Day 1 (Ghent)
We touched down in Brussels around 6:30 on Friday morning, March 7. We%26#39;d read up about this on TA, so it was easy to head down to the train station right in the airport and get our tickets to Gent. I bet the trains going the other way were full of commuters, but our trip out to Gent was uncrowded. Brussels wasn%26#39;t too pretty in the view from the railroad tracks, though we could see some church towers in the distance. The ride to Gent was less than an hour, I think. I thought I%26#39;d done enough planning %26amp; research to take the streetcar line from the main train station to the old historic core of Gent, but it was harder to figure our than I expected. Despite the uncertainty, we made it to the Korenmarkt without any missteps. From there it was a short walk to our hotel, the Marriott on the Korenlei. Since we were saving so much money on the flight %26amp; Paris lodgings, Candy suggested we pay a little more for nice places in Belgium. That was a great idea. The Marriott was essentially a modern business hotel with a historic facade, an easy start to our trip. That was perfect since by now we were pretty exhausted, but it was only 9:30 in the morning or something. We thought we%26#39;d drop of the luggage and try to stay awake all day, but they let us check into our room that early, so instead we gambled on an early nap. I know everyone says you%26#39;re not supposed to do that, but we just slept a couple hours, showered, and were able to tour the town by noon. MUCH refreshed.
We walked along the beautiful canal, and toured the Gravensteen right downtown. The structure of the castle is impressive, and the tour lets you walk through much of it. The walls and top made for good views of Gent. It was kind of cold %26amp; windy, but nicer than we were about to experience in Paris. :-) Some school kids were also getting a tour, and I always get a kick out of observing them. Different language, different culture, but most of the same social interactions that we watch our kids go through back home (ours are in 6th and 8th grades, much like the kids we saw). Most of the castle%26#39;s %26quot;better%26quot; years were spent as a prison, so a lot of the interior displays are about the horrible conditions and equipment used on the prisoners. Interesting, and a little sickening, too. A guillotine with the original blade, limb-cleavers, thumbscrews, that kind of thing.
Bundled up (I%26#39;m so glad she talked me into bringing a scarf), we headed for the Korenmarkt again, checking out some shops and generally taking it all in. From there it was a short walk to the Vrijdagmarkt, saw (but didn%26#39;t try) the frites stand from our tour book, then doubled back to the Korenmarkt for our choice of waffles. We both had a sugar waffle, which was warm %26amp; delicious. Though we were a little surprised that no one made them to-order. Every place we saw had a stack of pre-made waffles that would be warmed up under a little toaster oven when you ordered them. We toured Sint Baafskathedral, which was cold %26amp; dark. It felt like the middle ages in there, at least to a Californian! :-) I mean that in a good way, because the history of everything on our trip fascinates me, and I%26#39;d been reading Wikipedia entries on everything (many printed out before the trip, then read %26amp; discarded along the way, making my load lighter!).
That evening we walked around looking for restaurants, but skipped the many Turkish and other %26quot;foreign%26quot; ones in favor of a simple place on the Vrijdagmarkt square, someplace that seemed to have a few locals and Flemish food on the menu. Now it was time for some frites, as well as stoverij (Flemish beef stew--simple %26amp; good), and a Belgian beer. I%26#39;m sorry I can%26#39;t tell you which one--I know Belgium is heaven for beer drinkers, but I don%26#39;t care for it. Still, I figured I couldn%26#39;t be there an NOT have a beer, so there you go. Candy had croque monsieur, playing it safe, and we shared a dessert. That night she slept great, and I did, too. Until I was up for good around 4am or so. I%26#39;m sure the nap contributed to that, but really I was happy to be up, writing in my journal, reading about more sight, and watching the sun come up on the Graslei outside our window.
Day 2 (Ghent %26amp; Paris)
The hotel included a fantastic breakfast in the attached restaurant, the Korenhuis (which the website says is %26quot;a modernised 16th century merchant house.%26quot; Kind of a German-style breakfast, I thought. Having several hours before we need to catch the trains to Paris, we walked more of the city, this time heading west into the more modern part of downtown away from the historic core. Not modern in an industrial/ugly sense, we thought it was very clean %26amp; attractive. We popped into a small grocery to see what was on their shelves (always enjoy doing that), and just kept walking along the canal. Eventually we turned back and made our way to Sint Niklaaskerk. This was the merchant%26#39;s church, and it was interesting to see the sheep and corn carvings in the columns, etc. (In fact, there were plenty of references to corn in historic Ghent--I had no idea that was such a part of their economy in those days.) An organist was playing the (modern) organ, which made for beautiful music as we visited. More than other European churches I%26#39;ve visited, I noticed so many places where the original stones %26amp; mortar had been repaired %26amp; rebuilt. I don%26#39;t know if this building was damaged in wars, or something else.
