Our ferry ride was relatively uneventful though it was 23 hours instead of the advertised 19 hours. We never found out what caused the extra 4 hours of time but we suspect that it was due to the cruise ship we passed leaving port as we pulled in. As a result we put our trip to the grocery aside and headed straight to our campground.
The port of Trapani Italy as we pulled in on the ferry.
Once we off loaded we had a 30 kilometer introduction to Italian driving. Up until now we had been driving in countries that on the whole behaved like American drivers when faced with decisions. No passing zones mean you do not pass, stop signs are meant to be stopped at, and no parking means no parking. My initial feeling is that driving here is a lot like driving in Mexico. People are relatively predictable but you have to know the unwritten rules as well as the written rules, and expect a little more aggressive driving. Hopefully we will adapt pretty quick. As we were driving up to the campground Ton said that Sicily reminded her of Thailand, which is mostly good. Tomorrow will be our introduction to Italy as visitors.
This area is famous for salt production. We passed several of these salt works on the way to the campground.
There really is not much to talk about today. We needed to be in Toulon at 3:30 pm to catch our ferry to Sicily, so there was no time for exploring. We spent the morning poking around the campground taking care of cleaning, dumping tanks, and filling tanks. At 11:30 we took off for Toulon looking to fill François up, and maybe do a quick shop for some of our favorite French things before we depart for Italy.
Everything was going to plan until it was time to get fuel. Periodically our American credit cards are refused at French fuel dispensers. There is no rhyme or reason about when it will happen, but it happened today. In the past we were able to overcome this by using a debit card we travel with for emergencies, but today they even refused that. So we were stuck on a tour of fuel stations of Toulon until we found one with a human being who could process our credit cards. Five stations later we finally found a station with an attendant and filled up François.
François and Ron waiting to board the ferry to Sicily.
When we parked in the line for the ferry I noticed the camper van in front of us had Thai writing on it. I went up to ask the French couple about why, but it turns out they had bought the van used and did not even know the strange writing was Thai, they just liked the way it looks!
It is the largest ferry we have been on and is almost like a mini-cruise ship, complete with bars and multiple restaurants. So after settling in we went up top to watch our departure from Toulon on the way to Trapani Italy.
Today François stayed in place while we visited the neighboring city of St. Tropez. It was a short bus ride to St. Tropez, but it was a change from middle class to uber rich. Port Grimaud is a pretty city on the same bay as St. Tropez, but while prosperous it features 40 foot boats and nice condos. 5km’s away St.Tropez features 100 foot plus yachts, and helicopters scurrying over carrying their owners to their estates.
We can see why St. Tropez is such a hit with the jet setters as the climate and the setting is spectacular. The water in the bay is crystal clear and generally calm. It became one of the “it” places in the world largely because of Brigitte Bardot in the 1960’s. Several of her famous movies were filmed in this area and put St. Tropez on the map. It is a pretty little town with lots of restaurants and high end shops lining the waterfront. There are a lot of people walking up and down the harbor gawking at the yachts. The actual uber rich were out of site or blending in with the crowds.
The harbor in St. Tropez with some of the smaller yachts.
Ton had two things she wanted to accomplish; she wanted to visit the road named after one of her favorite authors Antoine de Saint-Exupèry, and to take a picture of a statue of Brigitte that is in town. After we walked thru the town we headed out to find the road dedicated to Antoine. He was Ton’s favorite author when she was studying French. The Little Prince is his most famous work. Antoine was a true renaissance man as in addition to being a great writer he was also an early aviator and explorer. It is located next to the old fort on the hill above town and had a great view of the town and the bay. We both find that we find small connections to our youth by exploring these towns and it adds some fun to the trip.
The signpost for Antoine de Saint-Exupèry, with a holder for his fans to leave flowers.
After our walk around town and up to the fort we were hungry. Ton had two restaurants on her list, but one had gone out of business, and the other was closed, and as we were running out of time for lunch we popped into a Thai restaurant. This was our first Thai restaurant in Europe and we left a little disappointed.
Where we should have had lunch.
The final stop for the day was to be a statue to Brigitte Bardot, but after walking the streets looking for it (including seeing several French restaurants that only added to our disappointment with lunch), we came to the statue of Brigitte and had a good laugh. When we first got off the bus we walked thru a little square with a cute statue of a women nude, and Ton took several pictures of it as she really liked it. It turns out this was the famous Brigitte statue that we were looking for. Brigitte while long retired still lives in St. Tropez.
