European Vacation- last day in Belgium!

July 30th, our last day in Brussels was a cloudy day, so we decided to visit a historical area of town called The City Center, where there are museums, historic buildings, restaurants and a small farmer’s market.

 

European Vacation- places- Brussels Belgium

July 28th we bade goodbye to our hosts and took a train from Vise, near Eijsden, to Brussels, Belgium. We found our hotel and unpacked, afterwards dining at Charlie’s Restaurant where we met with their gregarious head waiter, Gian Franco. We decided to take it easy that evening, getting some much needed rest.

The next day (July 29th) we made an appointment for the best massage in Brussels at the Antia Health Centre. After a vigorous two weeks walking all over The Netherlands, we really needed some “down time” and set a more leisurely pace for ourselves. After the massages, we ambled around Brussels, enjoying the lively city and its denizens.

We found a restaurant, Le Grand Café, where we had Italian food and watched the people passing by outside. While we were eating there, a man walking outside apparently had some sort of epileptic seizure right on the sidewalk. One woman stepped in to help administer emergency first aid, another took charge of the infant in a stroller that he had been walking with, and another called the paramedics and police. The emergency team arrived within minutes and got him stabilized, then took him to the hospital. People who were walking by had stopped to watch, as well as several of the restaurant patrons, but once he was stabilized, the crowd slowly dispersed.

European Vacation- Toegang Verboden- Don’t Do This!

DON’T DO THIS:

Toegang Verboden= access forbidden
We saw this funny sign in an empty field and I just couldn’t resist getting a picture of it. OK people, there’ll be NO toe-ganging about here, no siree!

Don’t drink from the tap — in restaurants all water is bottled water and comes in tiny little glass bottles. If you drink a lot of water, buy it from a supermarket or other store to have it on hand.

Don’t expect refills on your drinks- restaurants do not refill your drinks, whether it’s coffee, iced tea or water. The serving sizes are tiny and you must pay per drink. The coffee is very strong, so if you don’t like strong coffee be prepared to use a lot of milk or creamer.

European Vacation- places- Thorn, the White Village

July 26th- Thorn- the white village; featuring the pancake house with the best pancakes in the world! After walking all over Zaanse Schans, Maurice drove us to a village called Thorn, also known as “The White Village”, so named because almost all the buildings there are painted white. Maurice led us on a walking tour of the village where his father had lived during WWII. He told us about the nuns who ran the village, and anecdotes his father had told him about what life was like while the German’s occupied the countryside.

We saw an old church undergoing renovation, and walked through the family graveyard where Maurice saw an old family friend visiting her family’s graves.

While strolling through the village we came upon a restaurant called “De Pannekoekenbakker” also known as The Best Pancake House in the World, so naturally Wade just had to stop for pancakes. Those pancakes were as big as a serving platter, and they had over 100 choices.

European Vacation- Renewable Energy is hot!

Renewable energy is used quite a lot in Europe, we saw buses and boats being powered by CNG (compressed natural gas), electric trams in the city of Amsterdam, Maastricht and Brussels, solar panels on the roofs of houses and some businesses, and of course, wind power.

European vacation- places- Zaanse Schanse- charming Dutch village

July 26th we visited Zaanse Schans, an authentic, working Dutch village with windmills, herds of sheep, gift shops, souvenirs and restaurants with authentic Dutch food. You have to pay for parking but it is free to get into the village, go early because there are huge crowds there from the tour buses.

European Vacation- getting from here to there

Getting from here to there- Planes, trains, trams and buses; etiquette if you have small children with you.

Ok, I understand that parents think everything their children do is simply adorable, but when it comes to kids that scream their heads off while in restaurants, planes, trains, buses or other public places, they aren’t cute, they’re just plain annoying. I’m not talking about babies/infants who cry in a plane because their ears hurt, that’s something they can’t help. I’m talking about the 5-6+ year old kids who scream at the top of their lungs, demanding their parents let them do whatever they want. I’m talking about those spoiled brats who screech during a plane flight (while the other hapless, paying patrons cannot escape), or are on a bus in tight quarters with you, yelling and misbehaving and you can’t choose to move away from the ear splitting voices of these kids. Please parents, have some compassion for your fellow travelers, and teach your kids to use their “indoor” voices when in public. If you want to let them yell at you when in the privacy of your own home, be my guest.

Europe is a very bicycle friendly country; so understand their rules of the road and watch out for the bikes and scooters that are legally allowed on the walking paths.

Prepare yourself to get into walking mode. Get yourself a good pair of walking shoes, and get used to walking a lot; there are lots of steep, tiny steps to climb.

Taxi! Taxis are hideously expensive but worth it while in a big city, because they know how to get you exactly where you’re going, and you don’t have to worry about parking.

European Vacation- places- Amsterdam, Day2

On July 25th, Wade and I took the 6 hour Hop-On, Hop-Off Canal Cruise of Amsterdam while Maurice and Andre did some clothes shopping. Since the city is riddled with canals, it’s the best way to navigate your way around without getting lost on its long, narrow streets.


We enjoyed the historical buildings, and then had a delicious snack at B&B Lunch Café. We got back on and left at the next stop to walk through Vondelpark (which was named after a famous Dutch poet, Joost van den Vondel, whom they call their Dutch “William Shakespeare.)

After the cruise, we met up with the guys and had dinner at the best Greek Restaurant in Amsterdam.

European Vacation-Size Matters-Get Used to It!

Get used to everything being smaller, the cars are smaller, the hotel rooms are smaller, the streets are narrower, the food portions are smaller and the cups for coffee are teeny-tiny!

Chill out- be aware that some homes and businesses are not always air-conditioned.

Get good at subtraction- Europe uses the 24 hour clock, so in order to know what time it is, you need to be able to get good at subtraction, fast!

Out to lunch…and dinner…and…All of Europe goes on holiday at the same time for six weeks!!

European Vacation- Places- Amsterdam

On July 24th we drove to Amsterdam and stayed at the Tulip Inn. Amsterdam is a big, bustling, modern city where many of the vendors and restaurant employees speak English, as well as Dutch, German, French and local dialects. We had a spot of lunch while waiting for our room, then after unpacking, took a tram into the Museum district where they have over 50 world class museums, including the Van Gogh Museum, Rijks Museum, the Anne Frank House, and La Hermitage Museum.

One of my favorite painters is Vincent Van Gogh, so we waited in the pouring rain (along with at least 50 other people) in order to get in. Although his life was short lived, Van Gogh had many different “periods” during his career. Some of his paintings featured the distinctive style using thick whorls of paint that he’s famous for having developed, but at one point in his career he used only a thin layer of paint in order for his art to be more commercial (after all, he had to pay the bills.) He had periods when he did lots of portraits (his commercial period), for a time he painted only flowers, and sometimes he concentrated on painting still-life’s. My favorite paintings of his are; Sunflowers, Irises, his self portraits, and Starry Starry Night, which I didn’t get to see because it was on loan to a museum in New York. You aren’t allowed to take pictures of his paintings, so they offer two large murals where you can get your photo snapped.

His story is a sad, familiar tale of an artist who wasn’t appreciated during his lifetime, he was unlucky in love and poor most of his life, and ended up committing suicide. Standing so near to his work, I could feel the passion he had for life, and it brought tears to my eyes to know I was standing so close to his genius.

After the museum, our hosts took us to Selecta Indonesian Restaurant for dinner, and then we went back to the hotel.