful.

Right across the street we saw a small open square with couples dancing to live music. Most of them looked middle aged or elderly, but were dancing with grace and ease. How very romantic! This city continued to amaze and delight me throughout.

The Belfry

We soon reached the market square- or the Grote Markt , which had a live music performance today. We took some pictures around the square and of the famous belfry. I very badly wanted to climb the belfry (83 meter high building with 366 narrow steps!!) but refrained from doing so, considering my sore and swollen ankle.

Grote Markt

There was a small alley near the square called the Blinde Ezelstraat or the “Blind donkey” street. One of the legends say that a donkey was blindfolded so that it doesn’t see the boring route travelled every day. Or one of the donkeys could have been really blind!

We then decided to head back and walked towards the train station. There was a cute little flea market ( every weekend ) – the Dijver Flea market along the canal. It sells trinkets, small collectibles etc. They were a fascinating sight.

Display at the flea market

With  "Brugse Zot"

The oldest brewery of Bruges, De Halve Maan was spotted next. It is the only family brewery still active in Bruges and is famous for its speciality beer. They also have a tour of their cellars which I quickly decided to skip since it would involve a lot of steps L  We picked a small bottle of citrus flavoured beer called “Brugse Zot” or the Bruges fool for just 2 Euros !  From the website of De Halve Maan – “The legend behind Brugse Zot : To welcome Maximilian of Austria to their proud town, the people of Bruges organised a colourful parade of merrymakers and fools. When they asked him at the end of the day to provide money for a new madhouse he replied : ‘Today I have seen nothing but fools. Bruges is already one large madhouse !’ Since then the people of Bruges are called ‘Brugse Zotten’ (fools of Bruges).”

Outside the brewery - De Halve Maan

All this walking made us really tired so we stopped over at one of the benches of Minnewater park and watched the world go past.  We also managed to get a picture of this fairytale like castle, the Minnewater castle. I read that its converted into a hotel now.

Fairytale castle !

We then proceeded to the train station and took the train back to Brussels. The only sign of modernity I saw in Bruges was the railway station. I heard that there is a new part of the city as well, but we did not see it.

Outside the railway station

Bruges railway station

It been another really long and tiring day but had been worth every minute and we were all set to head to Amsterdam the next day. We decided to take it a little slow and start a bit late. We had a hotel booked for a night in Amsterdam. Unfortunately our friends had to get back to work the next day, so we had to proceed on our own.
-Yes and Why

Europe Trip - Day 5 (15-Sept-2012)

Day 5 : Luxembourg City, Luxembourg

Luxembourg was one place that always fascinated me. From what I have read, it is a small and beautiful country which if much like Bangalore, is an abode for retired people. I remember my father -who worked in Milan for while in the early 90s -mentioning something on similar lines about Luxembourg. And more recently some of my friends who returned from Europe also reinforced this. So I always wanted to visit Luxembourg and once we decided to stay with our friends Ram and Sneha in Brussels it was only logical for us to add Luxembourg to our list of places to visit. Since Luxembourg was a good 250 Km drive from Brussels we had to do it today as tomorrow, a unique experience in the form of “No Automobile Day” would be greeting us.

After a quick breakfast we were all set to leave around 10 am. The drive was almost perfect. The sun was out. It was neither too hot nor too cold. We were sitting in a nice, long and wide Audi car. I have personally seen many of those crawling in Bangalore traffic. But here Ram was driving it at a steady speed of 140kmph or thereabout. And for once I felt the comfort of the roads of the west. We were cruising and just as I was thinking “This is damn good”, I saw a large signboard at a distance flashing something. It was displaying something in French. It read “Prudence, Risque du file”. Well although I have no knowledge of French, but an educated guess told me “Risque” could mean something like “chance” and “file” could be “queue”. Putting that into perspective, I went “Oh-o” in my mind. Is there some road block or a traffic diversion or an accident? I knew somewhere down the line we have to slow down. And to just to prove me correct it happened. Ram braked to bring his Audi to a more familiar speed of 40kmph. And for another 4-5km we were at this pace. Unfortunately one of the lanes on the highway was close down for repair work. “Prudence Risque du files” – That’s what it was cautioning. I will never forget that. Through our journey I kept a keen eye for that catch phrase. It came up another couple of times before the lanes became normal.