The statue of Brigitte Bardot who helped put St. Tropez on the map.
Since we were next to the bus station we headed back to the campground for a light dinner and a walk along the beach at sunset.
St. Tropez is full of art galleries. Some of the artists looked quite talented.
Another day of big driving, and me being clueless. We wanted to get down somewhere near Toulon as our ferry to Sicily leaves from there on October 9. Ton thought hanging around near the rich at Saint Tropez would be fun. Port Grimaud is only about 10 km’s from Saint Tropez and would let people of our economic stature hang around; so that was the target.
Before the trip I thought we needed an oil change as my research indicated that the oil was due to be changed at 45,000 km’s. I had planned to have the oil changed when we got the new tires for François but I had a conversation with someone who managed a fleet of vehicles like François who said that oil change was 50.000 km’s so I decided to hold off until we returned from Italy. It turns out my research was right and about halfway to Port Grimaud we got a flashing red oil can on the dash of François. In my experience anything on the dash that is red and related to oil needs immediate attention. We pulled into the first rest area on the autoroute and I checked the oil. It was low, but not out so I added a liter and expected the light to go out. It did not so as I drove south Ton began looking for a Fiat dealer or mechanic and she came up with one. Well after about a 40 minute detour we came to the location of the Fiat mechanic according to Google, and it was a brand new KFC. Since all of the dealers who could deal with François were on lunch break anyway I took the time to do some more research and it turns out that the flashing red oil can indicates the need to change the oil and not a problem with the oil, so we decided to carry on with our trip and find a place to change the oil when we get to Italy.
Sunset at the beach for our campground. Saint Tropez is across the bay.
So after a little drama, we are now in a very large campground next to the Mediterranean Sea, and looking forward to heading into Saint Tropez tomorrow to see how the 1% live.
The jet lag is starting to wear off so we woke a little earlier to head into Lyon. We purchased an all day pass for public transport in Lyon which is a good deal for €6 as we wanted to cover a lot of ground today.
On the way to Lyon we asked a young gentlemen to confirm we were at the correct bus stop, and ended up chatting with him most of the way to downtown. He is trying to start a company to refill wine bottles directly rather than sending them to recycling first and then remolding them. He told us there is a similar program going on with beer bottles in Oregon that we were not familiar with. We enjoyed a wide ranging conversation from tax methods to population density of Oregon vs France. These small contacts are always fun and encouraging.
When we finally arrived in downtown Lyon after a detour due to a market along the route and getting caught in a major traffic jam, we ran into the finish line for the Lyon marathon. We spent a little time watching the runners finish, and enjoying the good mood of the spectators and runners as they crossed the line.
The finish line of the Lyon Marathon, Ton was trying some tricks with her camera so we caught some ghosts running the marathon.
Our next stop was the Roman theater which was pretty close to the finish line, the problem was it was about 600 feet higher on a pretty steep hill. There were two funiculars up the hill which were covered by our transit pass, but I could not find them so we ended up climbing the hill. The Roman theater is quite large and well preserved. It is still used to stage plays during the year, and holds about 6000 people in its current configuration. During the Roman era there was a second wooden deck that accommodated another 5000 people.
The Roman Theater in Lyon is one of the largest in France.
In the distance we saw a cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary and headed over there. It was a fairly modern cathedral built around 1872. The story about the cathedral is it is on a hill overlooking the original cathedral in Lyon Saint-Jean. In the 1500’s when the plague was going thru Europe the town prayed to Mary that if she spared Lyon from the plague they would do an annual procession to the top of the hill, and the plague skipped Lyon. In the 1600’s there was a cholera epidemic in the area, and the citizens again prayed to Mary and promised a church on top of the hill if Lyon was spared, and it was. Finally during the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 the citizens asked Mary to spare them from destruction by the Prussians this time promising a cathedral, which was duly built when the Prussians by passed Lyon.
You rub the Lions nose for good luck as you enter the cathedral in Lyon.
We also found the funicular so our trip down to the main city was much quicker and easier on the knee’s. I have become quite reliant on Google for navigation, and it was at this point that I realized that despite Lyon being the third largest city in France, its transit system was not loaded into Google maps. So now to get to our next destination I had to go back to the old way of trying to compare a city map with a transit map to figure the best way to get to a food hall with several famous restaurants. It was not pretty but eventually we arrived just in time to watch all of the restaurants close up for the day.
The food hall that was just closing up as we arrived.
So instead we headed back to François where Ton prepared me a delicious meal.
