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On the Move: Belgium
We had a wonderful weekend in Belgium, a trip where everything went not
merely as expected, but better.
Our flight from Heathrow was slightly delayed, but we made it with no
problems, picked up our rental car--a burgundy Fiat that I quite liked--and
followed the signs out of the airport to the Novotel. Our room was
perfectly reasonable and the bed was comfortable.
On Saturday morning we grabbed breakfast from the buffet downstairs. It
turned out later we were at the wrong buffet of the two, but it wasn't a
problem. We headed out and made the drive to Antwerp in about half an hour,
finding our way through the city to the Royal Museum of Fine Art. We
arrived about twenty minutes before they opened, so we wandered around the
museum building and down a nearby street to the next plaza.
When the museum's doors opened, we were the first through them. We spent a
very pleasant couple of hours wandering through their collection, admiring
the Flemish masters and getting to know the work of Rik Wouters and James
Ensor. One of the interesting aspects of the museum was the glimpse into
the inner workings (two restoration workshops and a warehouse section)
visible from various corners of the galleries.
Leaving the museum, we headed back to an Asian fusion place we'd noticed on
our earlier wanderings. Lucy Chang provided us with a delicious
meal--crispy spring rolls and tuna triangles, Korean beef with sesame and
wontons & egg noodles with roast pork in a rich broth. It was one of the
best accidental finds in all our travels.
After lunch we drove into the Groen-plaats, in the old section of town.
Despite the sign a block earlier saying the carpark there was full, we saw
the car ahead of us go in, decided to take a chance, and found an empty
space right at the entrance.
From there it was just around the corner to the Cathedral of Our Lady, an
enormous, seven-aisled church and the largest Gothic construction in the low
country. Its interior is very light, with soaring white columns and
white-washed ceilings contrasting with the darker, more intimate spaces of
the chapels on either side. The church was constructed on the site of a
12th-century chapel and finished in 1521. It has suffered the ravages of
fire, looting, iconoclasm and invasion. Most of its treasures were
auctioned off under Napoleon. But that left room for some wonderful 19th-
and early 20th-century pre-Raphaelite style works and for three altarpieces
by Rubens created for other churches that have since been demolished. There
are also wonderful stained glass windows and a pamphlet explaining their
themes.
After exploring the cathedral thoroughly, we wandered out into the Grote
Markt, the central market of Antwerp's medieval ascendancy, lined with
guildhouses. I bought 100g of the famous praline chocolates and we savored
those as we wandered. We paused to look at the Vleeshuis or Butcher's Hall,
built of alternating stripes of white and red bricks for an appearance our
guide book described as "streaky bacon." From there we wandered over to the
river and admired the Steen, the small 13th-century castle that now houses
the National Maritime Museum. We continued our walk back through the Grote
Markt, stopped briefly into the St. Carolus Borromeuskerk, and then wandered
down the long, pedestrianized shopping street to the Opera House, before
hopping on the metro back to the Groen-plaats.
From there it was a short walk to the Museum Plantin-Moretus. This was the
home of the Plantin family and of the "Officina Plantiniana," the most
famous printing works in 17th-century Europe. Founded by Christopher
Platijn in 1555 and raised to even greater glory by his grandson, Balthasar
Moretus, the printing business gained great fame from its collaboration with
Rubens as an illustrator. He also painted portraits of most of the family
and these are hung throughout the rooms of The Golden Compass, as the
labyrinthine building was called. Other interesting exhibits include a
Gutenberg 36-line Bible, the polyglot Bible printed by Plantijn in five
languages, original copper etchings--together with prepatory sketches and
prints--of Rubens' illustrations and a series of maps from the 16th and 17th
centuries, and many interesting set of punches (the originals from which
type was cast in lead) including one carved by Garamont in his eponymous
font, a Hebrew set, and Latin sets in all manner of sizes and fonts. All of
this is set in rooms that could have figured in Vermeer paintings, with
mullioned windows, tile floors and beamed ceilings. There's also a lovely
garden in the central courtyard of the house that makes a pleasant spot for
a rest after clambering up and down the creaky steps of the exhibition
spaces.
