Our first stop, Antwerp, two hours away on Friday night. Jeff is dressed in Euro style, black on black, dining curbside at an amazing and reasonably priced seafood joint in the Zud neighborhood, called Fiskebar (fish bar, really). After this we found a bar serving 550 beer types and ran into a group of Americans, Russians and Poles. We drank a few and wound up singing Neil Diamond (one guy had a guitar) among other crowd favorites--FUN!
We spent the night in a little hotel right beside the cathedral seen below, which houses the masterpieces of Jeff's favorite painter, Peter Paul Rubens. This was his home church in the 1570s to 1640s.
Just past the church was this building which we assume is the town hall. What was cool is we stopped to watch ths bride and groom come out and march through the square with the "Oompah" band. Then a couple of minutes later another couple emerged and got on a horsedrawn carriage. Then a couple came out and got in a limo. This place was cranking out a new couple every few minutes.
Another view of the square. Between this square and the church, Jena found an antiques guy selling silver. She picked up a cute tea service. Jeff bought Westvletern beer and some beer glasses...not from the silver dude, from a beer shop!
Inside the church, you can see Rubens' "Elevation of the Cross," done in a tri-fold, which was the style back then.
So, out in the square, what else could you expect but Hare Krishnas?! They had the one guy painted gold while 6-9 of them danced around singing (guess what) "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna..." They had the pajamas and shaved heads with the ponytails and were pretty convincing. That song is kinda catchy and we spent the rest of the day singing "Hare Krishna..."
After we decided NOT to shave our heads and give the little gold guy all of our wordly possessions, we hopped in our capitalist, Christian BMW 730 and cruised an hour over to Brugge (also "Bruges," pronounced Brooj). This is a walled, moated medieval city in north Belgium in the heart of the region of Flanders.
Brugge is famous for two things, Mussels and Beer. We had both. Plenty of both. Here's a little neighborhood pub with 500+ beers. We had a banana beer. It tasted like a banana shake, but looked like beer...mmm..beer.
We strolled through the town into the evening (sunsets in June were about 11:30 pm) and took this shot over the canal. We use the high def version as our desktop on the computer.
We found an after hours place that was bizarre to say the least. Unless you don't find black carved waiters (statues) surrounding your table strange. Or if you don't find topless portraits of many saints (painted tastefully by the proprietor) odd...we had a drink and left a little creeped out.
The next day was a little rainy, so we drove up to the coast (20 minutes away, but sunnier) Notice the crowded beaches... oh wait it is 50 degrees and the wind is blowing 25 mph. It is summer in Europe, you know!
We drove the ENTIRE coast, East to West in under an hour, stopping at the fishing/harbor town of Oostende, which you Yanks might call West End. We found nothing of significance tourism-wise, but hit the mother load of fresh seafood. Shrimp, prawns, stone crab, langoustines, etc. Jeff ate more than his share, leaving Belgium in a seafood deficit.
Jena on the other hand couldn't get enough of this smelly dried fish. Actually, that's not entirely accurate. It was all I could do to get her to stand here for this photo!
We returned home, but soon duty called and Jeff had to fly an F-16 to Charleroi, Belgium for maintenance, so Jena drove out and we took a trip to Waterloo, where Napoleon did surrender (if you didn't catch the reference, it is from the ABBA song...but who cares). This is, in fact, the location of Napoleon's defeat at the hands of England's Wellington and Prussia's Blücher in Jun of 1815. Below is the monument.
Jeff, confident he could have done better, contemplates his eventual domination of Europe. (in the background is the less important battleground on which the future of Europe was decded, including the propulsion of Prussian dominance, which would lead to a unified Germany a scant 55 years later...)
Finally, what would any trip to Belgium be without delicious amber liquid love from the Trappiste monks? Another place with a fine selection of hundreds of beers...
We have seen Belgium, and it is good. We have returned several times since, including a trip to Tongeren, famed for it's antiques market on Sundays. We bought a 1924 phonograph player and some other knick knacks. The waffles rival the beer. Needless to say, the Belgians aren't too skinny and neither are we! Happiness is...Belgium in your backyard.
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