Summer Carnival!

This weekend was Summer Carnival time!

Similar to Rio, Rotterdam hosts a Summer Carnival each year. The festivities started last week Friday with the election of the Carnival Queen and continued this week with the Battle of The Drums on Friday, the parade on Saturday and ended with partying into the night on the Coolsingel in the city centre.

The Battle of the Drums is a brass band contest to determine which band will win the Golden Drum and be the ‘best brass band of the Summer Carnival 2011’. We headed into town to soak up the atmosphere and enjoy the festivities! Four brass bands start at different locations and all end up at the main arena on the Coolsingel to battle it out for the title. We arrived as the first band took to the stage and saw the other three bands arrive. We watched the first two battle it out and then called it a night, lol. It was very vibey at the Coolsingel and you could sample cuisine from different countries participating. Fortunately the weather held and there were only a few drops of drizzle =)

The parade started on Saturday afternoon and did a circular route of the city. Bron headed out to see the action after a great skype chat with the family! I arrived a bit late but still saw most of the parade. I started at an intersection close to our house where I was for about an hour and then moved on to the city centre where the parade hadn’t even started passing yet so I was able to see the first groups that I had missed earlier. Even though the length of the parade was lined with people about 4 deep, I was expecting more people, at no point did I feel over-crowded. I think there were more people at Pinkpop, lol. There was a cool vibe and atmosphere in the city but it also felt a bit flat, I was expecting a much bigger vibe. This may be due to the fact that it was drizzling on and off all day and may have put a dampener on things.  

But the weather did not put the paraders off! They were still wearing their skimpy colourful outfits as planned. There really were some imaginative costumes and themes! We managed to snap some pics but getting good photo’s was quite difficult due to the crowds and the distance between us and the parades. We enjoyed the Carnival but if you are looking for some colourful fun, you don’t have to go as far as Rotterdam or Rio. I would say the Tweede Nuwe Jaar festivities held in Cape Town on the 2nd of January every year is just as, if not more, festive and enjoyable =)

Justin missed the parade on Saturday because he was playing cricket. But they won, yay! Justin had really tidy figures at 1 for 13 after 8 overs including 4 maiden overs. Well done! =) But he didn’t have an opportunity to bat.

Tomorrow Bron’s sister Michelle arrives for a week-long stay, yay! Graham joins us on Saturday for a few days and they return to London together on Tuesday evening. Looking forward to hanging out and exploring together! Bring your rain coats! =)

Hope you are well and had a good weekend!

x

 

Battle of the bands!

 

Wave your flag!

 

The Summer Carnival Queen

  

     

 

You are never too young to start enjoying the carnival!

 

Our cosy place =)

Last week Monday our landlord came around to hang up our paintings! Thank you Siegfried! =)

Deciding where to hang our pictures was quite a task since we don’t have that much straight wall space! Most of our walls are skew but we found enough straight parts for most of our pictures. The system that our landlord suggested is a screw which goes into a ceiling panel or cornice, a clear string or wire strung from the screw and a hook on the end of the string. Mum Cross commented that it is like the system used in galleries =) At first we weren’t sure if a little hook would hold some of our pictures but so far so good! The hooks come in different types and vary in the weight they can carry. We used 4 kg and 25 kg hooks and the strings are also quite strong so it should be ok.

On Tuesday we went to ‘look’ at a new TV and came home with one! We chose a 40 inch flat screen Sony Bravia. It just fits into the space allocated to it above the TV cabinet, lol. We are still working out how everything works and finding the channels we like after it programmed itself, lol. But we are enjoying it =) We are looking forward to trying out some of the gizmos and gadgets like using the USB port to plug in the iPad and downloading and watching movies! (We have missed some of the latest animated movies like Rio because they are dubbed into Dutch at the cinema).

We have now ticked off all the things on our settling-in list. Our place is feeling very cosy and homely and we are really enjoying living here =)

We discovered that there is a Summer Carnival on in Rotterdam this weekend! It starts on Friday night with a brass band competition and then there is a float-type parade through the city on Saturday. We hope the rain stays away this weekend!