After a drive of about 2 hours we stopped over for a quick lunch at one of the many highway restaurants named “Autogrill”. I got off the car and rushed to the nearest restroom only to find I needed to pay 0.5 euro to buy a ticket. Penny wise pound foolish that we are at that point of time I calculated the exchange rate and thought for a moment “70 Indian rupees for using the toilet!!! I can eat 2 simple meals with that”. I realized when I flipped the ticket around, that it can be redeemed against the food bill in the food court. For lunch, we had a veggie burger (without bread) and the most sinful Strawberry Tart cake.

Gella Fra

The break came at about the right time for us as Luxembourg City was just around 50kms away. We pulled in the parking lot at the City center and quickly headed out towards the first place of interest – Gella Fra. Standing for “Golden Lady”, it is a 21 meter high obelisk atop which stands a woman holding out a crown of laurels to two soldiers, one of whom watches over his compatriot who died in battle. Thus, the Gella Fra is dedicated to the soldiers who died in battle during the two World Wars and symbolizes peace and patriotism.

"Soldier watching his dead compatriot"

A bit of disappointment followed when we learnt of the attractions of Luxembourg, the caves and The Grand Ducal Palace were closed for various operational reasons. The caves were used as bomb shelter during World War II and according to our friend Ram the visit inside it would have been a great experience. The legend as it goes is that the soldiers hid in these bomb shelters and attacked the enemies entering into the city.  

Descending the valley - rocky trail

The city center is located on a cliff with a narrow valley maybe 200ft deep. The view from the top of the valley gives us a panoramic view of the city. And one of the famous sites visible from here is the Adolphe Bridge, the longest stone arch bridge when it opened in early 20th century. We proceeded down the gorge into the valley through a marked walking trail. The trail would take us down the valley and below the Adolphe Bridge.

A view of Adolphe Bridge

Lovely well laid trail

It was by far the nicest walking trail I have seen in my life. Just a few minutes into out walk we were surrounded by dense vegetation. It was quite a bright day but once we were into the valley we felt a chill in the wind. We took the more adventurous trail walking down steep stairs carved out of rocks. We ambled our way through the trail to reach the bottom of the valley. Some parts of the trail were well laid out with a neat cycling path. We encountered several cyclist and joggers along the way from all directions. This suggested to us that the trail that was not unique and there were several other ways to come in and out of the valley. At the bottom we were a bit confused about the path to take to get back to the place where we started from.We eventually made our way up the valley to reach the other end of the bridge. So we crossed over and reached to the place we entered the trail in the first place.

View of the Bridge from the Valley

As we walked across the bridge we saw the "Petrusse Express" a toy train which will take you on a ride across the Petrusse valley.

Petrusse Express

Another thing we observed is a pay and use cycle stand at the corner of the street near the city center. Again this was something very common across Brussels especially and I believe several other European cities also have such facilities.

We were short by the amount of calories that went in as lunch by the end of the walk. I am still not sure how much we would have walked but a reasonable guess would be atleast 5 kms.

Stained Glass Windows

Inside Notre Dame Cathedral

The next in the list of the places to see was the Notre Dame cathedral of Luxembourg. I must say that the interiors looked very much like the one in Paris. The stained glass windows around every wall of the cathedral could be one reason why it could have given me the sense of deja vu. We sat in there for a sometime to give our legs a bit of rest till evening prayers were just about started. We quietly walked out to and the next thing was to give our tummy its much needed attention. We walked past the city center and into a square with several eateries. We settled in a nice shade in one of the restaurants. The evening coffee which we are so accustomed to is what we yearned the most. One the way back we shopped for souvenirs, a magnet to mark every place visited.

We couldn’t see two of the most important places to see in the city but just that simple walk down the valley was good enough sample for us to give us the feel of Luxembourg. We knew that’s the best we would do in the given time. Maybe another time we would love to visit the several chateaux that are famous in Luxembourg and probably cycle through a picturesque valley all through the day. Beautiful things many times come in small packages like butterflies and definitely Luxembourg exemplifies this.

We again stopped over at a highway restaurant for dinner and reached Brussels late in the night and we knew we had a long day ahead of us tomorrow. It is off to the Venice of the North – Bruges tomorrow.