We are both battling a little bug coupled with jet lag and a pretty good storm resulted in a poor nights sleep for both of us. As a result we decided to just jump on the road and get some miles towards our ultimate destination.
We have been wanting to visit Lyon and it was about half way to Toulon so we decided to head there for the day. Ton suggested we go ahead and pay to use the Autoroute so it was a very easy day of driving for me, but a little expensive. By the time we arrived in Lyon we decided to just explore the area around the campground. The area around us appears to have been part of the fortress system for Lyon in the past, so there were a lot of tall walls. The town center was nice and we gawked at some beautiful French pastries, the French really do pastries right.
A father and son Petanque game in the village square near our campground.
After stretching our legs we decided to turn in early and get ready to try to take Lyon by storm tomorrow.
Today we moved about 5km’s to our favorite aire at Gron. Jet lag won the day and neither one of us were moving around until about 11:30 so we decided to take care of a couple of more things around our base in Sens before hitting the road tomorrow.
The biggest thing was to fill up the LP and top off the fuel in François. It looks like we will have some cool nights so the heater is going to be running. They have been having a drought around here so of course we show up and bring them three days of rain and cool weather.
One small adventure happened today. E. Leclerc is one of our favorite grocery chains in France and the one in Sens has propane and relatively cheap fuel so we decided to head over there. It is not pay at the pump so we had to circle thru the pay station twice to take care of our two different fuel needs.
When we finished the fuel merry go round we headed over to the parking lot for the store, and they had installed height barriers restricting the parking lot to 2.3 meters (François is 2.9 meters). We have shopped here on every trip so I thought they must have at least one part of their large parking lot open to Campers, and as we drove around the lot the last entrance had the height barriers open so we pulled in and parked. After we finished our shopping we came out and while we were in the store they had closed the height barrier trapping us inside.
An example of the height barrier used to keep RV’s like François out.
As I was trying to sort out how we were going to escape another Camper pulled up. We had a short conversation in sign language and Franglish where he told me (and I am paraphrasing greatly) that his camper was 2.8m and he fit under the sign. Meanwhile a couple of cars had pulled up behind us and were watching us figure this out, then a third car came up and began blowing his horn where upon we both gave him a big Gallic shrug, like what do you want. The guy in the shorter camper went under the bar without hitting, and then got out to guide me thru. Taking it slow we escaped under the barrier, and with a shake and a bon journey we were on our way to the aire to finish our day.
Started the day by going over to retrieve François from storage at Eurocamping Cars. The next stop was Garage Alary to get some new tires installed on François. The designated English speaker Abdelsem did a good job of making us feel welcome. Two hours later we have new tires and were on our way to Sens for some grocery shopping.
I misread the gauge on the control panel and thought the battery was down on François so instead of going to the free aire in Gron we usually stay in we went to the pay aire in Sens as it provides electricity. As it turns out we had electricity, not water. So instead of staying in Gron for free with free water, the pay aire in Sens charges an extra 2 euro for 10 minutes of water. My first mistake of the trip on the first day. I tried to convince Ton it is better here because their is a Lidl across the street to shop in, but she knows better.
François parked in the aire in Sens.
We finished the day up with a short trip to Lidl and an early supper. Tonight will be an early one as we are both quite jet lagged.
We made it back to France. This time the trip was on Delta Airlines and unlike our previous flight on Icelandic they provided plenty of food for free. Another bonus is that they are flying 767’s on the route from Seattle to Paris which comes with 2-3-2 seating so Ton and I had our two seats to ourselves which is another bonus.
We were impressed the first time we arrived at Charles DeGaulle airport as there was no wait at all for immigration. This time was absolutely the opposite, there were easily a couple of thousand people in the arrival hall and the crowd had spilled outside the roped off area into a hallway where people fed in from three different directions so getting a line of any type formed out there was going to take some effort on someone’s part, unfortunately the people working there chose not to be the ones to make the effort, so the passengers did their best to organize things. it took nearly two hours to clear immigration.
The rest of the trip worked as planned with our normal train ride from the airport to downtown, a short trip on the metro to Gare DeBercy and a train to Sens. Overall from leaving our house to arriving at the hotel in Sens was a 28 hour trip.
Except for a terrible check in process Iceland Airlines got us home on time, and relatively comfortably. This was our longest trip so far at 8 weeks.
City scene from Flanders, this style of building is popular in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.