Otherwise things are going well. Bron's job is going well so far. Today I bought a second hand bike to cycle from the station to the TU and back again which will save some bus and walking time. Justin's is also happy at work and he has a cricket game on Sunday. Shell arrives for a week-long visit on Monday, yay! And Graham joins her next Saturday for a few days. Plans include exploring Delft, Kinderdijk and Amsterdam with some optional extra’s too =)

Hope you are having a good week!

x

PS: There was a typo on the previous post about the Maeslantkering. There are 17 000 km of dykes in the Netherlands, not 1700! Apologies! =)

Our room with a bed in it! Notice the new bedside lamps and the lack of boxes! 

One of the newly hung pictures! 

Some African pics on the wall, a crate of Grolsch and our fridge from home with family pics and other paraphernalia 

One corner of the lounge with an Ikea book case and the painting we bought in Paris.

The other corner of the lounge/dining room with another Ikea bookself and Peeps shell lamps =)

Thanks for the flowers boy boib! 

The kitchen with the Bokke clock! Thanks Mark! We won't forget who we are supporting this September =) 

Stairs leading to the front door and the only place with enough flat wall space for this pic! 

The balcony with Don Quixote from Madrid and an Ikea bookshelf. I see Justin edited out the cricket gear that lives on the balcony, nice. 

The TV area of the lounge and the new TV! Note the African theme and the pics of family and friends =)

De Maeslantkering

This weekend we took a chance with the weather and went to find the Maeslantkering!

We took the train from Rotterdam to Hoek van Holland and then cycled the 3 km to the storm surge barrier. For the first time we took our bicycles with us on the train! We had to buy a ticket for our bicycles and the best place to sit is the special bicycle compartment that has more space to accommodate bikes. Once at Keringhuis, the information and visitor centre, we took a tour of the barrier itself. 

The Maeslantkering is the storm surge barrier on the Nieuwe Waterweg that protects the Port of Rotterdam and the province of South Holland (where we live). As you might know, 40% of the Netherlands is below sea level and flooding from the sea is a constant threat. Rotterdam is 1 m above sea level but the lowest point is at Zuidplaspolder near Nieuwerkerk aan den Ijssel at ~6.7 m below sea level. Even though the coast has been fortified and there are many dykes and polders to help deal with changes in water, flooding events still occur. In 1953 the North Sea flooded after heavy storms and waters rose 5.6 m above sea level. 1835 people died in the Netherlands and there was much damage. It was decided that a flood of this extent should not happen again and the idea for the Delta Works was born. The original idea was to extend the dyke system, however 20 000 houses would have to be moved along the 800 km of the intended area making it logistically and economically unfeasible. Eight hundred kilometres sounds like a lot but there is already over 17 000 km of dykes in the Netherlands that require yearly maintenance!

The Maeslankering is part of the Delta Works, an extensive project spanning 50 years of construction and several provinces to protect the Netherlands from the sea. This storm surge barrier is different to other storm surge barriers in that two arms swing across the river and consequently the river is not blocked at all. This was an important criterion for the design and construction of the barrier as it is used heavily for shipping and would negatively affect the Port of Rotterdam should this part of the river be blocked.

Each arm of the barrier is composed of a ball and socket joint to allow it to pivot into the river, steel trusses which make up the arm and the gate. The arms were constructed 6 months apart to ensure supplies of all the materials needed. Each arm is as long as the Eiffel tower and has twice the amount of steel! Wow! The ball and socket joint is 10 m in diameter, weighs 680 tons and had to be precise to within 0.5 mm, a feat of engineering in itself. Only one European steel manufacturer said they would attempt it, Skoda Works in the Czech Republic, and they got it spot on. The ball and socket joint is encased in concrete with immense concrete and steel rod foundations. 52 000 tons of concrete were used for each arm! All the concrete made in South Holland over a period of four days was used when constructing each arm. That is a lot of concrete! The steel trusses are 237 metres long the main tubes of which are 9 cm thick and 1.8 m in diameter, big enough for an adult to stand in! Each gate is 210 m long and 22 m high, high enough to reach to the bottom of the river (17 m) and provide 5 m of protection against rising waters. The whole structure is painted white not only for visibility but to reduce expansion caused by heat. The whole arm only expands by 20 cm in the summer compared to the Eiffel tower which is 1 m longer in summer than in winter.

