Brussels, Belgium

On May 12, 2014January 26, 2020 By StevenIn International Travel - Europe8 Comments

My trip to Belgium included a bunch of time spent in Brussels, the de facto capital of the European Union. It’s a fascinating city. I arrived via high speed train to the city around 5:30 in the afternoon. Walking to my hotel from the station, I found something interesting in less than ten minutes- this building’s angel/demon stone-work was just fascinating to me.

After I dropped my stuff off at the hotel, I went back out with my camera to see a bit of the city. I also had a specific goal in mind, but I’ll get to that in a moment. On the walk into the city, I found this Pop-Up Restaurant. It was set up temporarily in front of the Le Monnaie De Munt, a rather nifty looking theater. The Pop-Up Restaurant was set up so they could film a television show, according to the signage. I briefly considered trying to get a table before moving on.

Walking further toward the Grand Place, I spotted this rather amusingly named restaurant. It had pretty typical food on the menu and I almost had dinner there one evening, but changed my mind at the last minute. Also, I thought the eggs were regular decoration, but they were just there because it was Easter weekend.

I wandered from there into the Grand Place. It’s pretty hard to miss this enormous square. The Town Hall has an enormous pointy bit. I did not climb the pointy bit, as you had to make a reservation in advance to do so.

I mentioned above that I had a specific goal in mind for my walk through the city on the first evening. Most everyone has heard of Manneken Pis, the famous statue of the little boy peeing. That statue is widely associated with Brussels, and is one of the symbols of the city. There are two more peeing statues, though: Jeanneke Pis, a little girl peeing, was put up in 1987, and Zinneke Pis, a dog peeing, was put up in 1998. I decided when I left the hotel that I wanted to find all three before sundown.

Zinneke Pis was the first one I found. The tile Space Invaders art drew my attention to the corner before I spotted the dog on the corner.

Someone asked me if it was a male or female dog. I can say with authority that it is most decidedly a male dog. You just can’t see it in this camera angle.

Next up is the Manneken Pis. This one is marked on sightseeing signs and tourist maps, because it’s the most famous of the three. This fountain was erected in 1619, and they dress it up in various costumes several times per week. There was no costume while I was there, which surprised me because it was Easter weekend.

This is not the only Manneken Pis; there are others in various cities in Belgium, and one in Tokushima, Japan which was a gift from the Belgian embassy.

I saw so many replicas while I was in the city, including one made all of chocolate, and this one dressed up for the World Cup later this year.

Moving on from the Manneken Pis, I found my way next to Jeanneke Pis, erected in 1987 very close to the Rue des Bouchers, which is a narrow street full of restaurants. Jeanneke Pis is not far from the Grand Place, and it is regrettably behind locked iron bars which makes getting a good picture of her somewhat difficult.

Jeanneke Pis is basically across the street from the Delirium Tremens Beer Bar and Cafe, which made this a perfect time to stop for a nice Belgian beer before dinner.

I tried the Delirium Nocturnum, a strong delicious dark beer with an 8.50% alcohol by volume. Did I mention it was delicious?

After leaving Delirium, I decided to look for some dinner before retiring for the night. Passing by it, I saw the Beurs, the Brussels Stock Exchange, which is the location of the Art of the Brick Lego art exhibit. I’ll come back to this in another post, because I checked out this exhibit right before I left Brussels two days later.

The next day, it was time for my actual tour of Brussels, led by a professional tour guide. It started in the Grand Place, so here’s another view of that large plaza.

While I was waiting for the tour to start, I had a Belgian waffle covered in powdered sugar. The powdered sugar made me cough, which caused me to be completely enveloped in a cloud of white powder.

Delicious high comedy.

Moving on, we walked past the Cathédrale des Saints Michel et Gudule (Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula,) which was completed in 1519.

This is a monument to King Leopold I, the first king of the Belgians. He ruled from 1831 to 1865.

This is at the base of a very tall monument, but none of my other pictures came out very well. The structure is the Colonne des Congrés (the Congress Column.) The four corners are statues representing the four freedoms of Belgium- Freedom of the press, of religion, of education, and of association.