We visited 6 countries if you count our unplanned drive thru Austria on our way to Garmisch. We spent time in France, Germany, The Netherlands (one day), Belgium and Luxembourg. Germany is a very easy country to travel in. The roads are good and we fell into the habit of using the Autobahn which cut our drive time down quite a bit at the expense of seeing the countryside. There is a lot to see and we found the cities very comfortable to visit. I enjoyed seeing the former East Germany and found it very interesting, though the differences between the East and West to an outsider are fading fast. We really enjoyed Belgium, it is a charming country with some really pretty cities. Bruges is popular for a reason and was probably the prettiest city we visited.
The cathedral in Bruges.
Once again we ran out of time and ended up skipping some planned stops in Germany including Nuremburg and Berlin. So far we have had a hard time making capital cities on our trips. In Belgium we missed Wallonia completely, and I would like to give the Ardennes region there a look. Based on our day in Maastricht and talking with the many Netherlanders we met we have added the Netherlands to our countries to visit.
We covered about 5000km on this trip, (not an exact number because I forgot to note the starting mileage.) Besides the mystery leak when we are in monsoon like conditions François performed well. We are really enjoying Europe so far.
A view from the road in France, you really cannot beat the back country in France.
The final question; who has the better beer? I think it is Belgium by a mile, and Ton also votes for Belgium.
We dropped François off and took our normal route to Paris. Everything worked as it should, except there was a long line to buy tickets for the train to the airport so we missed the last shuttle of the afternoon for our hotel. With the help of a couple of French ladies we were able to convince another hotel (with the help of €10) to drop us off at our hotel. The air conditioner in our room did not work and it was around 90 degrees, fortunately the window opened so we were able to cool the room down to sleep. We think its time to look for a new hotel.
Our neighbor at the aire in Gron last night. We are not sure what kind of cow this is.
Dinner was at our normal kebab place near the hotel. They did not have AC either so we did not linger. The highlight of the day was watching the US beat Spain in the Women’s World Cup.
Today was our last day with François so our priority was to get to Sens in time to make a quick run thru Auchan to pick up some last minute snack food, as we came to the realization a couple of days ago that Icelandic Airlines will not provide us food on our 11 hours in the air coming home. We picked them primarily because they had a flight into Portland from Reykjavik and we were thinking about using them in the future as the connections are clean. It never occurred to us that an airline would put you on an 11.5 hour flight and expect you to buy food. Plus the fare was not particularly a bargain, live and learn.
Now that we are back in France and trying to avoid tolls Greta picked a route that while inexpensive turned out to involve quite a few country roads that had our speed down, so the trip took about 40 minutes longer than we planned, but all ended well as we arrived at Auchan with an hour to spare before their 1230 Sunday closing time.
The country side in France is really magnificent. Several times per day you come across a view like this.
We had also planned to give François a good bath today, but a few minutes into the wash, the car wash broke down. We quickly took advantage of the water that we had to give him a quick wipe down, and he ended up presentable.
Ton spent the afternoon packing and cleaning the interior while I tried to stay out of the way, but remain available when heavy things needed lifting.
We picked Epernay as a destination as it was about 60% of the way to Sens, had a decent place to stay, and looked like an interesting place to spend the afternoon. When we arrived we were worried about whether there would be room in the campground as there was a youth Rugby tournament taking place at the athletic fields surrounding the campground. Actually we have begun to notice that things are getting more crowded as we go, the aires and campgrounds have been filling up nearly everyday by 5 pm. We got lucky and did get a spot, but by 5 pm they were also full.
There were about 30 youth rugby teams in the tournament taking place at the campground.
We spent the afternoon relaxing and when we were bored venturing out to watch the youth Rugby. Ton and I took a walk around 1pm, but in France even youth Rugby tournaments take a two hour break for a proper lunch. We enjoyed watching the families lay out a large lunch spread including wine for the adults. The French surely have their priorities aligned when it comes to food.
Lunch being prepared at the Rugby Tournament.
Epernay is one of the largest producers of champagne, and Moet which is an upscale brand is based there. Our original plan was to walk into town and poke around, but it was quite hot. When we checked in they told us there was a wine tour at 5:15 pm for a reasonable price, so we signed up to avoid the walk. On the tour we were joined by a German couple with a cute Labradoodle named Murphy, and a couple of Dutch guys who were on a weekend trip to stock up with champagne for the year. The winery was kind of a bust as the owner did not speak much English, and none of us spoke French. But we made the best of it and ended up enjoying the company of the other people on the tour.
A demonstration of the capping process at our champagne cellar tour.
