Surrealist Brews

Following on from Maison Antoine we caught the train out to Cantillon - a family run brewery dating back to the 19th century.  To answer your questions - yes, another brewery, this one was different from the rest. The reason being is that they produce a Spontaneous fermentation beer called Lambic and we met the resident cat.

Unfortunately, again we were unable to see the production process as their brewing season is from mid October to the beginning of April.  However, we were able to observe the equipment and have a tour to understand their brewing process and taste some of their tasty beer.

The brewery makes Cantillon Lambic, Geuze and Fruit Beers such as Kriek.  We tried both the Geuze and the Kriek at the Brewery.  They were both quite sour on the palette, but very light and tasty.

After our visit to the Brewery, we returned to town to a small pub called Moeder Lambic (which we happened to stumble upon, with a slogan like "Beer is the Answer", it was hard to pass up), with over 44 beers on tap from microbreweries around Belgium and the Netherlands.  We tried another two tasty beverages here: First, Lambric Cantillon (from the Brewery) we didn't like very much and second, a Valier Blonde described as a Blonde, mild, light beer and it definitely was.

Onto our last day in Brussels another perfect day for the museums...drizzly and overcast.  We grabbed our umbrella and headed to the Rene Margritte Museum.  Part of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium and located on Place Royale the museum is totally dedicated to Margritte.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with René Magritte, he was a Surrealist painter and one of the most famous Belgian painters that I know (along with Van Eyck, Peter Breugal and Rubens).  Margritte's paintings depict everyday objects such as apples, pipes and stones in odd compositions. 

I first saw Margritte's work when I was studying art in highschool.  I loved the clarity of his painting style and odd juxtapositions of images - a real inspiration.  I enjoyed our visit to the museum immensely. 

The audio guide was also very well done and included recordings of the artist, his wife, friends and colleagues and also information on his works that weren't displayed as text next to the artworks like in so many other art galleries and museums.  Interestingly, the audio guide also informed us that Margritte's paintings have inspired others such as pop and conceptual artists such as: The Rolling Stones -their 1970s hit "Angie" was sold in some countries with a cover showing a naked woman posing as a face; The band Oasis made a video featuring men with bowler's hats and umbrellas floating in the sky, and songs by Paul Simon and John Cale.

I also adored the 19th century neo-classical state-of-the-art restored building that the museum is housed in.  After seeing such a large collection (over 200 works consisting of oils on canvas, gouches, drawings, sculptures, advertising posters and photographs) of Margritte's works I came away with a few favourites:

 

The Amsterdammer

As we fled Amsterdam today it occurred to me that we hadn't included a bunch of the awesome and dodgy stuff that went on while we were there. We did eventually end up changing rooms in our hotel (I use the word 'hotel' loosely, it was more of a budget hostel) after one night when a super-annoying white home boy dragged his ass back to our dorm room after a hard days visiting cafe's with one of his new found friends in tow. We both spent the rest of the night hugging our bags in our beds when one of the other occupants of the room finally cracked it and told him to leave. The up side of super-stoned people is that they really aren't very good at arguing and he left without any comment after a few moments of standing there looking confused.

We spent one of our rainy days in Amsterdam cruising the canals looking at the various architecture and landmarks. We saw a bunch of interesting stuff, while staying reasonably dry during the downpour.

 The Nemo Science Center

The ship Amsterdam, a replica of the original Dutch East India Company vessel

The Magere Brug (skinny bridge), rather famous in Amsterdam

Canals! With Bridges!

They love their bikes in Amsterdam, this is a giant bike parking station near the main harbour terminal.

We also visited the Rembrandt museum which has been recreated at the site of Rembrandt's house mostly fom a list of his possessions taken when he went bankrupt.

That's me, in the same room as art. Suck it art lovers, I'm all cool now too.

Rembrandt's collection including plaster busts and casts to use as models, tortoise shells, woven shields from Africa, and his collections of art books.

We visited Cafe Gollem, which was the first specialist bar in Amsterdam. They've got about 200 beers in stock, with probably as much room dedicated to beer storage as there is for patrons. This place is tiny and awesome.

This is the view from the front of the bar near the window, there's really nothing else to this place besides some treacherous steps leading down to the toilet.

The Dutch Resistance Museum was also on our list of things to do, since we seem to be hitting up every WWII site in every town. Since the Dutch army was woefully undermanned and their weaponry was horribly out of date when the Germans invaded the Dutch had to spend most of WWII farming and being shipped out as forced labour for German manufacturing.

I found the temporary art exhibition by a Dutch caricaturist, Fritz Behrendt, more interesting than the permanent exhibition but the permanent exhibition was still very well presented.

A war profiteer by Fritz Behrendt

The House of Bols was not something we originally planned to do, but it looked interesting, so we headed there after the Rijksmuseum. Bols produce the spirit Genever which was once used in most cocktails, and featured heavily in the first cocktail book produced. It was the precursor to gin and is the alcohol referred to in the phrase "Dutch Courage".

The whole experience was pretty commercialised and is what you get when you allow marketing people to design a museum exhibit. There was still enough actual history in he place to make it interesting though, such as the painting that Rembrandt used to pay his tab at the brewery and the free cocktail and shots at the end certainly didn't hurt.

Some of the items on display. The large statue was used to smuggle gin, and the colourful bottles at the front are plastic replicas used to train flairtenders.

A hallway with all the Bols liquors which you can smell and try to guess their flavour.

Sancha destroying her cocktail. Mmm... fruity!

In De Wildeman and Cafe Belgique were also more wins. In much the same vein as Cafe Gollem these places have a bunch of beer in stock and we sampled many more delicious beers. The awesome part about having so many similar places like this is that they all have different beers on tap, so you can try some weird and wonderful brewed beverages. I tried a terrible/awesome India Pale Ale from a Scottish brewery Brew Dog. It was like being punched in the mouth with a fist holding hops and soaked in alcohol, and you can easily see why they called it a "Hardcore IPA".

In De Wildeman at least has some room inside. Not much, but you could at least fit an angry Scotsman in here.

The National Museum of Hygiene

David had read quite a few good reviews on this Museum, so today we decided to go and see for ourselves.  The exhibition itself is quite lengthy and very interactive in parts.  The display models are all to a very high standard and alot of information is provided....in German! Although we did have audio guides, they were unfortunately not for about 50% of the exhibition, so trying to work out what something is in German without a translator can be quite difficult.

David and I spent a good three hours at the Deutsches Hygiene Museum and we could have stayed for much much longer, but we started to get very hungry.

Basically, the exhibition features all about the human life.  The permanent exhibition is called "Adventure Man" which includes the areas of:
"The Crystal Man" pictures of people in the modern sciences, life and death - from the first cell to the death of man.
" Eating and Drinking" - food as body function, and cultural achievement
"Sexuality" - love, sex and lifestyles in an era of reproductive medicine.
"Remember, thinking, learning" - the cosmos in his head: The brain.  This exhibit was highly interactive and very fun - since we were beginning to get bored and hungry at this stage.
"Movement" - the art of coordination as well as "beauty, skin and hair" - Open border between body and the environment.

Tomorrow, we will visit Saxon Switzerland.