The flame is atop a Belgian Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, from World War I.

Moving on, we visited the Parliamentarium’s visitor’s center, which is all about the European Union’s Parliament and how it governs. It was pretty neat, actually. This first section represents the main structures in the three governing cities of the EU- Brussels, Luxembourg, and Strasbourg.

How far is it to your home city? Vienna’s only 917 kilometers away…

The exhibit had a detailed model of the European Parliament’s seating arrangement. Interestingly, the seating is not by nation, it’s by political affiliation.

I missed all but the last three minutes of this film about how the Parliament makes decisions because I was fascinated by shiny objects on the other side of the hall. It looked interesting, though.

On the way back from the Parliamentarium, we passed the Triumphal Arch in the Parc du Cinquantenaire, but alas, we didn’t actually go into the Jubilee Park, so this is the best photograph I took of the Arch.

This… this is just an enormously large flower pot that amused me.

I ate at two different restaurant chains that I quite enjoyed while I was in Brussels. The first was called Quick. The face of the restaurant was emblazoned with a giant lit up sign that said “Quality Burger Restaurant,” and the sign made me skeptical enough to try it. (“Challenge accepted!“) It turns out that it’s got all the soul that McDonald’s has given up over the years, and the burgers were delicious beyond all reason. The other restaurant that I tried was a healthy chain called Exki. This place was utterly delicious- it was a little like the Pret a Manger and Eat chains that are all over London, but with more hot prepared foods and a few other interesting choices like the Ubuntu cola in the picture below. (It was decent, but Coke is still better.) They name their sandwiches with people names, so my lunch as pictured below was John. The chocolate brownie in the background was so delicious.

I am excited beyond reason that they’re opening an Exki in New York City. You have no idea.

My next-door neighbor Lori sent me a link before I left for Brussels with a list of the top ten places to get a great view of Brussels. One of those places was a parking garage called Park 58. Entrance is free (because it’s a parking garage, not a tourist attraction,) and the elevator will take you right to the tenth floor. From there, you have a fantastic view in almost all directions. This is the view looking back toward the Grand Place.

On the other side, you can see clearly all the way to the Atomium. The Atomium is really cool, and I’ll talk about my visit there in another post.

This statue is near Grasmarkt. I didn’t remember to catch the plaque that explains it, but I quite dig the man’s mustache and his friendly dog.

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza? Yup! I’m not sure why it’s in Brussels, but it’s in Place D’Espagne, and it’s a replica of the original statue in Madrid.

Last, but certainly not least, Brussels is another city full of art. I kept noticing that the exposed sides of buildings were painted all over the city. I only snapped pictures of these four, and there was one more of a swashbuckler that I wanted to go back for, but I didn’t have time. I love that the buildings have this much character. These four are in different places all over the city:

Have you ever been to Brussels? What was your favorite thing about the city?

The Day Elvis Helped Me Find Pluto

On May 8, 2014May 30, 2020 By StevenIn International Travel - Inside Germany11 Comments

Back in October, Germany Ja! posted about a Planetenwanderweg (planet trail) in Bad Nauheim, and I just had to go see it myself. The Planet Walk is a two kilometer long trail with statues representing the planets of our solar system at a 1:2.8 billion scale and informational plaques next to the statues.

It’s a short hop outside of Frankfurt am Main, so I spent a morning over in Bad Nauheim the last time I was in Frankfurt. There are apparently thermal baths in town- Bad is German for Bath, so this is pretty common for towns that have names starting with Bad. I wasn’t there for the thermal baths, though. I wanted to see the Planet Walk.

The first thing I noticed was that there’s lots of art everywhere. For example, this was in the tunnel between the train platforms at the Bahnhof.

In order to do the Planet Walk, first I had to find it. I knew that the center of this solar system was the sun, and that it’s in Goldstein Park, but Google Maps and Apple Maps weren’t terribly helpful in getting me to a starting point, and all the official town tourism site told me was that it started to the East of the city. After a bit of walking around, I was able to find it though.

The Sun, with a representation of Apollo, the sun god:

The first five planets are relatively close together, so following the trail was very easy at this point.