Construction of the storm surge barrier took 6 years from 1991 to 1997 when the Queen officially opened the barrier on 10 May 1997. The Maeslantkering is expected to be needed only every 7 years or so but is tested every year to make sure everything is in working order. Maintenance is performed every year between March and September and the barrier is tested at the end of the maintenance season. This year’s date is set for the 24th of September. The barrier will only close when water levels rise to 3 m above normal sea level. So far the barrier has only been used once in 2007 when the water rose to 3.2 m. A computer controls the system and measurements are taken every 10 minutes to determine whether it is necessary to close the barrier. The computer decides 24 hours in advance if the barrier will close giving enough time for everyone involved to be present and to give the Port of Rotterdam some notice. An unscheduled closure, i.e. every closure except the planned once a year maintenance closure, costs the port 5 million euro’s, ouch!

It takes 30 min for the arms to reach the middle of the river and 1.5 hours for the gates to be filled with water and drop to the bottom of the river. The barrier will then be closed for at least 12 hours. The barrier can only be closed for 36 hours at a time otherwise the water moving out of the river into the ocean will get too high and also pose a problem. After 36 hours the gates are lifted up to allow the water to flow out and are then dropped again if necessary.

It was so interesting walking around the area today and seeing this massive barrier, truly an engineering feat. But it made me more than a little weary of living below sea level! Water is constantly being pumped out of the low lying areas into dykes and polders which then flow out to the sea. If these pumps had to stop or be switched off, the province of South Holland would flood in 72 hours. What a scary thought! I feel a little safer knowing we live on the third floor. But there is also a balance of water, if it is too dry the dykes which are mostly made of peat will crumble. This April was particularly dry apparently and the dykes had to be sprinkled with water because the water table got too low.

After exploring the barrier area we wanted to explore Hoek van Holland and see the beach there but it was raining quite a bit and quite windy by this stage so we gave it a skip. Cycling in the wind is not ayoba! On the next rare sunny weekend day we will have to go back for more exploring!

In other news this week, Bron got her first real pay check! Woohoo! Since I have a FlexDelft contract at the moment I can be paid every week on a Tuesday if I get my signed time sheet in by Monday afternoon. This will probably change when I have a real TU Delft contract. Something I forgot to mention in the last blog was how much leave I get. A standard work week is 38 hours and standard annual leave is 232 hours or about 29 days. But if you choose to work 40 hours a week, you get an extra 90 hours leave! So in the 7 months of this contract I will have about 23 days leave which is more than most people get in SA in year ‘~) A lot of people here work a 4 day week though, then they get 90 hours less leave a year.

Later this afternoon we are going to watch the new Harry Potter movie. Hoping it is a goodie! At least we know it will have a real conclusion this time…

Hope you are well and having a good weekend! Please leave us comments! We would love to hear from you!

x

On the train with our bikes! Marph came with too =)

What the barriers look like when they are closed. No, they were not closed when we were there! We would not have gone in a storm... and you can't get very close when the gates close because the surrounding area was designed to flood to keep curious onlookers (read the media) away! 

Hollow steel pipes of the main support structure

How big the main steel pipes are! 1.8 m in diameter and 9 cm thick. 

A ship passing through the open barrier

Boibs with the barrier in the background

Marph at the Maeslantkering! 

De Pindakaasvloer!

As promised, de Pindakaasvloer!

In May when I still had free time on my hands, one of Justin’s work colleagues challenged me to find the peanut butter floor in Rotterdam. I quickly discovered that it was at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen (thanks google!) and I went to check it out! We visited the Boijmans in the first week of February when we were here looking for an apartment so I didn’t feel bad going back on a Wednesday when admission is free =) When we were there in February the peanut butter platform wasn’t there yet, that section of the museum was under renovation.