When we returned Ton made a huge dinner as we are trying hard to eat all of the food in the refrigerator. Feeling stuffed we decided to take an after dinner stroll when we ran into the Dutch guys again. As we were exchanging stories Ton told them about the Dutch couple we were parked next to in Bruges, he had told us that he was one of the original surfers in the Netherlands. When she was explaining the part about the surfer dude from Holland the two guys started speaking excitedly in Dutch, and asked her to describe him in more detail. They had a little more conversation in Dutch and then told us we had met Jan van de Berg who apparently is more than just a surfer dude in the Netherlands, but a big deal. He was an Olympic hero in the 80’s for winning the Netherlands first medal in surfing, also he was apparently a hotty as all of the girls in the Netherlands had posters of him in their bedrooms. Our street cred with the Dutch guys went up enormously. Later Ton did some research and we think we met the parents of Jan, and not Jan himself.
Luxembourg City is a beautiful city, but for now it is also a giant construction project. At nearly every point we turned there is a building going up, or a road being widened or paved. We even ran into a small side loader when climbing a trail from the lower city to the upper city. On top of the construction they were setting up for the national day celebration so where construction was not going on there were crowd control fences and stages being built for the party. While we do not think this is normal, it was probably the hardest city to walk in we have seen in Europe.
Some of the old fortifications and bridges above the Aizette River.
Most of the city is on the bluffs of the Aizette River. The river passes thru the city in a gorge a couple of hundred feet below the city. There is a section of the city at the bottom of the bluff called Grun. We spent most of the day down there wandering around the old streets and messing around in the ramparts of the old fort. We could see it is a beautiful city when it is not being dug up in mass.
The Grun district in the valley below the city center. Ton had to work hard to get a picture with only one construction crane in it.
We had lunch in a restaurant in the Grun where we tried the national dish of Luxembourg called Judd Mat Gaardebounen when it arrived at the table it came in a cauldron. It is pork neck soaked in brine with white beans, definitely peasant food. It was filling. Having eaten peasant food for our main course we decided to go to the official patisserie of the Duke and Duchess of Luxembourg for desert. We had a nice cheese cake, and chocolate nougat for desert. So we had a peasant dinner and an aristocratic desert.
Ham and beans our traditional Luxembourg peasant lunch.Our desert fit for a Duke.
When we returned for the night there was an outdoor concert taking place. So we wandered over with some of our Duchesse de Bourgogne beer and listened to the Moselle Valley Brass Band until it was time to turn in for the night.
We have both wanted to visit Luxembourg on this trip. We almost swung thru on our way out, but it did not work out. So last night we decided to head over today. We left with some light rain and for the last 50 km’s or so we had absolutely torrential rain. We also ran into our first EU customs check, as Luxembourg was checking all trucks entering the country so the right lane of the freeway was closed so that the police could use it to check the trucks. This caused a 2 or 3 mile backup as all of the non-commercial traffic squeezed in the left lane.
The Luxembourg flag from the church next to the campground.
When we got to the nice campground on the outskirts of Luxembourg City and checked in, we noticed the throw carpet we put on the floor of François was wet. This is the third time we have had this problem, and each time it has been after driving thru very heavy rain. While Ton cleaned up, I tried to find a possible source of the water. We are finding the water right in the center of the cabin, and there are no obvious places for it to come from. So far no luck, the good news is that it only happens when it rains heavily, and it is not an enormous amount of water. We will keep you posted.
A picture from a memorial to three American soldiers who were killed when their tank fell thru the bridge in the village while they were liberating it.
Since we started on a clean up, because of the mystery leak we decided to also take care of washing the sheets towels and everything we leave behind. We were planning on doing it on Saturday, but since the campground had good German Washing Machines and Dryers and Ton was on a roll we decided to do it today.
The ruins of an old castle behind a church near the campground.
Since not much happened today I will share one weird story from the trip. When we entered Germany way back on May 9 the campground we were staying at had one of those take one leave one libraries. All but one of the books were in German, but the one book in English looked interesting to me so I took it. It was Michael Palin’s diary from 1970-1979 of his years with Monty Python. It was a pretty thick book and it became my night time reading. I was reading the last twenty pages of it in early June when I noticed the campground we were staying in in Lubeck also had a take one leave one library. It was the first one I had noticed since I had gotten the Palin diary, and I was shocked to see the next volume of Michael Palin’s diary from 1980 to 1989 amongst all the German books there. It seems I have been following a fellow Michael Palin fan around Germany and we read at about the same pace.
