ed.g.pc: May 2016

28 Mar 2016 (Mon)

Drove to SFO and bought a 10 dollar umbrella for 35 dollars on the way… It was a pretty green, though, so I'm sure it was worth it. Aaaand... the trip is underway!

Obligatory "we're at the airport" photo!

Flew to Seattle for our flight to London, but that second flight was delayed by about an hour. Darn it. What to do, what to do... perhaps that will give us a moment to enjoy a stomach-settling ginger ale. Um, there may need to be a wee bit of Jameson in it o’course.

Just settling our stomachs.

Okay, finally boarded, and ...

... long …

29 Mar 2016 (Tues)

... flight.

Arrived London later than planned, and got stuck in a looong line through passport control which meant we didn't get to the flat in Kensington until 4pm, and we were beat. Had thought we'd get in and run down to central London, but just decided we'd go for a short walk and get a little food and then get to bed. It was London drizzling when we found a little Thai buffet near Shepherd's Bush that was pretty darn good. Walked home in the drizzle, had a Jameson, and passed oouuutt.

The front entry (doin' some work)

The back yard

30 Mar 2016 (Weds)

Up not quite as early as planned (imagine that...)

… took the tube (London Underground) to Tower Hill, and did a short tour of the Tower of London with our guide Clive. After the tour, we continued to walk around on our own. Your fact for the day is that William the Conqueror had the central White Tower built in 1078 (completed 1097). The rest of the Tower of London is pretty much brand new, having been partly built in the 1190s, 1285, 1377. You know... modern. Mostly, though, we learned that the Brits love talking about cutting heads off… the bloodier, the better. Good stuff. We saw the Crown Jewels, and lots of armor and weapons and the like. Really liked the chicken-wire art animals. But you know me... art's kinda my thing.

The Tower of London (the central White Tower is the part with the domed turrets, and the weather vanes)

Armor

Weapons

Chicken wire animals. Beasts!

After walking through the tower, we caught a ferry and rode up the Thames to Westminster, where we took a bit of a walking tour around that part of the city.

The Tower of London from the ferry.

The Tower Bridge (complete with double decker bus).

Didn't see any Bobbys on bicycles either solo or two by two. But we did see Westminster Abbey and the tower Big Ben, and I believe that our cheeks were pretty rosy at that point.

Big Ben with the Westminster Palace (where Parliament meets) to the left.

Westminster Abbey from the front.

Westminster Abbey from the side.

Walked past 10 Downing Street and up to Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. Then walked down the mall and St James to Buckingham Palace.

Trafalgar Square from the steps of the National Gallery.

Panorama of Buckingham Palace.

After that, we went through some back alleys and ended up at the Old Star pub which was next door to the Ministry of Justice, and seemed to be a local's hangout. No (or not many) tourists (uh, other than us). We had a couple pints, and ordered some fish and chips (seemed a right proper thing to do). Walked around a bit more and got on the tube back to Shepherd's Bush and our flat.

The Old Star pub.

A coupla pints!

31 Mar 2016 (Thurs)

Again a bit late getting going… lag, jet lag. But once we did, we were off to see as much as we could in the very short time that we had.

Tube to Tottenham, and then we walked to the British Museum. We followed the what-to-see-if-you-only-have-an-hour path. I think it took us 3 or 4 hours? But wow, cool stuff. We saw the Rosetta Stone, Parthenon reliefs, mummies, Greek vases, Assyrian art, Roman plumbing from the 3rd century, the first library (in Mesopotamia) … and on and on and on… Very cool! Kinda everything that the British have plundered from their time as the world traveling power. On the other hand, some of it only exists because it was brought here and put on display.

Rosetta Stone!

Library from Mesopotamia (1500-500 BC).

Close up of the cuneiform writing.

Double sided printing!

Assyrian reliefs from about 650 BC

(For scale, this panel is about 2m tall, or 1.2 Lynnes)

Parthenon sculptures (Elgin Marbles).

A whole room of 'em!

Left the British Museum and went up to St Pancras (the international train station from which we will depart to go to Belgium). We booked passage back to London from Oudenaarde since our flight home was cancelled, and we are now flying home from London. Uh, by the way, our flight out of Brussels was officially cancelled because they didn't think that the international terminal would be open by that time.

