A 'Lille' Break

An unusual destination some might say for us to venture to, however the reason for our trip was out of curiosity really &; that a friend of mine is from these parts originally.

We found Lille to be a lovely city with a plethora of cafes/restaurants, boutique shops and few tourists.  There are quite a few beggars on the streets here as well.  They seem to be punks with lots of bored dogs that look ill-treated.  That side of things is a little sad.  There are also a lot of Museums, Parks and again beautiful architecture.  One of the museums we visited was the Musée des Beaux-Arts (the second largest fine arts museum in France after the Louvre).  We were even lucky enough to see an exhibition by Italian artist Paolo Finoglio.  It is the first time that 10 of his monumental paintings have been outside of Italy.  The Museum housed a lot of artwork but my favourites were: a room full of Rubens' paintings, a few Rodin sculptures, a room full of map reliefs and another room full of Delacroix andRomanticism paintings.

We have got to experience some luxuries as well in Lille - some things like having a hot bath and a sauna thanks to our swanky hotel on Rue de la Paris opposite the Opera House. And of course, you can't go to France without gorging yourself on fresh-made baguettes - we were delighted to find a Paul's across the road from where we are staying.

Our trip to Lille has also allowed us to explore Lille's parklands.  Our first day we walked around the city admiring the architecture and the beach volleyball event that was right outside the Museum of Fine Arts; and yesterday we explored Citadelle Parklands and free Zoo. Yes, that's right, a free day out, it was lovely. Pity the weather wasn't better (ie. full of sun).

Our first night here we found a pub called the "Australian Pub", it was just like a faux Irish pub though it had Fosters on tap.  Don't worry we didn't touch it, we opted for another tasty beverage from Belgium. It had great music - but unfortunately there was no Danni Minogue, Ian Moss, Darryl Braithwaite nor Savage Garden.

Tomorrow, we head to Bordeaux for some great company, wine and cheese.

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:

 

Steak, Beer, Art and Mussels. All of These Things Can Be Found In Brussels

Take one blogger, insert in equal parts cheap supermarket beer, surrealist art, streaming music, a rainy afternoon with no sunlight and a free internet connection and you'll get, well to be honest it's like I'm at work again¹.

We kicked off our museum trips in Brussels in the right way by visiting the Belgian Comic Strip Center which to foreigners is probably most easily recognised as the home of Tin Tin and The Smurfs. The French authors Goscinny and Uderzo, creators of Asterix, were also featured briefly here having had some success previously with their series Oumpah-pah, which was published in the Tintin magazine.

We followed this museum visit up with a trip to the Grand Place where our hunger got the best of us and we stopped at an extremely touristy restaurant to dine upon Moules Frites. We kind of regretted this when we ended up with an expensive and average meal as we were too hungry to venture further away from the main area. We eventually corrected this and tracked down a half decent restaurant that served us a much better version of this dish for the same price. Our dessert of chocolate covered strawberries made up for the disappointment though.

The following day we ventured a little out of town to the site of the 1958 Worlds Fair and the Atomium which was built specifically for the fair and is modelled on an iron crystal. The view from the top is rather spectacular as Brussels has very few high rise buildings and you can reputably see as far as Antwerp from the top of the structure.

We also started off our third day in Brussels by visiting Maison Antoine in the Place Jourdan. This place came highly recommended as they do their frites in the Belgian style, twice fried, and the first time in beef fat giving them an extra kick to your arteries. Sitting down at one of the local bars with a cone of frites, several of the many sauces available, and a few beers is a great way to spend lunch.

1 This is stretching the truth, normally I would have had had several more shots by now if I was really at work.

Dirty Dozens. A Best and Worst

Best Things

1. A shot of water served with coffee in Prague.
2. Beer! It's cheap, good, and you can take away bottled beers from clubs or pubs. The practice of charging you €1 deposit for your first drink to make sure you bring back the empty bottle is pretty good too as there aren't any empties that the bar staff have to collect during the night.
3. Public transport actually works. Integrated tickets and trains every 3 to 5 minutes going where you actually want to go.
4. Countdown on red lights in Thailand. No more getting annoyed at waiting for the lights to change.
5. Good cafes, pubs and clubs. Berlin had so many nice, friendly places to go it was amazing.
6. Crazy language differences. Prague doesn't have 24 hour shops or venues, it's always "Non Stop", such as "Non Stop Casino!"
7. The exchange rate. Prague was so cheap and had some of the best food on our trip so far. The menu is best described as "hearty", with such rich food and so many dishes served with dumplings.
8. Coffee. I thought it was impossible to have good coffee at an airport, it's like some sort of UN agreement. Finland and Berlin proved us wrong.
9. Most people speak English. It was funny trying to order things until a certain point when bar staff deviate from the little we know. We then have to break down and resort to "Bitte in Englisch?" or "en anglais s'il vous plaît?"
10. Free food. Seriously, if you're in Dresden stay at Lolli's Homestay. Free (vegetarian) dinners on Mondays and Thursdays and walks into the National Park are awesome. Even if they do cripple you.
11. Everything is so close. The trains make it easy as well, no checking in and you can get up and walk around the train during the train. No checking of passports, no getting crap confiscated out of your carry on, and they all run on time.
12. Bar tabs. Almost everywhere will start you a tab without even asking or having to put down a credit card.