The peanut butter platform was in its own room which smells decidedly like peanut butter! Which if you like peanut butter is probably ok. There isn’t much to see but below is the evidence that I was there! The ‘artist’, Wim Schippers, works a lot with food and likes to do things on a big scale. He has previously covered a floor with shards of glass and another with salt, apparently it is called floor sculpture, and he also designed a giant pink pudding. He likes to go with random everyday objects so that people wonder what the point is. Which is exactly what I wondered. I think I should try my hand at this modern art thing ;~)

The Boijmans displays a huge mix of art from Goya to Dali and likes to support different forms of modern art. Such as the model of a man coming through the floor in one of the galleries. The museum is also home to my favourite Rembrandt painting of his son Titus at his desk. Check it out if you get the chance. I also enjoyed the Van Gogh-Roulin reunion exhibition. The display is Van Gogh portraits of three members of the Roulin family. It was very kewl =)

At the time I was there, there is also an exhibition entitled The Beauty in Science. They approached scientists around the country and displayed 800 images and videos of different sciences from microbiology to geology. My favourite exhibit was the 3D movies of unborn foetus’s at different stages of development. There was one clip of triplets where two of the babies where sharing an amniotic sack and one was on its own. It was really amazing!

Justin doesn’t have a cricket game this weekend so we have a free weekend. If it doesn’t rain, again, we are planning to get out and about! We want to find and explore the storm surge barrier at Massvlaakte which is near Hoek van Holland and not too far from us (~20 km cycle, chances!). Other than that no real plans.

Hope you are well and having a good week! Enjoy the pics!

x


PS: Thanks for 3000 + hits! =)

De Pindakaasvloer! 

Titus at his desk by Rembrandt

My first week of work! =)

Monday was my first day of work at a 'real' job i.e. one that I will actually get paid for!! Besides being a bit bored and a bit slow the day was ok!

When I arrived on Monday there was some confusion as to when I was starting although the 11th was already agreed with the HR people. And there were some changes to the way my contract was set up which I didn't know about. As it is summer here, a lot of people, including the HR people, are on leave or going on leave soon so it is difficult to find anyone in the know to ask. But it worked out ok. I thought I was getting a flexDelft contract for the duration of my contract (~7 months) but now it is just flexDelft for the first two months or so until the TU Delft contract is ready. FlexDelft is much faster to get a contract as it is typically for short term or part time employment but a TU Delft contract takes about 6-8 weeks to organise and will start on 1 September. I don't really mind how they do it, it just would have been nice if there was more communication and less confusion.

On Tuesday (because no one told me on Monday that I had to go there...) I went to flexDleft to do the paper work and find out how it all works. The lady there must have thought that I am a hypochondriac because I asked a lot of questions trying to find out how sick leave works! Lol. Sick leave works quite differently here. In SA you generally get 3 weeks a year sick leave and you still get paid normally. Here you don't get paid for sick leave by your company. The first day you are off is called a 'waiting day' and you don't get paid. After the first day I think you are paid by the government or at least in part by the government. But if you are sick again within a month you don't have a 2nd waiting day. Very weird. At this point the lady thought I was planning to be sick a lot!

So as I said in a previous blog, my job is in the Bionanoscience department at TU Delft. They focus on single molecule measurements of DNA and RNA and DNA/RNA complexed with proteins. It is very physics orientated but they need molecular biologists to make the funky DNA and RNA constructs needed for their experiments. So that is what I will be doing. But it is just a temporary post till the end of January for one of the technician’s maternity leave.

The lady I am taking over from was still on leave on Monday. The rest of the week was spent catching up on ordering lab supplies, doing lab orientation tours, meeting people, doing lab safety tests for clearance to work in the ML-1 or bacteria labs and finding out who needs what constructs. So no wet work so far but I think it will be much busier this coming week.

Despite being a bit unorganized on the first day, everyone has been very friendly and I feel very welcome in the department so far. There are a lot of people from other countries so it is a very international environment and quite mixed. As a consequence English is the main language and all presentations and meetings are in English, lucky for me! Lol. But there is still a lot of Dutch spoken between the Dutch employees. I suppose it will help me to learn ;~) It is also quite a young department; besides the students and a few others, I would say most people are between 30 and 45. There is a very vibey, young and enthusiastic feel about the department which is quite nice.

