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Brussels, Belgium
To market, to market, to buy a fat pig… (Or, yanno, a $2 soccer jersey!)
Bruges, Belgium
Venk@ and I go to Brugge, where we annoy the locals by speaking in French instead of Dutch. During the first half of the drive there, all the signs along the highway were in French. Only. Suddenly they all changed to Dutch. Only. Aaargh!
Paris, France
After leaving the airport, I checked into my hotel to drop off my bags and wandered around the city. I ended up at the Muslim Museum (a giant, 10-story glass building, not all of which is open to the public) where I surprised myself by spending several fascinating hours looking at all the cool artifacts.
Brussels, Belgium
Today we went about Brussels, sightseeing. We saw the Eglise Notre-Dame du Finistere aka De Onze-Lieve-Vrouw ter Finisterrae Kerk aka “Notre Dame du Finistere” church, then the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie aka Koninklijke Muntschouwburg (yes, both are written in large gold letters between the frieze and the columns) and we ate lunch at the Bamboo Fleur restaurant. (We actually tried to eat in an Indian restaurant, of which there were many, but they were invariably “closed”. Quotes because there were no posted hours, and it was lunchtime. Who knows.)
We tooled around the Grand Place until it was time for Venkat and Anjali to get off work, and then we drove around with them. The car sightseeing was a bit limited since the main streets were closed down due to a hostage situation, (!!!) but hey. Flexibility is a life skill. =)
Paris, France to Brussels, Belgium
Today we did some more low-key sightseeing, then ended up at Sacre Coeur. I’d been there before, although I hadn’t yet been inside.
There’s lots of good eats in this area, but the restaurants are more expensive.
We rode up the little sky train (I know there’s a word for it in English, but right now my brain refuses to let on what that might be) and were let out near Sacre Couer and the square. (The sky lift thing costs the same as a Metro ticket, BTW.)
Sacre Couer is beautiful, and you can get another great view of the city from this vantage point as well.
Afterward, we headed to the train station and bopped on over to Belgium. Bri was excited to see Venkat and Anjali, and we all headed out to see the Grand Place all lit up at night. (Place like “plahss”, meaning “plaza”, not “place”.)
We ate dinner at an outdoor cafe and Bri got to eat Mussels in Brussels. (And I finally caught on that in the song Land Down Under, the singer says he met a man from Brussels who had a lot of mussels, not muscles. Ohhhhhh.)
Bri also got to visit the Mannekin Pis and the Golden Lady, and we got our picture taken with Vincent Van Gogh. Oh, okay, not the real Vincent Van Gogh, but a guy whose entire career is to dress like a statue of Van Gogh (that’s right, he doesn’t dress like the man, he dresses like a statue of the man) for tips. Fun!
Paris, France
Last night, we got to sleep in a real, live bed, which was wonderful. OK, it wasn’t alive. Or a real bed. But it was a pair of bunkbeds in a train cabin, which far outranked sitting upright in train seats.
Today we got up and visited the Louvre. This was Bri’s first time and he was a little overwhelmed by the sheer amount of *stuff* crammed into such a large space. Whatever your interest is, the Louvre is bound to have a room (or wing, or entire floor) dedicated to that area.
Next we went to the Eiffel Tower. Too impatient to stand in the ridiculously long ticket line for the elevator ride to the top, we stood in the shorter (and free) do-it-yourself, walk-up-steps line.
We made it up as far as you could walk–just under halfway–and I thought I would die of an asthma attack. Good Lord, that’s a lot of stairs. The view was spectacular, however, and worth every step.
Near the Eiffel Tower is an unofficial viewing area, just on the other side of large, oblong fountain pools. (I believe this is near the Trocadero stop.) Here you can get a Kodak-perfect photograph of the tower while noshing on the hot, fresh crepes and chocolate. Yum!
We rounded out the evening with a trip to the Arc de Triomphe at night, to see it (and the Eiffel Tower, which you can also see from here) all lit up at night. The lights on the Eiffel Tower do patterned flashing at regular intervals, which is neat to watch.
