Bruges

In a sentence: It was beautiful and full of Americans. 

In a few simple sentences: It’s exactly what you expect.  It doesn’t disappoint.  The beer is good, the people are friendly, the prices are expensive. 

The  are delicious (although the Mexican ketchup tastes the same as regular ketchup).

I give you...Bruges!

Gorgeous Ghent

If you find yourself with a spare 24-hours in Belgium and cannot decide what to do, go to Ghent.  Skip Bruges.  Controversial, probably, but this little university city had universal appeal.  We stumbled upon canals, bikes, delightful soup shops and cozy nestled bars with stone fireplaces and lots of live music.

From there, you can take the train to Bruges where you can see what you expect to see, all of which is still beautiful.

But in Ghent you get entire restaurants dedicated to soup. You get cozy palaces of beer all served in the appropriately branded glasses; because to be Belgian is to serve the right beer in the right glass to achieve the right taste.

The tourists, they're there. But not by the hordes. Do yourself a favour: go to Ghent. 

An Homage to Manneken Pis

My love for all things Belgian may have begun when my friend, Judith,  tipped me off to something I needed to see. Something I could not miss.  In fact, something that made tourist Belgium what it was.  I suspected beer, chocolate or beer--in that order.  I was skeptical when she told me that it involved the city's iconic statue, Manneken Pis.  

From head to toe, Manneken Pis is a 61cm (24 inches for you Americans) bronzed, naked, pissing boy guarded behind a very spiky guardrail.  His legend spans 6 centuries and he's been known as savouir, lost boy, war hero and firefighter.  He's become something of a world icon and tourists across the world flock to his statue home almost religiously.  I'm not 100% certain what it says about a city whose famous icon is a tiny, bronzed pissing statue, but I suppose it's not my place to ponder.  

Up close (ish), his height is remarkably underwhelming. And the hordes of tourists don't make a lot of sense. But this is where Judith's tip came in. We bypassed the crowds and headed to the Brussels City Museum in Grand Place.  For 5 Euros each, we caught a glimpse into the history of the city (which was, you know, history-like) and then a more amusing glimpse of the third floor where they stored...all the Manneken's costumes over the years.

Because it turns out it's more than just a little tradition that, over the years, visiting diplomats would come for their EC meetings in Brussels and bring a little pissing outfit as a token of their gratitude.  The statue was then dressed up for various holidays--both national and international.  And in this way, Mr. Pis's wardrobe grew and grew.  It rivals any fashionista in the modern world.

Obviously, a wardrobe this extensive cannot be self-managed. Thus, the Friends of Manneken Pis, a non-profit association, manage his collection of over 800 costumes.  Interestingly, they also review hundreds of designs submitted each year narrowing down the costumes he will wear that year.

And oh the range:

From an African Nation

And one of the Pacific Islands

From the Middle East

And North Africa

Even from Canada, eh! 

From carnivale-era Brazil 

And Blighty!

Other fun facts:  1. Mr. Pis has been stolen, and returned, several times.  2. From time to time, the statue is hooked up to a keg of beer and passersby are given free drinks.  Win.

Rosa and I laughed and laughed.  5 euros well spent!

Belgique, Magnifique!

I don't think anyone told the Belgians, but word on naive street is that it's a poor man's France with better chocolate.  I may have been one of these skeptics--because the major part of my decision making process consisted of the fact that 1. Rosa wanted to go there and 2. I could take Eurostar, thereby avoiding every inconvenience of crap budget air travel.  Plus, I would be whisked city centre to city centre via a bedrock-blasted tube under the Channel Tunnel. Done and done.

To Brussels we went. Well, to Brussels we met and started our journey--Rosa from Riga and me from London.  We stayed in a B&B that purported to have two twin beds.  It turned out to be palatial--the place was bigger than my flat with two double ensuite bedrooms, a kitchen and living room spread across two floors.  Good start.  

And from there, minus one accommodation debacle in Antwerp, it just got better and better.  Great food!  Murals in homage to Tin Tin! A museum floor dedicated to the costumes of a tiny pissing statue in a gothic central square!  And, of course, there was the chocolate, the waffles, the endless beer, the rapid, regular, efficient train travel, the architecture that reconnected me with my Europhilia.
                                         
We zipped around on the train from Brussels to Ghent to Bruges to Antwerp and back.  I think maybe the Belgians keep their little country quiet for good reason--they don't want the tourists.  And I can't say that I really blame them.  Fortunately, we ran into very few--possibly due to the time of year and cold weather.  The only place English became de-rigeur was in Bruges and we spent only a few hours there.

Pictures and more detailed musings are forthcoming.  But overall, after a week of drinking too much beer and ordering mussels in a restaurant for the first time, I would like to put my naive chocolate-swayed prejudices to rest.  Belgium--I salute you!