-- Yes & Why

Europe Trip - Day 3 (13-Sept-2012)

Day 3 – Versailles , France

At Passy metro station

Today’s main plan was to visit Versailles.  We woke up a bit late due to the very hectic previous day. Again after the expensive buffet breakfast at the hotel, we headed off to the metro station. As we had the zone 3 metro pass, we had to buy a supplementary ticket for Versailles. We had to get off at Veroflay RG station to validate the supplementary tickets.

A short metro ride later we were at Versailles.  A short walk from the station led us to the château. As we already had the museum pass (covering 2 days), we skipped the ticket queue but had to stand at the queue to gain entry into the château  Unlike Louvre, there was no special entry here for the museum pass.  

Ornate sun faced clock

The palace looks grand and ornate, adorned by gold. It was originally a hunting lodge for King Louis XIII and later expanded by his son Louis XIV who moved the court and government of France to Versailles in 1682. I especially loved the gold adorned clock with a face of the Sun king (King Louis).

Statue of King Louis XIV

Palace at a glance

As we toured through the palace, we came across several paintings adorning walls and ceilings, similar to the Louvre palace. There were also several miniature models on display which showed how the chateau looked at several points of time.

Hall of mirrors

The famous hall of mirrors is opulent and consists of 17 arched mirrors reflecting the 17 windows that overlook the garden. It is said to be constructed by agents brought in from Venice. The mirrors troubled our camera so much that it decided to beep for low battery L

We were in for a special visual treat with a temporary exhibition (19.06.2012 - 30.09.2012) of contemporary art by Joana Vasconcelos. The most eye catching of them was a huge heeled shoes made with steel pots.

                                   

As our camera was low on battery, we quickly visited the rest of the palace without pausing for photographs and proceeded to the garden. Also some of the bedroom chambers were being renovated, so we couldn’t get good shots.

Garden:

The garden of Versailles cover about 800 hectares of land and most of it is landscaped in the classic French garden style.

Garden- Overlooking the grand canal

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Looking at the map and then the size of the garden, we were overwhelmed. It is so humongous that we decided that we would not be able to see the entire stretch. We also saw golf carts for rent and a small train, but we decided to explore on foot anyway.

Plan of Versailles

From the map, we gathered that the path to Grand canal from the palace is 1km, and the Grand trianon palace from the Grand Canal is about 1.5km away. So we walked about 5kms inside the gardens itself ! 

After grabbing a panini for lunch, we headed towards the Grand Trianon palace and gardens.

Way to Grand Trianon

Grand Trianon

Gardens of Trianon

Gardens of Trianon

We missed seeing the Petit Trianon (Marie-Antoinette’s estate ) as we were too tired. We headed back to the metro station and got back to the hotel. Since we were getting hungry, the boulangerie next to our hotel was enticing us. We picked up a chocolate croissant, Raisin roll and headed to our room. They tasted rich and sinful. Probably we deserved it after walking the whole day.

After recharging the camera battery and recharging ourselves ( My feet had a hot dip in the bath to relieve my painful ankle ), we headed out for the evening. Our next stop was to look for the best ice cream in Paris. Due to weeks of research, I had an excel sheet with lots of must see places and must eat things.  Berthillion ice cream featured in the list. After a thorough search on google maps, we headed out towards Notre Dame confidently.

 As we were following the route to this place ( we were in a hurry as the closing time was 8pm ), we were distracted by this bridge full of love locks. Some of them even had names engraved !

We finally made it to the store and got a scoop of lemon mint and cocktail ice creams. They looked so tiny !!

Before we could go in for another round, the store closed. We headed towards the souvenir shop visited the previous day for more purchases. We picked up many items for gifting and for ourselves but as luck would have it, the Indian guy was not present at the counter! So we did not get any discount and ironically it was a bigger purchase than yesterday ! L

Next was to search for Maoz restaurant, which we had failed miserably the previous day. This time the hubby seemed more confident and he had made notes from Google maps. We quickly found it but it was small and crowded with no seating space. We ordered 2 falafel meals with unlimited salad fills !! This was so amazing and we had 3-4 refills before ending the meal. 

On the way back, we decided to buy a bottle of water from one of the automated machine at the Metro stations. Though pricey at almost 2euros, it was very convenient.

We reached the hotel and after having walked almost 7-8 kms in a day ( with an injured ankle !!) , I was ready to drop on the bed. We had planned a relaxed day tomorrow, as we had ticked off the important "first visit must see" places in Paris and our train to Brussels was at 3:45pm from Paris Nord station.

-- Yes & Why