First up for the planets is Mercury, winged messenger and all around swell planet.

Next, we have Venus on the half shell.

Earth was so interesting that I had to take two pictures, one from the side and one from the front. I should have snapped the other side as well, since it had a representation of plant life.

Following Earth is Mars, bringer of war. I think it’s interesting that the coloration of the statue was made to reflect that of the Red Planet.

At the corner of this particular piece of greenery is Jupiter, hurler of jagged lightning. Insert your own gas giant joke here, please.

From Jupiter, you have to leave the park, cross the street, go under the train tracks, and exit the Bahnhof through the front door. There you will find the ringed planet Saturn, embedded in the cobblestone in front of the Bahnhof.

From Saturn, it gets much harder to find the planets. Walk down that street until it ends, cross into the plaza behind the street, go past the very large fountain, and enter the Kurzpark. In this big green space, the walkway continues, and eventually reaches Uranus, the lone Greek in our pantheon of Roman planets.

…and this is where I got lost. From Uranus, I knew that it would be a while before I found the next planet, and I knew also that the trail ended up a hill, but I wasn’t to the hill yet. I walked a very long distance through Kurzpark and wound up on entirely the wrong side of things. I used my phone to point me back in the right direction and walked until I found a normal street again.

And that’s where I found Elvis.

No, Elvis isn’t buried here. That honor still goes to Graceland. However, Elvis lived in Bad Nauheim for 18 months when he was stationed at the nearby American military base, and the town is still pretty jazzed about it. They even renamed a street after him.

Running into Elvis made me realize that I had gone the wrong direction after Uranus, and it wasn’t long before I was back on track, easily finding sea god Neptune with the help of carefully re-reading Germany Ja’s post on my phone.

The last part of this walk was a real treat- the Planetenwanderweg was obviously established before Mike Brown and Neil deGrasse Tyson demoted Pluto to the status of Dwarf Planet. To reach Pluto, you have to go up the hill past Neptune, then jog left a bit, then up some stairs, then cross a street, then up some more stairs, then up an ascending path toward the Johannisberg Cafe and Hotel.

I was out of breath when I reached little Pluto, but the view was completely worth it.

Oh yeah, and there’s this:

After successfully exploring the solar system, I walked back down the hill to head back to Frankfurt. On the way back, I discovered that Bad Nauheim is a pretty little town. This amazing fountain was on my walk back.

They also have a tall and pointy church. Standard issue in Germany, I believe.

Archways lead back toward the big fountain and the Kurzpark.

…and there was art everywhere. These two are painted on the utility boxes in front of the Jade restaurant.

Have you ever been to Bad Nauheim? Did you find Elvis?

In Bruges

On May 5, 2014May 5, 2014 By StevenIn Life At Home10 Comments

I’ll be breaking up my Belgium and Luxembourg posts into smaller chunks and posting them out of sequence, because I took almost a thousand photographs in four days. I’m not going to post more than 20-30 pictures for any one post, but I still want to space it out a bit so that it’s not too overloading. So, onward!

My first Belgium post was the city of Bruges in Flanders, the northern part of Belgium. I haven’t seen the movie by the same name yet, but I’m pretty sure that referencing the movie’s title in a blog post about Bruges is a requirement in the Expat Blogger Bylaws. Bruges is the capital of West Flanders, where Ghent is the capital of East Flanders. For a country with relatively small geographic boundaries, there are an awful lot of subsections of Belgium. There are also a great many languages, since Belgium is officially bi-lingual. The northern parts speak Flemish, which is a bit like Dutch, and the southern parts speak French. There’s also a small German-speaking community on the eastern side of Belgium, and English is prevalent as well.

The main export of Bruges seems to be pretty photographs from tourists. If you arrive on a bus from Brussels, as I did, you might start out near Minnewater, or “Lake of Love.” The story goes that you will experience eternal love if you walk over the lake bridge with your partner. There’s a legend attached, and it’s explained in great detail on this site. Regardless of its efficacy as an aphrodisiac, I can’t argue that it’s a really pretty lake.

Also seen in Bruges: A very large swan and duck community. I took other pictures of large quantities of lounging swans, but this picture just looked nicer.