Inside looking at the closed end of the station (toward the front of the building).

There's a train at the platform which is above the terminal and shops and such barely visible below.

Here's the front of St Pancras Station. Cool.

And here's the view of the platforms with several trains in and ready to go out the other end.

After St Pancreas, we hopped back on the tube, and took it to South Kensington where we got out and walked to the Natural History Museum and saw dinosaurs. And there were dinosaurs, and dinosaurs, and really, a lot of other stuff, too. Mammals, birds, bats (mammal birds), marine invertebrates, minerals, humans… and all things natural history.

Entrance to the Natural History Museuum

Just inside the door, looking one way.

(There's a seated white statue of Darwin at the top of those stairs back there.)

At the other end of the room looking back. Very cool room!

(Standing next to the Darwin statue.)

Skulls of the human family tree.

Lots of good museum stuff like this to see.

A bunch of animals with a Blue Whale in there for scale.

When the museum closed, we went to see the Royal Albert Hall, at the edge of Hyde Park. And before we passed out from lack of fuel, we went and got ourselves some Indian food in the Kensington area. Yum! Really good Indian food in London!

Exhausted, we grabbed the tube back to Shepherd's Bush even though we weren't that far away. Just too tired to walk anymore.

The Royal Albert Hall.

(Just one big hole, it turns out.)

This is the little Indian restaurant where we had dinner.

Inside a tube station... wonder why they call them "subway tiles"?

1 Apr 2016 (Fri)

Up early, and took the tube to the St Pancras train station where we got the Eurostar to Belgium. London to Brussels, and then we'll change trains to go to Ghent.

Got off our train, walked downstairs at the central Brussels station, and our train to Ghent was sitting there at the platform waiting for us to board. Perfect timing! (We had that kind of luck a lot on this trip.) Really getting the hang of this public transportation thing. Yessir, we're world travelers now! Made it to Ghent in great time, where… nothing was in English, so we were suddenly American tourists. Duh… where catch bus want go we to north?

I think I've found my people, though... here's the view out to the back parking lot at the Ghent train station. Really look at that... zoom in, move around. O. M. G. I love it!

Wow.

But it all worked out, and we made it to our new flat in time to meet our host, and go for a walk to the old town to take in the sights and have a beer and a little food.

Just a canal... (there are a lot).

The Gravensteen Castle.

Kinda old - parts built in the 10th century!

The front entry of the castle from the street.

Sat along this canal and had some frites.

You know what they put on their frites in Belgium?

Yeah, mayonnaise. We only did that once. Right here.

Looking the other way down the canal.

That's St. Michael's Church (Sint-Michielskerk).

Sint-Michielskerk again. (12th century, and then 15th century.)

Standing in front of St Michael's looking east...

There's a market (the building immediately on the left), St Nicholas's Church (18th century),

the Ghent Bell Tower right behind it (14th century),

and then St. Bavo's Cathedral (10th century) all in a row.

Something I loved (of course...). People with kids got around by bike, too. They just loaded the kids into their box bike (bakefiets), and rode off to do their errands. I like this because there's two kids AND a bike in the bike. Awesome!!

Canal next to the castle.

Panorama of castle, canal, and just regular buildings.

A typical (beautiful) city bike in Ghent.

We walked around all over the place, saw a lot of stuff, and then went back to our flat to chill with a sippy sip of champagne. Awesome day.

Just us on a typical street.

You know, the usual boring old BREAD VENDING MACHINE!

(I'm sorry to report that we didn't buy a loaf.)

Back at the flat sipping a sip.

2 Apr 2016 (Sat)

Got up late and went to scope out our way to get to the Ronde tomorrow. No problem… got it sorted out in short order, and then walked around Ghent some more… visited “church row”, climbed the belfry, were generally odd. I mean awed. We were generally awed. Pretty cool.

St Bavo's... a 10th century cathedral.

The Ghent bell tower - we climbed up there.

Lynne and the weather vane from the top of the bell tower.

(The weather vane has its mouth open.)

View of St Nicholas's church from the bell tower.