One thing though, is that almost everyone struggles to say my name! People really struggle with the concept of a ‘n’ followed by a ‘w’. Most people say and spell it Brownen but Bromwen is also popular. They even struggle with just ‘Bron’. It is too annoying! I often wonder why my parents gave me such a difficult name… Only people with English as a first language generally get it. Justin also struggles with his name though so that makes me feel better ;~) [JC: But I am starting to get it. Hoping to be able to pronounce it properly be the end of the year! - sorry Bron, but this is what happens when your text is a little ambiguous! =)]

There is a coffee corner in the dept where you can get tea, coffee or hot chocolate whenever you want. Europeans are serious about their coffee though so no instant granules here! And it is amazing how much coffee they drink. There are two coffee machines one of which grinds beans fresh for every cup and makes espresso, cappuccino etc. There is also a microwave if you want to heat your lunch or whatever. There is a roster for keeping the kitchen tidy and doing the dishes but I had a quiet chuckle when I saw the dishwasher.

There is also a main cafeteria on campus which is in the building next to ours. They sell hot meals, soup, ready-made sandwiches, bread and ingredients to build your own sandwich, hot drinks, a variety of cold drinks and milk. Most people go there at lunch time even if they bring their own lunch. If it is sunny we sit on the grass or steps outside which is quite nice. Something which is quite different for us is the Dutch drink A LOT of milk and carne or buttermilk, not in tea or coffee but just straight. In the cafeteria you can buy 250 ml or 500 ml packs of milk and buttermilk. I had some this week and it was quite nice with my lunch actually, lol.

Another different thing is that people wear the same clothes two days in a row, but I mean the exact same clothes! Very weird. I generally wear jeans and jerseys more than once but not two days in a row and I definitely wouldn't wear the same shirt two days in a row! Especially if I had cycled to and from work and spent the day in a lab working with E. coli in a lab coat! Very weird.

Delft isn't very far from Rotterdam, I think it is about 15 km or so, but it takes me about 40-60 min for each direction. First I catch a tram to Rotterdam central station, then a train to Delft station and then a bus to the TU. I usually walk back to the station in the evening after work. It works ok if you time everything but at the moment they seem to change the train times every morning which is a bit annoying and often trains are delayed or cancelled. Because it is 'summer holidays', there are less trains running as well. But the website is quite useful and I check it everyday to see which trains are running. I have a monthly pass for the train and a zone one pass for the Rotterdam tram/metro/bus. Justin has one too but his company pays for his one but mine doesn’t…

For a first week of work I guess it was ok; I should enjoy the slowness while it lasts! I think it will pick up this week and it will be nice to be on the bench again. I was quite tired on Friday night though, lol. I fell asleep on the couch at about 9pm while Justin was watching Top Gear, lol. No laughing Dad Cross! I need to get my lab fitness back and I need to get used to early mornings again!

This weekend has mostly been a crickety weekend and otherwise we have been taking it easy. Justin played on Saturday and today we watched Holland play Kent at VOC in-between the rain. We were surprised to see Charl Langeveldt on the Kent line up but enjoyed watching him bowl. Not quite the same as watching at Newlands but it is nice to watch some international cricket again. Justin bought a Dutch orange and dark blue cricket jacket for 25 euro, what a deal! =)

In other cricket news, Justin's team won their game last week! YAY!! First one of the season =) Justin took 4 wickets and a catch but he didn't get to bat. Was a good game! Well done! =) Unfortunately their game was rained out this week and he only made 1 run at number 11 before the game was called off and he didn't get to bowl. A match is not scheduled for next weekend so we are hoping to get out and about again if the weather improves... It has been raining a lot, not sure who has the sun but it's not us!

In other news our landlord is coming round tomorrow evening to help us hang our pictures, yay! We will post pics of our now organized place when all the pics are up =) And I haven't forgotten about the pindakaas vloer or life in Holland! Blogs to follow soon...