The two volumes of Michael Palin diaries found in two campground take one leave one libraries over 400 miles apart in Germany.
We woke up to a pretty serious thunderstorm. It had been raining off and on all night with a few gusts of wind strong enough to rock François back and forth. Our neighbor had to get up and secure his bicycles and table to prevent them from blowing away.
The wheat next to our parking place showing the effects of the rain and the wind.
The neighbors were Belgian and we spent some time talking to them last night. Neither spoke English fluently but they both could communicate to us. The first question was where we were from as it was clear to them we were not French. After we got that sorted out, we began to talk about traveling. The wife volunteered that this was her first time in this part of Belgium. Since Belgium is quite small we were a little surprised so Ton asked her where she was from, “Bruges”. We both laughed as Bruges is about 40 miles from where we are today and she was probably in her late 60’s. She thought about it for a minute and laughed too, saying she has been to Spain, France, and Indonesia but not to Westvleteren until today. She made me laugh again later when we were heading back to François, I told them “See you later”, she replied “See you later alligator”, giggled and followed it with “after a while crocodile”. I got a real kick out of that which she appreciated.
The Duchesse de Bourgogne, the purpose of our day today.
Today was the biggest day of our beer tour of Germany and Belgium. Tons’ favorite beer in the world is Duchesse de Bourgogne by Verhaeghe Brewery. Ton had been on their website and they only offered public tours on Friday and that would not work for us. We decided to send them an email explaining our problem and asking if they could accommodate us in any way. We were thrilled when they agreed to give us a private tour of the brewery today.
Katrien our tour guide for today. Yes we did try all of the beers in front of her.
We arrived at the brewery and met our guide for the day Katrien. She sat us down and began the tour with a tasting of two of their beers that they only sell locally. After that we were off for a walk around the brewery. The brewery is family run for 4 generations and has survived two world wars. In the first world war the owner of the brewery refused to brew for the Germans so they confiscated all of his beer making equipment to melt down to make guns.
As Katrien said we could have a good party with the contents of one of these barrels.
Their beer is all pre-sold so they are in the process of a significant expansion of the brewery to double their output. We were shown both the historical old buildings and the new modern buildings that will make up the expansion. Katrien did a great job explaining the process, and talking us thru each of the beers. It was a great time and we have a fresh bottle of Duchess de Bourgogne to drink before we leave.
The twin watch towers over the River Leie in Kotrijk.
We finished the day in an aire in the town of Kortrijk which is a major town in the region. We did not see as much of it as we wanted as it was raining pretty hard when we first arrived with occasional flashes of lightning. It finally calmed down enough for us to take a quick walk thru the town. It has two World Heritage Sites, their town belfry which along with all of the other belfries in Flanders are grouped as a world heritage site, and the Beguinage of Courtrai which is a well preserved 13th century womens community. It was run like a nunnery but the women did not take any religious vows. It was still active as a womens community until the 1960’s.
The interior of the Beguinage with the Cathedral tower in the background.Another view from inside the Beguinage, the building in the middle is from the 1600’s while the buildings surrounding it are from the 1300’s.
Today we moved a whole 15km to a nice aire on a farm in the village of Westvlateren. It is a very small village known for St Sixtus Abby and Brewery. The setting is beautiful but unfortunately they just cut the hay in the field next to the aire and Ton who has been fighting allergies this entire trip is really suffering.
Our impromptu goal for the day St. Sixtus Abby.
As we have been traveling around Belgium we have kept hearing about this mythical beer from Westvleteren. When we were in Amsterdam we ran into an Australian who proudly mentioned he had found some bottles of it for sale in Brussels and was happy to get 3 of them for only €19 each. When we moved to Bruges we also heard about this beer from some other people. Ton began doing her research and it turns out it is considered by some beer connoisseurs to be the best beer in the world, and it was very difficult to buy it as you had to make an appointment and you were limited to 48 bottles at a time. The problem is that the phone to call to make an appointment receives over 80,000 calls per day so it is very hit or miss whether you can get an appointment. The monks are very concerned as their beer has been growing in popularity about people gouging others. They closely control distribution to minimize people inflating prices, but it is still happening like our Australian friend in Brussels discovered. At the brewery the bottles sell for €4.
Liquid Gold.
We were still not planning to visit the brewery until last night when we decided to spend the day in the vicinity of Poperinge which is the biggest Hops producing town in Belgium. When I began to look for a place to stay around Poperinge it turns out there is an aire close to the Westvleteren Abby. Ton did some more research and found out that the monks did allow one cafe to sell their beer over the counter in the village, so here we are.