Worst Things

1. Open-air urinals in Amsterdam on the street.
2. Working out new public transport systems. Do I have to validate my ticket before I go somewhere? What ticket do I even buy? WHERE AM I? Just as we start to get good at it we leave and go somewhere else.
3. Pay toilets. What the fuck Europe? I have to pay to go to the toilet?!
4. Almost dying when crossing the road. We keep looking right instead of left and having to jump out of the way of suicidal bike riders.
5. Shared dorm rooms in hostels. Only really a problem with shady characters and shitty hostels.
6. Being lazy makes you feel bad. We felt like we were wasting so many days in Dresden when we had the flu.
7. The exchange rate. I'm paying how much for breakfast?
8. Coffee. Seriously Amsterdam, with that many "coffee" shops you'd think they'd have worked out how to actually make a coffee. Thailand's coffee is best described as "hot mud", with Brussels not far behind.
9. Stairs in Amsterdam. It's not the middle ages any more Amsterdam, time to put in a lift and maybe think about replacing that ladder that you seem to think is the staircase up to our room.
10. Coinage. The damn Euro coins are in sensible sizes, which plays havoc when you come from a ridiculous system like Australia's where the $2 is smaller than the $1. We also keep trying to give people 20c instead of a €2 as they are almost exactly the same size and colour of our $2 coin.
11. Interchangable commas and decimal points. It's easy to get confused, we would would write $12.31 whereas most prices are written €12,31.
12. Cobbled streets. While initially they look nice they hurt your feet, and when you're looking at the pretty architecture and scenery it's quite easy to sprain something with the uneven pavement.

A day trip to Bruges

So, we have been in Belgium for almost a week now.  A few people told us Belgium was boring, I beg to disagree.  Today, we headed to Bruges - about a one hour train trip from Brussels.  Another picturesque city - once more there are little canals that run around the outside and through parts of the old town; many Gothic style cathedrals and grand Flemish architecture - which I just love.

To begin our independant tour of Bruges we took a boat tour where I got to absorb up close some of the amazing architecture and see some massive swans! After our half hour journey by boat, we meandered by foot into the city square where you can observe over one thousand years of history just by turning around.

After growing tired of the weather and looking for things to do, we ventured into The Frietmuseum. This Museum tells the story of what "fry" (which we know as "chips or fries") from its humble beginnings as a wild potato in South America to the fry of today which the Belgians claim they invented.

After this, we wandered down to the Folklore Museum, where we thought we'd be seeing an exhibition on Myth and Fantasy, instead it was an actual Folklore Exhibition - where there was a display on wacky pipes - we just had to take a photo even though we weren't supposed to.

We then headed for the station by walking through the parklands and taking in some more canals and windmills before returning to Brussels.

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.

Windmills, Burgers and Beer

So here I am again, David made me write another post. Sorry it may be unedited as David is asleep.

Today, we caught the train to Zaanse Schans, a 17th-century town located 20 minutes by train from Amsterdam on the River Zaan.  It was a great day trip out of Amsterdam, yes it is touristic, but the windmills are in working order and are quite interesting.

As we crossed the drawbridge? to Zaanse Schans the bridge began to open up - both sides (i'm not sure what these type of bridges are called, Dad. some help please?) it was pretty awesome. 

The windmills are all working mills, and they perform various functions, including a saw mill, a paint mill (grinding pigments), and oil mill (grinding linseed or peanuts to draw off the oil).

The houses to the right of the river are so old and quaint they are the perfect compliment to the windmills on the other side.  The whole sight is just what you would expect to find in The Netherlands.  Walking in through the main street, the houses, mostly green, each have there own unique design elements.  As a great representation of a Dutch village, there is a canal across from them and the most beautiful little houses with lush foliage.  Little bridges cross the canal to reach the houses.  The weeping willows are especially nice, here.

On our way back over the bridge we stopped and admired the view of the windmills from the beer garden of a local hotel. We also enjoyed soaking up our first sun-rays in Europe since we've been here.  From here we could see the bridge go up and down a few more times for the large sailing boats that had to pass through to the other side.

We then returned to have dinner at our favourite restaurant in Amsterdam Burger Bar we are burger connoisseurs after all?, and the fries are made with love. (we should start receiving advertising fees surely?)

We followed this up by drinking our last beers (La Chouffe, which is a Belgium spiced ale (8%)) in Amsterdam - at Cafe Belgique.  An extremely small, old style Dutch bar serving a selection of Belgian and Dutch beers, some of which are not for the faint-hearted - some very angry beers at 10-11%.  The weak beers start at around 4%.

We had a top day.  Tomorrow, we head to Belgium.