Barcelona, Spain
Today we went to Park Guell, another of Antoni Gaudi’s melty, Seussian masterpieces, which was a lot of fun. It’s a bit of a hike from the train stop, but well worth it. The towers and mosaics were colorful and asymmetric and just plain fun to look at. Some of the buildings even reminded me of gingerbread houses.
Deep inside the park is the Gaudi house, which we got to tour. It’s a pink, layered concoction stuffed with antique furniture and original artwork, including Gaudi’s initial designs for La Sagrada Familia.
There was some sort of religious celebration going on in the park as well. A lot of people grouped in a large circle and sang songs. Other people woke up from their sleeping bags (no tents) and got up to join the celebration with music, chanting, and dancing.
Barcelona, Spain
Yay! Today is the day I’ve been waiting for. We finally got to go check out La Sagrada Familia. If you’re going to be in Barcelona for the first time, let me quickly state two facts.
1) You must see La Sagrada Familia. It is not to be missed.
2) There is nothing else around it. Pack some water/snacks.
We were just as amazed and horrified by this massive, melting monstrosity as I had hoped and feared. It has tall, jutting peaks dripping Gothic elements like wax from a burning candle.
Most people who see La Sagrada Familia either love it or hate it. I thought it was cool. Bri did not. I find Gaudi’s architecture to be an intriguing clash between Salvador Dali and M. C. Esher. You gotta see it to believe it.
This building was also undergoing renovations, so I definitely hope to make it back out here and see it without bright yellow cranes obstructing my view.
Barcelona, Spain
This morning, we went to the Barcelona Zoo, where we had the most amazing zoo experience of our lives. (Despite the fact that the white gorilla featured prominently in all the signs had deceased some years past.)
We saw emus running amuk with zebras, flamingoes hanging out with peacocks, a gazillion antelopey things, a few meerkaty things, some other things that I’m not really sure what they were, (what can I say? The signage was in Catalan, not Spanish), a variety of bison, elephants, giraffes, leopards, lions, monkeys, iguanas, aligators and crocodiles, turtles, rhinocerous(es), etc.
I also saw a vulture bite the head off of a live baby chick and carry the decapitated head around in his beak, dripping blood. Yeah, you heard me. And yes, although cool in a Discovery Channel sort of way, it was every bit as gross as it sounds.
As crazy as it sounds, we also saw a bear drink from a plastic bottle of Coke, and two hippopotami (hippopotamouses?) start a round of mud wrestling, followed by some heaving making out. Yes, that’s right, we saw hippos FIGHTING and KISSING. I told you this was a crazy day.
We rounded out the evening at Las Ramblas, a long strip of food, shopping, and unapologetic people-watching. We walked down to the water, where we saw the Mirador de Colon (Columbus Monument) and bought a Barcelona Dragons fútbol (soccer) jersey.
Barcelona, Spain
Last night, we hopped on the overnight train from Paris to Barcelona. Allegedly, they were first class tickets, which everywhere else in Europe meant a cabin, but on this train apparently just meant a comfortable chair. Well lemme tell ya, no chair is comfortable for 11 solid hours. The first thing we did when we arrived was to book a first class CABIN for the ride back.
Our hotel was right by the Arc de Triomf (yes, spelled like that–the Catalán instead of Castellano kept tripping me up, too) so that was one of the first sights we saw.
Next we went to the Art Museum which looked more like a palace than anything. One of the current exhibions was of fairies, and reminded us of our friend Margarita in Cincinnati. Wish she could’ve seen it. The Place Espanya was neat and gave a nice view. I could see La Sagrada Familia in the distance and it totally whet my appetite for Gaudí archetecture. I cannot wait to see it up close.
We went to the Poble Espanyol, which let me just say was AWESOME. If you ever get to Barcelona, you must check it out. It’s a massive, sprawling trip backward through time, representing various cities in Spain’s past. We had a delicious dinner and left when it was dark, only to come across a wicked cool fountain light show.