Not all of my pictures have important captions or details. Some were chosen just because it shows how nice the city is, and how nice a day we were having.

This is a “House of God” where a bunch of nuns used to live. This is a fairly common thing in Bruges. There was a lot of detail about this from the tour guide which I missed.

This is the courtyard inside the House of God.

…and this is why I missed what the tour guide was saying. I was too busy stalking a bee with my camera, because that’s how I roll. I quite like bees.

We took a boat tour later in the day, because it covers three or four kilometers of city canal and it’s quite pretty. This was not the boat I was on, but it’s a good shot of the type of boat- they really pack people onto these things. They offer life vests, but most of the canals are only a meter or two deep, so if you fell in you would probably survive quite easily.

I don’t really know why there’s a random Bogey statue here, but I thought it was kinda neat.

Picturesque street, walking in the direction of the Markt, the main market square.

One side of the Markt.

The opposite side of the Markt. This is the Stadthuis, or City Hall. In Germany, they’d call this a Rathaus.

Flag time! The one in the center is the flag of Belgium. It has the same colors as the German flag, but vertically and in a different sequence than Germany’s horizontally barred flag. The flag on the left is the flag of Flanders, and the one on the right, not really clearly visible in this picture, is the flag of the city.

Ever seen a hang drum? They’re kind of amazing if played well. This dude was set up in the courtyard behind the Belfry, the Markt’s big tower visible a few pictures further down.

This video is not the same hang drum player as the one in Bruges, but you can get a sense of what the instrument sounds like.

This is also in the Markt.

Throughout the day, I kept seeing people on tandem bicycles. I’ve never seen so many two-person bikes as I did in Belgium.

This is a picture from across the Markt. It’s the only shot where I managed to get the entire Belfry tower into the picture because most of my other photographs were taken from the base of the Belfry. I did not get to climb this one- the line to get in was longer than the amount of time I had.

I did some wandering from square to square. The pointy buildings in the center of this shot are typical of Bruges architecture.

Many of the cities have these metal relief maps, with braille on them. It’s rather ingenious, even though I can’t even imagine how a blind person would find their way through the maze of the city to find the braille map without assistance.

In other news, the facial expression on the blonde girl eating in the background is hilarious. I didn’t realize she was making that face until I was sorting my photos.

City squares always seem to have “floating” dudes trying to make some cash. This one was a little different though- normally they’re seated. They all have the giant weighted base and the staff going up to the left arm- I’m positive that’s what’s supporting his weight. This one was different in that he kept swinging his legs back and forth. He may have had stirrups or something. In any case, it’s a pretty striking illusion. If I hadn’t seen this five different ways in five different cities, I might not have spent so much time thinking about how it’s done.

This dog was so very happy. They kept feeding him!

There were displays of lace all over the city and I didn’t make the connection to Brussels Lace until I saw this woman actually sitting in her doorway making lace in real time.

In hindsight, I should have gotten some video- she was moving her hands incredibly fast.

Of all the pictures I took from the canal boat cruise part of the day, this is the very best one. This dog was snoozing in a window that was canal adjacent. It looked like the perfect place to have a nap.

On the walk back to the bus, we passed through a sculpture garden containing sculptures of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, by sculptor Rik Poot.

I’ll give you a moment to stop giggling about the man’s name.

So the one in the upper right is obviously Death, but I’m not certain of which is which on the others. Clockwise from Death, I believe it’s War, Famine, and Pestilence. I could easily be wrong though, and I didn’t think to photograph their labels while I was there.

Have you ever been to Bruges?

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

On April 21, 2014May 30, 2020 By StevenIn Life In Germany12 Comments

Early in the morning on Saturday the 12th of April, I took a day trip to scenic Rothenburg ob der Tauber with Cliff and Sarah of Regensblog. Cliff already posted his write-up of the trip, and he included a ton of great pictures.

Rothenburg is incredibly popular with tourists, and it’s often featured in package tours. The town is compact, but we walked past an astonishing number of hotels on the outer edges of town. We had good weather and a very light level of tourist crowding, but I shudder to think what this town would be like in June or July.