Hops were the reason we began the trip today.
We started the day by going to Poperinge to visit the hop museum. It was an interesting presentation on hop production in the region. It focused mostly on the farming of the hops and was full of equipment and detailed descriptions of how hop farming techniques had changed in the area thru history. At the end it had examples of every Belgian Beer currently in production by region.
To celebrate the end of the hop harvest locals burn straw men in the field and drink a lot of beer.
The next stop was the Westvleteren Cafe which along with the Abby is pretty much the entire town. The aire was supposed to be 1km from the Abby but that turned out to be as the crow flies, so after a half hour walk around the fields between us and the abby we arrived hot and ready for a cold beer. It took a while to be served as we have not quite mastered the way of getting a Belgian servers attention, but we finally put in our order for one of each of the 3 beers they produce here. The first is a blonde, the second is a dark beer with 8% alcohol, and the reported best beer in the world is the dark beer with 12% alcohol. They were all excellent, but our conclusion was that the dark 12 was indeed the best.
Two very happy people.
As we were leaving we stopped in their gift shop to pick up a memory of the trip, and discovered we could buy a six pack of the dark 12. So as I am typing this I am happily sipping on one of the best beers in the world.
We only moved about 50 kilometers today to the town of Ypres. I picked this stop because I was interested in a Commonwealth War Ceremony they have there every night.
Walking to town we came across this very healthy looking sheep who winked at Ton.
Ypres was right on the front lines during WWI and was pretty much fought over for the entire war. In total there were over 1 million casualties in what was called the Ypres Salient (bulge) with over 850,000 combined casualties in a 3 month period in 1917. Ypres was also the first use of poison gas on the western front. The entire town was leveled during the course of the war.
After the war the Belgian government rebuilt the city including duplicating the Cotton Hall and belfry as well as the Cathedral as they stood before the war. Both buildings are impressive sites today.
The reconstructed Cotton Hall and Belfry rebuilt after WWI. The original building was rubble after the war.
While French and Belgian troops fought extensively in this area for the allies, a large contingent of British and Commonwealth soldiers fought here. After the war the Belgian government reconstructed the Menin Gate into the city as a war memorial to the Commonwealth and British soldiers who were killed in this area but whose bodies were never properly identified. The monument has over 50,000 names on it from all over the British Empire. There are soldiers from Canada, Australia, India, Burma, and South Africa as well as Great Britain on the memorial.
You can see the endless lists of names on the wall, thru the door is a similar wall with more names, over 50,000 in total.
As a tribute to these men who were lost; every night the Fire Brigade in Ypres has a ceremony called “The Last Post”. At 8pm buglers from the Fire Brigade play the Last Post (the British version of Taps.) inside the Menin Gate. Tonight we attended the ceremony and it is very moving. As we were waiting we heard people from Canada, Australia, and Britain talking about the ceremony and why they were attending. It is a fairly simple but moving ceremony as different groups bring wreaths to present at the Gate. Tonight it was school groups in their uniforms presenting the wreaths. We were very impressed that this ceremony is still being carried out over 100 years after the end of WWI.
Bruges deserved a second day so after spending some time talking to our Dutch and English neighbors we headed into town to take a look at some other sites for the day. We were hoping it would be a little less crowded than on Friday but if anything it was busier.
Market Square in Bruges with the crowds.
Our first stop was the oldest bar in Bruges dating back to the 1560’s. One of the stories is that the famous Flemish painter Paul Reubens ran up a bar tab in the 1600’s that he did not have the cash to pay off, so he paid the bill with a painting. Hopefully they kept the painting long enough as it would have paid off whatever tab he ran up plus a million Euro or so today.
The door to the oldest bar in Bruges that one time owned an original Reubens.
Something interesting happened as we walked to the bar. It is not in the tourist core of Bruges, and after we got a few blocks past the square we were suddenly alone. We were following a beautiful canal with really interesting buildings all around us, but hardly any tourists, just locals. We really enjoyed this stretch of the city.
Another beautiful area in Bruges away from the tourist crush.
On Friday we passed on a canal boat tour because of the crowds, but today despite the crowds being worst we felt obliged to do it. There were 40 seats on the boat and they were all filled. Our boat driver was multi-lingual so he did the tour in 4 languages, English, Dutch, French, and Spanish so we had to pay attention for when our explanation was coming. By this time we had walked all of the canals we went down on the boat a couple of times so we were familiar with the sites and the short explanation did not add much to our experience.
