Nice Long Weekend in Belgium

Karen had a business trip planned in Brussels, so we decided to turn it into a long weekend and spend some time in Antwerp and Bruges. At the same time, Karen's sister, Christine was on Spring Break from her MBA at University of Chicago so she flew out to meet us.

There was a beautiful sky as we were getting on our plane (and Aerlingus is one of our favorite company to fly!). Foreshadowing of a great trip to come! We all arrived in Brussels on Wednesday and went into Brussels that afternoon.

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Here is a picture we took in the Grand Place (pronounced grand platz).

We were all getting hungry and trying to find a place to eat when we spotted a warm fire in the center of a picturesque restaurant. The only prerequisite was that we could get our mussels in Brussels, and they had 'em in HUGE buckets!

Just as we were heading inside the restaurant, the sky opened up and started hailing down ice pellets nearly half an inch in diameter! We took it as a sign and scurried inside for a great warm meal.

After lunch, we wandered over to find the famous Manneken Pis. Funny how small it is compared to what you expect after seeing it on TV and in movies.

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While Karen was at work, Jay and Christine spent the day in Antwerp. Here's a picture from the ornate Antwerp train station.

Here is a wiki-link to Antwerp. Scroll down a little way to read the "Origin of name" section. It tells of how the city got its name from a giant who stood on the river Scheldt and would cut your hand off and throw it in the river if you tried to cross without paying his toll. Antwerpen in Dutch (hand werpen) means hand-throwing.

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Now that we've piqued your curiosity, you have to click the link and check it out!

Christine had to get a picture of this stocked up beer store for her boyfriend. They take their beer pretty seriously in Belgium. Jay couldn't say enough about it!

Here is the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal (Cathedral of our Lady) at the Handschoenmarkt, in the old quarter of Antwerp. It's the largest cathedral in the Low Countries and remains the tallest building in the city.

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The next morning, the three of us made our way to Bruges... the Venice of the North!

Bruges is a valuable landmark as the city centre has hardly changed since the Middle Ages. Similar to Amsterdam, Bruges has taken extraordinary measures to keep up with the restoration of their architecture. Nearly all the buildings are in close to original condition.

One of the first things we did was take a short city bus tour of the historic areas of Bruges. We were all a little tired and might have closed our eyes for a minute or two of the tour ; )
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We had lunch at an Argentinean bbq place and did a little walking around before turning in early.

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Jay went walking along the streets and canals getting some nice night-time shots. Here's a great one of the Belfry lit up against the night sky.

The next morning, we started by going to an outdoor market where they had carts of the BEST barbecue meats we'd seen in Europe so far! Karen and Christine gorged on tasty meat and Jay got some funky cheeses and bread.

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We went to the Chocolate Musuem in Bruges that morning too. We learned that the degree to which they gring the cocoa powder and the quality of the cocoa butter really separates Belgian chocolate from anything else available. In the museum we watched them make some chocolates (got to sample a few too!).

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That afternoon, Jay climbed the Belfry clock tower to get some great pictures of the city while Christine and Karen did a little shopping. Here is a video of the last two chimes at 4:00 p.m.

Here is a video of the clock works and the spools that run the 47 different bells in the Belfry tower.

The picture below is of the Markt Square from up in the Belfry.

After Jay climbed the tower, he killed a little time with a large Belgian beer. The picture below was taken outside at the cafe with the red awnings in about the middle of the picture above.

If it weren't for the motorcycles, the picture below could easily have been taken in the mid 1800's.

At the end of the day we stopped in a nice shop for some real Belgian hot cocoa. This how it's suppose to be done... Belgian chocolate melting in hot milk!

On our last day, we took a tour of the only active brewery left in Bruges and Christine and Jay sampled some of their beer. Hundreds of years ago, they didn't have access to much clean water, so most people drank a few liters of beer daily!

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First stop today was the St. John's Hospital Museum. It is a museum that chronicles the early development of hospital treatment in the 17th and 18th centuries.

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We also took a carriage ride through the city before we left. Here we are with our horse, Ginfis.

Here are Christine and Karen in the carriage. You can see another horse carriage right behind us too.

This really is a very beautiful city. We're so glad we were all able to visit together.

Here is Christine jumping in as we were taking a picture. This turned out to be one of our favorite pictures. We really had such a nice time together.

One last picture of the Belfry of Bruges. Jay was really excited to finally get a picture with the sun shining on the front of the tower.

Check back soon for our next adventure!

Fuerteventura, Canary Islands, Spain

We decided we needed a break from the busy cultural trips we'd been taking, so booked a trip to Fuerteventura in the Spanish Canary Islands. The flights were cheap and we needed a break from the winter weather.

Fuerteventura met that need exactly. All our other trips were about running around to finish our sightseeing in no more than a few days over an extended weekend. This trip to Fuerteventura was to R-E-L-A-X. And that we did.