We wandered around town for a while longer, trying to decide what, if
anything, we wanted to eat. Eventually we decided that it made more sense
to wait and grab something at our next destination, so we collected the car
and headed for Heist-op-den-Berg. Just as we pulled out of the carpark, the
heavens--which had been threatening and spattering off and on all day,
between periods of bright sunshine--opened up and began to pour down on us.
Pleased with our timing, we threaded our way out of Antwerp.
Traffic made the forty-five minute drive into an hour, but we pulled up to
the Cultureel Centrum Zwaneberg and walked in to find Wes Carroll and the
rest of the House Jacks eating dinner in the center's restaurant. He was
gratifyingly surprised and pleased to see us walk in :) We got some food and
chatted with him for an hour before it was time for him to do sound checks
and get ready for their a capella rock concert. It was their last gig on a
two-week tour of Germany and Belgium (with a side-trip to Florida thrown
in), so they were pretty tired, but they put on a very fun show. They've
got some new numbers and have re-worked some old ones and sounded very good
and relaxed. During their "request" segment (they take requests, but only
for songs that aren't in their repertoire) they did some very good stuff
("Proud Mary," "Stayin' Alive," "Purple Rain," "Beat It," etc.) mixed in
with some very silly stuff (a thrash metal version of "Summer of '69," for
example) and wrapped it up with a surprisingly good impromptu cover of the
full length of "Bohemian Rhapsody." Wes has figured out some new drum
sounds--he does a great "woodblock"--and was using them to great effect.
After the show we hung around and took pictures with the guys and caught up
with Wes a little more. They were leaving the next day and needed to get
some sleep before the 18 hour transit from Brussels via Munich to San
Francisco, so we said goodbye around midnight and zipped back down the
highway to our hotel.
In the morning we found the right breakfast buffet (the one with bacon!) and
filled up before dropping off the car and our bags at the airport. We took
the train into the center of Brussels and went straight up the hill from the
station to the art museums. The "ancient" (13th- to 18th-century) art
museum and the modern art museum are linked by a tunnel and combined
admission. Given our limited time, we decided to start with the modern
wing, which is ENORMOUS. The 19th century is represented on floors 0-3 and
the 20th century takes up floors -1 to -8. We moved through it at a fairly
quick pace, getting an overview of their collection and pausing to take a
more leisurely stroll through the extensive exhibit of work by Rene
Magritte, an old favorite.
Tearing ourselves away, we took the elevator (with rows of seats on either
side, it's rated for up to 48 passengers) back up to ground level and
scooted down the hill to the Grande Place, Brussels' own Grote Markt. It is
lined by guild halls and other municipal buildings, most dating from the
17th century, after much of the square was destroyed by fire. We found a
seat on the facade of the Hotel de Ville--city hall--and waited for
Catherine.
Catherine de Vos was a Rotary exchange student from Brussels who lived with
my family in 1972. My parents and I visited her parents during a trip to
Europe in 1982, but she was out of the country at the time. So I hadn't
seen her in thirty years, since I was three years old. I've seen pictures
in the interim, but all of her at 16 or 17. I was afraid we might never
find each other, but when she walked up to us, I knew this could be no one
but Catherine. She is still the very cute, very funny, but intelligent and
serious person that my family loved.
Catherine took us to a traditional restaurant in the Gallerie St. Hubert,
Europe's first shopping arcade, built in 1847. It's a lovely, glass-roofed
corridor of high-end specialty shops, not yet invaded by the same old brands
that fill most of the world's high streets. We had another very tasty lunch
of scallops meuniere (with breadcrumbs and butter), white asparagus, steak
au poivre, and waterzooi, a traditional Flemish chicken stew. Catherine
entertained us with stories from the last ten years of renovating a
16th-century farmhouse south of the city and we exchanged news of our
families.