Hope you had a good weekend! Have a good week!

x

Bron's guest TU Delft campus card and key pass with kewl blue stretchy thingie 

The Kent side celebrating after the fall of the first wicket

Charl Langeveld in action

In Bruges

You have heard from Marph about his weekend in Bruges and now here is our tale of last weekend =)

We set out bright and early on Saturday morning to catch our 7:55 train to Antwerp only to find that it had been cancelled. So instead of an extra hour sleep in, we sat in the fresh breeze at Rotterdam Central Station waiting for the 8:55 train. The connecting train from Antwerp to Bruges was also delayed and so what should have been a 2.5 hr journey took closer to 4 hrs! So instead of arriving at 10:30 am we only got to Bruges station at about 12pm.

Funny story. The train to Antwerp was packed and we sat in the part between the doors and not actually in the carriage. At the next station a guy and his younger son decided it would be a good idea to bring their bicycles loaded with stuff for the weekend onto the already crowded train. Hm mm. We landed up holding the one bike balancing between everyone while he helped his son in the next carriage. When he came back I said very clearly, it’s ok you can leave the bike here, it’s fine. After several attempts he asked me if I speak English. No comment. Justin’s new favourite saying is, do you speak English?? ;~)

Despite the later than expected arrival, we still had plenty of time for exploring our new surroundings before the sun went down. After dropping off our gear at the B ‘n B, we headed into the city centre to explore =)

The centre of the city is marked by the old Markt Square. The Belfort, De Craenenburg, the Provinciaal Hof (the administrative offices of West Flanders), the post office and many medieval houses with stepped gables line Markt Square. In the centre is a statue of Breidel and Pieter de Coninck, guildsmen who led a rebellion, known as the Bruges Matin, against the French in 1302. Most of the medieval houses lining the Markt, including De Craenenburg where Archduke Maximilian of Austria was impressed by Bruges authorities in 1488, have been converted into restaurants and cafés.

Next up was Burg Square lined by the Oude Griffie (Old Recorder’s House), the Stadhuis and the Heilig Bloed Basiliek. The Basilica of the Holy Blood is a truly beautiful church. It is very ornate with colourful paintings adorning every surface and many wood carvings. The church is famous for being the home of a phial supposedly containing blood and water washed from the body of Jesus. Unfortunately, the church was very busy with tourists which detracted from its peacefulness. Despite the please-be-quiet signs, there was a message in several languages on replay announcing Sunday services. While I appreciate churches trying to encourage people to come to church, it really felt very commercial.

From Burg, we walked through the Blinde Ezelstraat or blind donkey alley with its decorated arch, past the fish market, and enjoyed more of the Bruges scenery, canals and old houses. We walked on and came to Simon Stevin Plein with the recommended Belgian chocolate shop, The Chocolate Line. We also found the two main shopping streets in Bruges and browsed some of the Summer sales through the window. We went on to find the Kruispoort, the only remaining gate and port of entry into the city and the only remaining part of the old city wall, and the four windmills of Bruges. Kruispoort was smaller than I thought it would be but it was still impressive.

Lunch consisted of a large portion of Flamse Frites, pronounced ‘fritters’ not ‘frights’ according to one American tourist, very healthy! Dinner was yummy mussels in white wine and creamy garlic sauce followed by a real Belgian waffle =) We enjoyed the waffle but found it very airy and went a bit mushy with the chocolate sauce… Justin had a local beer while Bron tried a framboos (raspberry) beer.

Saturday was mostly a walking-tour-of-the-city kind of day but on Sunday we visited some of the museums and sights. We started with the Belfort or Belfry with its octagonal bell tower. The Belfry was used as a lookout point for fires and the city’s charter and other important documents were kept here. We climbed the 366 stairs to the top where the bells were chiming and were greeted with magical views over the city. The bells were really loud! But we enjoyed it =) On the way up, there was an old steel trumpet which looked suspiciously like the first ever vuvuzela!

Next up was the Groeninge Museum with its collection of early Flemish and Dutch masters such as Van Eyck and Hieronymus Bosch. The museum is small and rotates its collection. The art works was mostly religious which is fine but we were still feeling church-paintinged-out after Italy. However, there were some special pieces which stood out.

