Monday, June 08, 2015

In which we talk Belgium, Part 1


Belgium probably doesn’t strike most people as a likely place for a vacation, or at least not most Americans. It’s not as if there aren’t plenty of tourists there, but not of the Etats-Unis persuasion. If one travels a bit to Europe from the States, it takes a while before one hits the lowlands. The first time we were there was our second family trip to Europe, which included Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Brussels, back when Kate was around high school age. Since then we’ve been a lot of different places, but always held a fondness for Brussels and Bruges, to which we had made a side trip. We considered various other trips this year, including northern Italy, southern France and southern Spain, and eventually lit on what we did. One nice attraction was the ease of getting about, compared to the other possibilities. If we did a triangle of Antwerp, Ghent and Brussels, we’d never be on a train for more than an hour—very easy coming and going. And so the decision was made.

We started out in Antwerp. I think it’s the second biggest city in the country, and there was plenty to see and do. Our trips always include a lot (lot!) of walking around, exploring. There’s food, of course, and various arty things to see. We’re interested in architecture, so we can throw in cathedrals and houses from various periods and just general ambience. Antwerp’s name possibly comes from a legend about a giant having his hand tossed into the river, although there are other theories, but the city celebrates this one with a central statue of a young hero tossing the hand, plus random hand statues, and hand cookies and hand chocolates and the like. Of course, Belgians will make into chocolate anything they can shake a stick at, including naughty bits (which I did not photograph, this being a family-oriented blog, kinda). I just put up a bunch of shop window pictures on Facebook, most of them chocolate dealers. There’s an almost endless supply of them. I’ve always favored Belgian chocolate above all others, so this was sort of like being in Wonderland. Not that we had every chocolate we saw, but we did have plenty.

Aah.

Other things edible of note are the white asparagus a la flamande (one of the chocolate dishes I photographed is a chocolate version of white asparagus), carbonade flamande (a beef stew), waterzooi (a light chicken or fish stew), and, most famously, moules frites. We ate all of these over the course of the trip. Belgium is also famous for its beers, which deserve said fame. They are unique, and there’s quite an array of light and dark, many of which are way more alcoholic than our norm. You get spoiled by them. They’re also remarkably cheap, selling in restaurants for about three bucks. You can’t get a bartender to piss in a glass for you in the US for three bucks. (Although I’m just guessing on that, having never actually ordered a glass of piss at a bar, at least now knowingly.)

Anyhow, the take on Antwerp was, a very pleasant city but I wouldn’t put it on anyone’s must-do list. If you like Rubens, though, there is his house, plus a great unexpected collection of Pre-Columbian artifacts at a wonderfully designed (from the inside) museum called the Stroom that looks like a brick monstrosity from the outside, and a truly enchanting little zoo. For us, it was the starting point, the place to detox from jet lag for a few days. It was easy to get to from the Brussels airport by train, our hotel was right out the door of the train station, and then a couple of days later we were on our way to bring the good news to Ghent.

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