One of my favorite things about Rothenburg is the wall. Many towns in Germany still have intact sections of their original outer walls, but this is the first time I’ve seen one with the entire wall up. It’s been rebuilt over the years, so it’s not all original, but it’s still quite amazing.

I mentioned it was scenic, right? It gets used in film quite often. In fact, sections of Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows were filmed here. Not on this specific street, but here in town.

There were a couple of great fountains around town, but none of them were actually moving water around. There was a lot of construction, so perhaps they were turned down during the other work.

This is the town hall. The tallest point is the Rathausturm, a tower that you can climb for the low, low cost of €2.

This elderly tourist couple was just really adorable.

Naturally, we climbed the tower. You can actually see the outer walls, and the towers at intervals along the wall.

The wall is especially clear in this picture.

While we were walking around, we were all kind of amazed at this tree- it had clearly been encouraged to grow almost as part of the building. It was fascinating.

While walking around, we found a small cloister garden containing a very pretty green space.

I’ve lost track of which tower was which. This one was on the western side of the city.

…but this one is the actual western town gate.

This face is set into the tower on the western gate. It’s kind of interesting.

Did I mention how picturesque the city is?

This street is the Plönlein. The tower to the left is the Siebersturm, built in 1385. This is one of those views that people take pictures of quite a lot. Seriously, just put “plonlein” into a Google image search and you’ll immediately see what I’m talking about.

It was just before Easter, so these wreathy crown things are starting to show up all over Bavaria. I’m not sure what they’re called, but they’re always draped with colored eggs.

The design on the eggs is quite intricate.

This kind of archway appears all over town.

It is possible to walk along the wall. There are stairs at regular intervals to go up to the walkway.

Wooden railings keep you from walking off the edge.

This house caught our eye because the seal over the door looks a great deal like Trogdor.

Seriously, it’s an ancestor of Trodgor. Ready to burninate the countryside.

I think the wall may have been my favorite part of the city. Right behind Trogdor, that is.

We had fairly spectacular weather for the day, also. Blue skies, whispy clouds. I secretly believe that the town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber employs weather wizards to keep it pretty like this.

To break up these pictures of scenic Rothenburg, here’s a teddy bear blowing bubbles. This is at a shop in town- it took me a minute to figure out where the bubbles were coming from because it’s in an upstairs window and it’s not constant.

One last shot of the wall on our way out- this was close to where we parked for the day.

Have you ever been to Rothenburg ob der Tauber?

Leipzig

On April 14, 2014May 30, 2020 By StevenIn International Travel - Inside Germany6 Comments

I went to Leipzig on my way back from Dresden. I didn’t stay overnight in Leipzig, I just took a few hours in between trains on the way back so I could see a bit of the city.

My first order of business was taking the number 15 tram to the Völkerschlachtdenkmal, known in English as the Monument to the Battle of the Nations. This is a monument to commemorate Napoleon’s defeat at the 1813 Battle of Leipzig.

I only wish I’d had better conditions for photography. The sun was behind the monument, which made getting a clear shot very difficult. There are some really beautiful pictures of the Völkerschlachtdenkmal on the Internet. Mine isn’t one of them.

Coming back into the center of town on the tram, I stopped by the Panorama Tower, seen on the left. It’s the tallest point in Leipzig, and for three Euros, you can go to the observation level at the top.

I was there on a really hazy day, but I still got a few nice shots from the top.

The tall church visible in this photo is the Nikolaikirche (St. Nicholas Church).

The Leipzig Hauptbahnhof is absolutely enormous. I noticed the size of it when I arrived, and thought that perhaps it was the largest I had seen. It turns out that I was correct- according to Wikipedia, the Leipzig main station is the world’s largest railway station measured by floor area. Here’s the outside, as seen from the Panorama Tower.

Here’s my attempt to capture the inside of the Leipzig station. It was simply too big for even a single photograph to capture.

In every city I’ve ever visited, someone has been playing music for money. Leipzig was no exception.

These next two photos are of statues inside the Auersbachs Keller Leipzig which were interesting to me. The statues face each other. The first depicts students bewitched by Mephisto.