The crowded canals of Bruges.
Ton treated me to a fathers day meal of Flemish Mussels which are a delicacy around here. After we started eating we realized that Delirium Brewery from Brussels had recently bought this place which was listed as one of the best restaurants and beer halls in town.
Enjoying my Belgian Mussels with a Delirium Beer.
At the end of the day we returned to Half Maan Brewery for a tour. It is clear that lawyers are not the powerful force in Belgium that they are in the US. Our tour had us climbing up and down ladders and very small stairs thru working industrial space. At one point the tour guide let an 11 year old boy climb into a 500 liter beer tank, that would result in a fine from the safety inspector in the US. The brewery has a 2 mile pipeline for beer from the brewery to their bottling plant in the industrial outskirts of Bruges which is the longest beer pipeline in the world. The highlight was when we popped out on the roof of the brewery for a great view of the top of Bruges. The tour ended with a nice glass of Belgian Blonde Ale, and some soccer discussion about the US women and Timbers with another couple from Portland who were also on the tour.
Ton really liked the logo of the Half Maan Brewery.The view of Bruges from the roof of Half Maan.The storage tanks they let the boy climb into.
As we headed back we heard voices near François and it turns out our English and Dutch neighbors had also just returned and were exchanging stories of their day. We joined in and an impromptu party broke out where some French wine, and Irish, and German beer was consumed. That is why this is being published a day late.
As we were leaving the city we came on this sculpture of the flying horse Pegasus pulling a carriage. We are not sure what the significance is of the naked women on the back.
Today we took the train into Ghent leaving François in Bruges. Ghent is an easy 30 minute train ride from Bruges and we are parked almost next to the train station, with the added bonus of 1/2 price train tickets on the weekend it was a no brainer for us, and a rest day for me and François.
The market square and St. Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent.
The Ghent station is about a mile and a half from the center of the city, so we stopped and bought a day pass for the local transit which broadened our area to explore a bit. The first stop was the tourist information center to pick up a walking tour map of the city. Ghent is a bigger less touristy version of Bruges. It has all of the canals, cathedrals, and old buildings of Bruges just on a bigger less personal scale.
The Belfry in Ghent, while it looks old, the top half is from the early 20th century.
The center was very lively as it was Saturday and the local people were out shopping with the tourists. Ghent had a really fun feel to it and we enjoyed walking thru the center of the town. It is the third biggest city in Belgium, but avoided significant damage in both Wars so it has retained a lot of it’s pre-20th century charm. Recently as Bruges has been overrun with tourists, Ghent has turned into a major tourist destination as well.
The center of the tourist industry, the canal boat tours in Ghent allow alcohol while the ones in Bruges do not. The old meat market with a selection of (probably Spanish) hams hanging from the ceiling.
After touring the center we decided to continue our beer tour of Belgium by visiting a couple of breweries, the first was Dok Brewery. It was in an old industrial area adjacent to some canals that is being converted to housing and small tech type businesses. Dok in Flemish means Dock in English and it was located in an old warehouse. We knew we had found a place away from the tourist route because all of the signs were in Flemish. When I apologized that I could not speak Flemish to the Bartender she smiled and switched to perfect English and told me not to worry, no one but the Flemish can. It really reminded us of some of the breweries in Portland that are also in old industrial sites. They had a wide selection of beers beyond the traditional Belgian beers. We enjoyed a taster tray and then a round of our favorites.
Canals cut thru Ghent in many directions, many are still used for industry, some are converting to tech and housing.
The second brewery was Gruut Brewery. Ton really wanted to visit because the head brewer is female. It is also set up as a microbrewery, so we enjoyed a taster of not just the traditional beers but some non-traditional. They were also excellent.
The interior of Gruut Brewery.
On the way back we were comparing Ghent and Bruges. Our conclusion was if you were visiting for a day you should choose Bruges, if you were visiting for a week we would choose Ghent.
We stumbled onto this alley that the local artists were using as a living art gallery. There were about 100 yards of graffiti art along both sides.
Ton has been greatly entertained by Flemish/Dutch spellings, as they have lots of vowels. In the past she visited the Czech Republic and had difficulty pronouncing anything due to that languages lack of vowels, here the plethora of vowels cause her the same problem. Tonight she was telling our neighbors from the Netherlands that they need to lend some of their vowels to the Czechs so both languages would be easier to pronounce. I am not sure they understood her humor, but they smiled.
A wood carving of St. Bavo. He has the nicest cathedral in Ghent named after him.