St Michael's is behind it to the left.

This is the drum that controls which bells get rung when in the bell tower.

It rotates, and pulls the strings that ring the bells in the right order.

It's just a big music box!

Looking back at St Bavo's from the bell tower.

Again with these two. This time in front of a canal.

The castle is in the background.

Another pic down "church row."

This is the front of the apartment where we stayed while in Ghent.

Came home and made dinner, sipped some beer and wine, and then went to bed in preparation for an early and long day tomorrow at the 100th Ronde van Vlaanderan! (Yipee)

3 Apr 2016 (Sun)

De Ronde. What can I say? We were there, it was awesome. Ate food, drank beer, watched Sagan pull away and win. Saw Fabian trying to bridge back to Sep and Peter, but when he made the catch, it was only a catch of Sep… Peter was gone. Awesome race. Great crowd sitting with Ferdinand and Viviane (from Bruges). Met Kris from Germany/Chicago, and a couple blokes from the UK that let Lynne sneak in front of them to see the riders go by.

Got there early, and watched them set up.

This was one of three forkfuls of beer for just one of the beer vendors.

It rained the night before, so it was a bit messy.

Cobbles! Actual cobbles!

And these are waaaay smoother and nicer than a lot of them.

We're drinking Kwaremont beer on the Oude Kwaremont climb!

Awesome!

Sitting with Ferdinand and Viviane (from Bruges).

It's starting to get a bit more croweded.

Third pass up the Kwaremont, and Sagan (world champion!) off the front with Vanmarcke.

But Cancellara is not far behind.

A panorama of the whole festival from where I'm sitting.

Just a shot behind me over my head at everyone watching the big screen.

Then after the race, we had a couple beers with a couple more blokes from the UK in a pub by the train station in Ronse and talked about not understanding Cricket and all the seven ways to score… and how similar that was to being unable to name the seven dwarfs.

You know, a pretty average normal day like that...

4 Apr 2016 (Mon)

Got up late again (ahhh, vacation), and picked up a rental car. Drove to Ypres, and had lunch around the central square (Flemish beef stew is good!). Visited the Great Market square, and cathedral (amazing as always), and walked around. The biggest building on the square is a (reconstructed) cloth market from 1304. The In Flanders Fields war museum is here, as well as a tourist center, and state house. A lot of war memorials in this part of the country. World War One and Two both happened around here. On the drive home, we passed several cemeteries from the war(s). Stopped at a couple and took some pictures, and just sort of made our way back to Ghent. Wow, a lot of people died here in both World Wars.

Cloth market, state house and museum (from the front and side).

Same from the back.

An arch memorial to the British soldiers.

Inside the arch, names of the fallen are written everywhere.

Through the side arches, and up the stairs, and on the outside of the memorial... names everywhere.

Sint-Maartenskathedraal. Outside...

...and inside.

A section of WWI trench that was discovered and preserved.

Soldiers lived here for years. Ugh.

Which, I suppose is better than the alternative.

A cemetery where all the headstones say,

"A soldier of the great war. Known unto God."

A wall inside a cemetery for German soldiers.

Again, every surface covered with names.

Another cemetery. Almost exclusively Belgian soldiers here except

for some Italian prisoners of war buried in the back.

These mostly were identified here with only a few "unknowns".

Interestingly, I found two Coenens here. Alfons and Maximilaan.

We were still excited to be traveling, but possibly a bit more subdued on the rest of the drive back to Ghent, I think. It is a bit sobering seeing this in person. When face to face with all this stuff, you realize that it's not just a tale that happened in a book somewhere far away. Not that I ever thought it was, but it's just more real when staring you in the face.

5 Apr 2016 (Tues)

Driving day. Many towns and many beautiful squares and chapels and such. Coffee in Dendermonde (?), looked around Mechelen (wow!) where we bought a suitcase, drove to Leuven where we didn't get to the one area that we had planned on going but we did have a damn fine burger. Again with the cool buildings and good food!

The organ in the main church in Mechelen.

It's a mailman! On a bike! Yay!

Cool building! The statehouse in Mechelen (I think).

The great square with the central church in the background.

Heeeey... we could be getting close to where the name comes from...