After lunch we wandered back up the hill to the Old England building, an Art
Nouveau masterpiece built in 1899 as a department store, that is now the
home of the Musical Instruments Museum. The collection, begun in 1877,
includes thousands of examples of musical instruments from all over the
world. The ground floor exhibits traditional wind, string and percussion
instruments from around the world. The second floor traces the development
of the modern orchestra. This section includes a selection of the
instruments developed by Belgian inventor Adolphe Sax, creator of the
saxophone as well as saxhorns and other variations. The third floor focuses
on string and keyboard instruments. We never made it to the basement, where
music boxes, pianolas and 20th-century instruments are on display. This is
definitely the best museum of musical instruments I have ever explored.
Visitors are given headphones and most display cases transmit the music of
the instruments shown there, providing a wonderful private soundtrack. The
funniest transition was from a case of Mexican mariachi instruments to one
of Tibetan temple instruments. We had a wonderful time wandering together
through the exhibits, occasionally distracted from the displays by the
gorgeous architecture of the recently renovated building.
When the staff chased us out at closing time, we made our way over to the
cathedral. Catherine left us there--she had to get home to take her son,
Paul, to badminton--and we wandered in for a look. They had some gorgeous
stained glass and the soaring architecture, but not very much in the way of
interesting art. After the Antwerp cathedral, this one seemed a bit small.
We had half an hour before we needed to catch our train, so we went back to
the Gallerie St. Hubert and visited Neuhaus, one of the chocolatiers
recommended by our guidebook. I'm not a big chocolate fan, but the Belgians
certainly raise it to an art, displaying their wares with the reverence
reserved for jewels in the shops of other cities. We selected a small box
of chocolates and a bag of florentines (wonderful cookie-like agglomerations
of toffee and almonds cemented together with a chocolate base) under the
stern eye of the clerk and then headed back to the Central Station.
Back at the airport we collected our bags from their locker, checked in for
our flight and then sat around reading in the various lounges until it was
time to board. Our flight was more delayed in this direction, but we got a
marvelous sunset-on-clouds view and an exciting rollercoaster ride into
London. With no bags to collect, we zipped through Heathrow and onto the
tube. There was a bit of delay there, but we made it home by 10:30pm.
It was a quick trip--and we hope to get back--but we managed to pack in
enough to make us feel that we had really been to Belgium. All our travel
arrangements worked like a charm and we managed to see the people we'd hoped
to see and spend some quality time with them.
merely as expected, but better.
Our flight from Heathrow was slightly delayed, but we made it with no
problems, picked up our rental car--a burgundy Fiat that I quite liked--and
followed the signs out of the airport to the Novotel. Our room was
perfectly reasonable and the bed was comfortable.
On Saturday morning we grabbed breakfast from the buffet downstairs. It
turned out later we were at the wrong buffet of the two, but it wasn't a
problem. We headed out and made the drive to Antwerp in about half an hour,
finding our way through the city to the Royal Museum of Fine Art. We
arrived about twenty minutes before they opened, so we wandered around the
museum building and down a nearby street to the next plaza.
When the museum's doors opened, we were the first through them. We spent a
very pleasant couple of hours wandering through their collection, admiring
the Flemish masters and getting to know the work of Rik Wouters and James
Ensor. One of the interesting aspects of the museum was the glimpse into
the inner workings (two restoration workshops and a warehouse section)
visible from various corners of the galleries.
Leaving the museum, we headed back to an Asian fusion place we'd noticed on
our earlier wanderings. Lucy Chang provided us with a delicious
meal--crispy spring rolls and tuna triangles, Korean beef with sesame and
wontons & egg noodles with roast pork in a rich broth. It was one of the
best accidental finds in all our travels.
After lunch we drove into the Groen-plaats, in the old section of town.
Despite the sign a block earlier saying the carpark there was full, we saw
the car ahead of us go in, decided to take a chance, and found an empty
space right at the entrance.
From there it was just around the corner to the Cathedral of Our Lady, an
enormous, seven-aisled church and the largest Gothic construction in the low
country. Its interior is very light, with soaring white columns and
white-washed ceilings contrasting with the darker, more intimate spaces of
the chapels on either side. The church was constructed on the site of a
12th-century chapel and finished in 1521. It has suffered the ravages of
fire, looting, iconoclasm and invasion. Most of its treasures were
auctioned off under Napoleon. But that left room for some wonderful 19th-
and early 20th-century pre-Raphaelite style works and for three altarpieces
by Rubens created for other churches that have since been demolished. There
are also wonderful stained glass windows and a pamphlet explaining their
themes.