Walking through the Korenmarkt one last time, we stopped to buy a few treats. We%26#39;d seen street stands selling what looked like cone-shaped purple candles, but were really some traditional local candies called cuberdons. Something like an enormous gumdrop which an outer shell, they were certainly interesting. I didn%26#39;t need more than a bite or two, as they were really sweet. We also got some chocolate, and here the shopkeeper helped us with some language. Candy still retains some pretty good high school German, and we both took a French-for-tourists introductory class before our trip. What we didn%26#39;t count on was the fact that both Ghent and Bruges speak more Dutch than anything else. Now, they also speak French, and often English, German, and/or Spanish, too. Amazing, really. But the default language for normal pleasantries and shopping is Dutch. All we had was one page of phrases in the back of our tour book for Dutch, but that%26#39;s really all we could retain anyway: please (alstublieft), thank you (dank u), hello (hallo), stuff like that. The shopkeeper told us that our thank you was being mispronounced with a long u sound that sounded closer to thank cow (dan-kuh)! He did all of this in a fun %26amp; friendly way, and we really appreciated the help.
Time to go, we took our luggage back on the De Lijn 1 to the Sint Pieters train station (we traveled with just one Rick Steves carry-on suitcase and daypack each). We%26#39;d pre-purchased our roundtrip Thalys ABS (Any Belgian Station) tickets on the website before leaving the US, then had picked the tickets up when we touched down at the Brussels airport. Now we used the first of those tickets to go from Ghent to Brussels, and then from Brussels via high speed Thalys to Paris Gare du Nord. A week later we%26#39;d use the return trip ticket to go back from Paris to Bruges, also by way of Brussels. Very nice.
That is, until I realized with a sinking feeling that I%26#39;d misread the ticket times, and what I thought was the Brussels departure was really the Paris arrival. In other words, we were now going to get to Brussels too late, having missed our train. Ugh. I didn%26#39;t discover this until we were halfway between Ghent %26amp; Brussels, with nothing to do but stew about it until we arrived. Once there, the Thalys agent was able to help. We%26#39;d skipped the cheapest Thalys tickets in favor of ones that offered some refundability, and ability to reschedule trips. You%26#39;re supposed to do that BEFORE your train leaves, but you also have a one-hour grace period after. We made it with 15 minutes to spare. She got us on the next train, about 90 minutes later. Unfortunately, there were no more 2nd-class seats available, so we had to pay the difference for a one-way upgrade to 1st-class (about $75 total). Oh well, at least the trip was back on track (literally). With the upgrade we got a meal on the trip, so that helped, too. Our assigned seats were no longer together, but it was easy to move to two empties next to each other (and facing forward!). It was a pleasant, quick trip and
then we were in Paris!
[next several parts to be posted in the Paris forum, tripadvisor.com/ShowForum-g187147-i14-Paris_… ]
|||
Thanks for taking the time to post. Enjoyed it.
|||
Wow BGTG, what a detailed trip report. I%26#39;m impressed. And glad that you seemed to have liked Ghent. It%26#39;s interesting and funny at the same time to learn how foreigners see the city you%26#39;ve known all your life.
By the way: we usually call the cuberdons %26#39;neuzekes%26#39;, which means %26#39;little noses%26#39;. They are incredibly sweet indeed, but apart from that they contain only natural ingredients.
Enjoy all you future trips and thank you for your story!
|||
-:- Message from TripAdvisor staff -:-
This topic was inactive for 6 months and has been closed to new posts. We hope you'll join the conversation by posting to an open topic or starting a new one.
To review the TripAdvisor Forums Posting Guidelines, please follow this link: http://www.tripadvisor.com/pages/forums_posting_guidelines.html
We remove posts that do not follow our posting guidelines, and we reserve the right to remove any post for any reason.
Removed on: 8:19 pm, September 29, 2009
No comments:
Post a Comment