Entry to the Groeninge museum also gave us entry to Arentshuis and Forum 7. Arentshuis, an 18th century mansion overlooking the Dijver Canal, is home to a collection of work by Frank Brangwyn on the first floor while the ground floor is for temporary exhibitions. I really enjoyed the Brangywn collection, it was really good. Mostly drawings, but really good and full of emotion. Forum 7 is the seventh floor of the concert hall and is good for views over Bruges =)

We also went to the Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk or Church of our Lady. It is a massive church which is well known for its Madonna and Child sculpture by Michelangelo. This was the only piece of the artist’s work to leave Italy during his lifetime. We really learnt to appreciate Michelangelo’s work while travelling through Italy and were curious to see this one. It is smaller than some of his other sculptures but he has done an excellent job on Mary’s face and achieved a pensive look. Justin however was disappointed with the longer than normal fingers on Mary’s right hand which seemed to become one with the folds of her skirt. Bron likes the way Michelangelo does muscly arms and legs but there was not much going in this one, lol. This church is also home to various other works of art which were unfortunately covered up due to restoration works. We did however see the mausoleums of Mary of Burgundy and Charles the bold and we enjoyed the quire.

On Sunday we discovered a lovely local bakery for morning pastries, tried some of the local chocolate and enjoyed good Italian ice cream! Justin also continued trying the different Belgian beers on offer and Bron tried a cherry beer =)

On Monday we did some more walking and discovered some places we haven’t been yet, interesting given the size of Bruges! We found the Begijnhof or Beguinage; a walled off nunnery. It was really peaceful inside the gardens and the wonderful aroma of brewing beer wafted past. We found the source next door, De Halve Maan brewery. We did a tour of the brewery and tasted their beer at the end. They are the only brewery still operating in the historical city centre of Bruges. It was interesting to see the old brewing systems but also to see the new ones in action! After the tour of De Halve Maan, we wandered about the local Minnewater Park and enjoyed watching the swans and ducks in the ponds and canals.

Tuesday was our last day in Bruges and we just enjoyed a last walk around before heading to the train station. Fortunately the return trip was more smooth than the inbound trip and besides one slightly late train, all went well. We really liked Antwerp station. It is massive and has a feeling of oldness about it and having seen many travellers pass through.

Other sights and impressions of Bruges that we haven’t mentioned yet are: It is well-known for good quality lace, you can do a horse and carriage tour of the city, you can do a canal cruise on boats around the city, the buildings are really old (1300 - 1600s), there is often a suspicious smell floating about the city probably due to an inadequate sewage system and is not helped by a distinctly horsey smell. Bruges is VERY touristy and the city centre is constantly crowded and busy with tourists. Lots of Americans, Italians and Spanish speaking people. The city has an old feel about it but we didn’t find it particularly romantic unfortunately, probably due to too many people and a busy atmosphere all the time. Bruges is also VERY expensive. It is the most expensive city in Europe we have been to so far. The streets are all cobbled which is very pretty but is hard going to walk on all the time. And we were spoilt with four days of sunny, mildly-warm days =)

In other news Justin had a good birthday on Thursday and Bron starts her new job on Monday. Watch this space!

Hope you are well and having a good weekend!

x

The Belfry and Provinciaal Hof at Markt Square

Horse and carriage tour passing the medieval houses lining Markt Square

Statue of Breidel and Pieter de Coninck in the centre of Markt Square with the Provinciaal Hof in the background

The Provinciaal Hof and post office (red/brown building on the right) in Markt Square

Typical architecture found throughout Bruges

A well on a corner near our accomodation

Kruispoort, the only remaining gate and part of the old city wall

Windmill near Kruispoort

Trying the different local beers! And a healthy lunch =)

The back of the Beguinage 

Peaceful park area in the Bequinage

Views and canals in Bruges

Old Saint John's hospital

Seen around Bruges...

Front entrance of De Halve Maan brewery

Beer 'on tap' at De Halve Maan  

At the top of the brewery overlooking the historical city centre of Bruges

Taste test of the finished product after the tour =)

They also have clogs in Belgium! Near one of the launch places for the boat cruises were a whole bunch of clogs painted in the colours of different national flags

Statue in front of the City Theatre

Statues in the Arentshuis garden

View of Bruges from Forum 7 of the concert hall