After exploring the cathedral thoroughly, we wandered out into the Grote
Markt, the central market of Antwerp's medieval ascendancy, lined with
guildhouses. I bought 100g of the famous praline chocolates and we savored
those as we wandered. We paused to look at the Vleeshuis or Butcher's Hall,
built of alternating stripes of white and red bricks for an appearance our
guide book described as "streaky bacon." From there we wandered over to the
river and admired the Steen, the small 13th-century castle that now houses
the National Maritime Museum. We continued our walk back through the Grote
Markt, stopped briefly into the St. Carolus Borromeuskerk, and then wandered
down the long, pedestrianized shopping street to the Opera House, before
hopping on the metro back to the Groen-plaats.
From there it was a short walk to the Museum Plantin-Moretus. This was the
home of the Plantin family and of the "Officina Plantiniana," the most
famous printing works in 17th-century Europe. Founded by Christopher
Platijn in 1555 and raised to even greater glory by his grandson, Balthasar
Moretus, the printing business gained great fame from its collaboration with
Rubens as an illustrator. He also painted portraits of most of the family
and these are hung throughout the rooms of The Golden Compass, as the
labyrinthine building was called. Other interesting exhibits include a
Gutenberg 36-line Bible, the polyglot Bible printed by Plantijn in five
languages, original copper etchings--together with prepatory sketches and
prints--of Rubens' illustrations and a series of maps from the 16th and 17th
centuries, and many interesting set of punches (the originals from which
type was cast in lead) including one carved by Garamont in his eponymous
font, a Hebrew set, and Latin sets in all manner of sizes and fonts. All of
this is set in rooms that could have figured in Vermeer paintings, with
mullioned windows, tile floors and beamed ceilings. There's also a lovely
garden in the central courtyard of the house that makes a pleasant spot for
a rest after clambering up and down the creaky steps of the exhibition
spaces.
We wandered around town for a while longer, trying to decide what, if
anything, we wanted to eat. Eventually we decided that it made more sense
to wait and grab something at our next destination, so we collected the car
and headed for Heist-op-den-Berg. Just as we pulled out of the carpark, the
heavens--which had been threatening and spattering off and on all day,
between periods of bright sunshine--opened up and began to pour down on us.
Pleased with our timing, we threaded our way out of Antwerp.
Traffic made the forty-five minute drive into an hour, but we pulled up to
the Cultureel Centrum Zwaneberg and walked in to find Wes Carroll and the
rest of the House Jacks eating dinner in the center's restaurant. He was
gratifyingly surprised and pleased to see us walk in :) We got some food and
chatted with him for an hour before it was time for him to do sound checks
and get ready for their a capella rock concert. It was their last gig on a
two-week tour of Germany and Belgium (with a side-trip to Florida thrown
in), so they were pretty tired, but they put on a very fun show. They've
got some new numbers and have re-worked some old ones and sounded very good
and relaxed. During their "request" segment (they take requests, but only
for songs that aren't in their repertoire) they did some very good stuff
("Proud Mary," "Stayin' Alive," "Purple Rain," "Beat It," etc.) mixed in
with some very silly stuff (a thrash metal version of "Summer of '69," for
example) and wrapped it up with a surprisingly good impromptu cover of the
full length of "Bohemian Rhapsody." Wes has figured out some new drum
sounds--he does a great "woodblock"--and was using them to great effect.
After the show we hung around and took pictures with the guys and caught up
with Wes a little more. They were leaving the next day and needed to get
some sleep before the 18 hour transit from Brussels via Munich to San
Francisco, so we said goodbye around midnight and zipped back down the
highway to our hotel.
In the morning we found the right breakfast buffet (the one with bacon!) and
filled up before dropping off the car and our bags at the airport. We took
the train into the center of Brussels and went straight up the hill from the
station to the art museums. The "ancient" (13th- to 18th-century) art
museum and the modern art museum are linked by a tunnel and combined
admission. Given our limited time, we decided to start with the modern
wing, which is ENORMOUS. The 19th century is represented on floors 0-3 and
the 20th century takes up floors -1 to -8. We moved through it at a fairly
quick pace, getting an overview of their collection and pausing to take a
more leisurely stroll through the extensive exhibit of work by Rene
Magritte, an old favorite.