The Canary Islands are off the NW coast of Africa and are sort of like the Carribean Islands of Europe. Most of the tourists we saw there were British.

The island of Fuerteventura is naturally quite desert-like—of all the other islands that make up the Canary, this one rarely gets rain and is newer to the tourism industry compared to the others.

There was not much in between the land that was developed for resorts. No real vegetation, buildings, people, etc. When we arrived at the resort, however, the white buildings and the sunshine were so bright, I had to squint, and Jay (with his blue eyes) needed to buy sunglasses. The first few days we spent switching between lying around and walking around, really just appreciating the surroundings.

Here's Jay with his sporty shades on a day trip we took to Lanzarote.

Here are a couple more pics from the Lanzarote day-trip we took. Approaching the island from the water was cool. It looked like a chik collection of wealthy properties in the set of a James Bond movie.And here is one posted to appease Jay's vanity!
We saw some funny things too, like camels on the beach. Another pastime for us in the islands was eating. We had a buffet style meal twice a day. When you put together all-you-can-eat and the Jaw-Madsons, you’ve created a monster that can’t be stopped.
We had some fun taking night-time pictures leaving the shutter open for a couple seconds. It was so nice to out walking around in the warm night air. The tropical sunsets were pretty cool too. We tried to time it to take sunset pictures each day, but the sky just wasn't cooperating so we only have one set. I think we did ok with this one.
Here we are walking to dinner in our hotel complex. It was really nice to have all-you-can-eat twice a day!
With as little hair on my head as I have, I can't believe I forgot a hat! I had to buy this FUERTEVENTURA total tourist hat while we were there. This was on the Lanzarote day-trip.This was the perfect relaxing trip where we didn't have the need to run around and see everything before we left. There was no sense that if we didn't hurry we'd miss something important.

This trip was EXACTLY what we were looking for!

Olso, Norway

Norway had some appeal because Jay’s actually Norwegian. Oslo also a “winter city” so a March visit seemed appropriate. Snow was still on the ground and temperatures hovered around and below freezing.

We were warned about how expensive it might be. Norway's currency is the Norwegian Kroner and exchange rates with the US dollar were absurd! For example, a baked potato in a pub cost $16 USD!!

Despite the cost, we thoroughly enjoyed Oslo and its surroundings. They're big on nature there which suited us just fine! Oslo is itself situated right on the cost, and is made up of a number of fjords, peninsulas, and little islands. Unfortunately, our first day was taken up mostly by travel. We flew into Torp airport, 70 miles from the city. We did get a chance to look around the city before it got too dark. The next day was kind of a bust, since all we did was walk around, did some window shopping for stuff we couldn’t afford, and didn’t see too much.

Our second full day was way better! We decided to head up to Holmenkollen, site of the 1952 Olympic ski jump in the mountains a 20 min. train ride North of Olso. The thing is huge!

It just so happened that we were in town for the 2007 World Cup Biathlon. I’ve never been much of a spectator sport person, but this was cool!! We found a place to stand next to some really tall Scandinavians.

 
We got a great view of the start. The pregnant pause before the start was tension-filled! Click here for a link to the video of the womens start.

The athletes were world-class alright—they made it seem so easy as they sped by. It was so cool when a Norwegian skiied by. The crowd erupted with support... check out the flags!

After all that adrenaline, we headed back to the city for a $25 lunch at McDonald’s and Vigeland Sculpture Park, famous for its statues by Gustav Vigeland. There are many many statues here, all of modern, artistic, and unclothed nature, which we will admit we did not always “get”. The statues date between 1926 and 1942.

Here are some interesting shots—we appreciated that the overcast sky let up just a little bit to allow us some nice pictures.

And here is the most famous sculpture in the park, The Monolith. It's over 14 meters tall and is made from one piece of rock. There are bodies all intertwined into and surrounded by shorter sculptures of groups of people engaged in various activities. After seeing so many statues, we started to see them in the trees around us! The next day we took a bus to the Norsk Folkemuseum, Oslo’s outdoor folk museum. It's like colonial Williamsburg, except that it represented many more centuries of life in Norway. During the summer there are actors who play townspeople dressed in traditional clothes—we unfortunately did not experience that, but we did have the park virtually to ourselves. Here is the Gol stave church dendrochronologically dated to 1212, a house, and a village:

 

After that, we headed to Akershus Fortress, a historical landmark in Oslo. It was built in the 1290s by King Håkon V, but played quite a role during WWII. There are a number of museums in the compound, but we visited the Resistence Museum built in 1966. Nothing in the history books compares to going through this place. They did a great job of depicting the experience of being invaded, occupied, and ultimately triumphing over oppression. All in all, a very educational trip.

We were told the economy is looking at a slow down and it might be a MUCH more affordable city this same time next year. Who knows!

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The last thing I'd like to post is the Viking Code of Laws. Some of this seems to ring true with me.