Tearing ourselves away, we took the elevator (with rows of seats on either
side, it's rated for up to 48 passengers) back up to ground level and
scooted down the hill to the Grande Place, Brussels' own Grote Markt. It is
lined by guild halls and other municipal buildings, most dating from the
17th century, after much of the square was destroyed by fire. We found a
seat on the facade of the Hotel de Ville--city hall--and waited for
Catherine.
Catherine de Vos was a Rotary exchange student from Brussels who lived with
my family in 1972. My parents and I visited her parents during a trip to
Europe in 1982, but she was out of the country at the time. So I hadn't
seen her in thirty years, since I was three years old. I've seen pictures
in the interim, but all of her at 16 or 17. I was afraid we might never
find each other, but when she walked up to us, I knew this could be no one
but Catherine. She is still the very cute, very funny, but intelligent and
serious person that my family loved.
Catherine took us to a traditional restaurant in the Gallerie St. Hubert,
Europe's first shopping arcade, built in 1847. It's a lovely, glass-roofed
corridor of high-end specialty shops, not yet invaded by the same old brands
that fill most of the world's high streets. We had another very tasty lunch
of scallops meuniere (with breadcrumbs and butter), white asparagus, steak
au poivre, and waterzooi, a traditional Flemish chicken stew. Catherine
entertained us with stories from the last ten years of renovating a
16th-century farmhouse south of the city and we exchanged news of our
families.
After lunch we wandered back up the hill to the Old England building, an Art
Nouveau masterpiece built in 1899 as a department store, that is now the
home of the Musical Instruments Museum. The collection, begun in 1877,
includes thousands of examples of musical instruments from all over the
world. The ground floor exhibits traditional wind, string and percussion
instruments from around the world. The second floor traces the development
of the modern orchestra. This section includes a selection of the
instruments developed by Belgian inventor Adolphe Sax, creator of the
saxophone as well as saxhorns and other variations. The third floor focuses
on string and keyboard instruments. We never made it to the basement, where
music boxes, pianolas and 20th-century instruments are on display. This is
definitely the best museum of musical instruments I have ever explored.
Visitors are given headphones and most display cases transmit the music of
the instruments shown there, providing a wonderful private soundtrack. The
funniest transition was from a case of Mexican mariachi instruments to one
of Tibetan temple instruments. We had a wonderful time wandering together
through the exhibits, occasionally distracted from the displays by the
gorgeous architecture of the recently renovated building.
When the staff chased us out at closing time, we made our way over to the
cathedral. Catherine left us there--she had to get home to take her son,
Paul, to badminton--and we wandered in for a look. They had some gorgeous
stained glass and the soaring architecture, but not very much in the way of
interesting art. After the Antwerp cathedral, this one seemed a bit small.
We had half an hour before we needed to catch our train, so we went back to
the Gallerie St. Hubert and visited Neuhaus, one of the chocolatiers
recommended by our guidebook. I'm not a big chocolate fan, but the Belgians
certainly raise it to an art, displaying their wares with the reverence
reserved for jewels in the shops of other cities. We selected a small box
of chocolates and a bag of florentines (wonderful cookie-like agglomerations
of toffee and almonds cemented together with a chocolate base) under the
stern eye of the clerk and then headed back to the Central Station.
Back at the airport we collected our bags from their locker, checked in for
our flight and then sat around reading in the various lounges until it was
time to board. Our flight was more delayed in this direction, but we got a
marvelous sunset-on-clouds view and an exciting rollercoaster ride into
London. With no bags to collect, we zipped through Heathrow and onto the
tube. There was a bit of delay there, but we made it home by 10:30pm.
It was a quick trip--and we hope to get back--but we managed to pack in
enough to make us feel that we had really been to Belgium. All our travel
arrangements worked like a charm and we managed to see the people we'd hoped
to see and spend some quality time with them.