Super cool ornate building in Leuven. Stadhuis again. (State house.)

Gluten intolerance? Gluten intolerance?!?

I'm in Belgium; I don't got no stinking gluten intolerance!

Just another cobbled street with bikes...

A school outing!

And then we got to Zoutleeuw (Salt Lion) too late to go into the cathedral, dang it. Zoutleeuw where I'd found that my great great grandfather was born. And his father, too, I thought. And I thought we'd go in the church, and the local state house to maybe try to see a birth certificate, or something. But we were too late. All was lost... At least we got pictures of the cathedral that was there when my great greats were there; they saw this very building... they were probably in this very church. We took a walk, and decided to go into the library since it was too late to go to the public records in the city. So we looked at a couple history books on the area, and saw some cool stuff, and figured there wasn't much more to see, and then… then… Lynne pulls a book off the shelf called… (translated) Tree of the Family Coenen from Zoutleeuw. Really. Holy shmokes. And it was actually MY family. Found down to grandpa, but not dad and uncle. And back to 1695. Wow! Got author's name and email, and will contact him with a little more info, and see if I can get a copy of the book. TBD...

City limit sign where great great grandpa Antonius was born.

A canal, and the hospital on the left.

The central church, Sint-Leonarduskerk.

The carillon in 1900-ish.

The cover of THE BOOK!!

(Some of the poeple on the cover live in town!)

Sample page showing grandpa (but Aunt Connie's not there!).

Me standing in front of the church that relatives in the 1700s likely stood in front of.

Pretty amazing day of discovery. The library closed, and I had to stop looking at the book before I could trace things all the way back. Hopefully I'll get a copy!!

6 Apr 2016 (Weds)

Had a little breakfast at the flat, then went into old town to the castle since we hadn't been inside it yet. Pretty neat… started building it in the 11th century… kinda old. Cold today: a bitter wind a-blowin’, and some scattered showers.

Walking downtown, we see this for the millionth time. Two kids in a box bike... love it!

This is a picture of the central castle (keep?).

It's the same castle as the one in those first pictures in Belgium up there.

Panorama of the city from the top of the castle.

That's Church Row over there.

From the top to the bottom.

This is in the stable-turned-storeroom-turned-torture-chamber.

They sure liked to torture people in them days...

Needed to warm up, so we had some lunch and coffee, and then walked around some more. Sat in a cafe for a little while we warmed up. Visited the restroom where everyone can go regardless of sex or orientation, or... god we're screwed up sometimes...

A canal boat on a canal. Just something we saw while walking around...

Another bad ass bike!

Decided that one thing we wanted to do was go to the distillery nearby (Filliers), and maybe do some tasting, and get a couple bottles. So we took the rental car, and proceeded to get stuck in traffic, and got totally lost in omlegging, before finally getting to the distillery only to find… no tasting room or visitors without reservation. Doh!

Oh well... drove back to Ghent, changed, and walked back downtown to go to rib place Josh recommended only to find… they were packed, and couldn't get us in until 9pm. Turns out it's spring break, and you need reservations. Doh again! So we walked around awhile longer, and finally found a place in the vreimarkt square that wasn't full, and we ate some more delicious Belgian food there.

This is the square, and we ate in the building over on the right just under the end of that crane.

And then had to walk home in the super cold wind… thank god we've got a fireplace to warm us up back at the flat! Oh yeah, and there might be wine and chocolate too…

Laying on the couch in the living room of our apartment.

With the fire. And the wine. And the chocolate.

(And the colorful socks)

7 Apr 2016 (Thurs)

Spent most of today walking around town just looking at stuff. Got some coffee (hard to find it to go!) and wrote a few more postcards, and mailed them, and then walked around some more.

Canal view with towers and castle. Very Ghent.

Sipping some coffee and writing some postcards.

Another Ghent canal scene.

A bit of a rainy day, so no one... no one would be foolish enough to go outside on a bike.

Well, except for everybody.

Ghent. Canal. Nothing you ain't already done seen.

Can you say cool bike?

Typical street with bikes everywhere.

Actually, not entirely typical... this street is actually paved, and not cobbled.

After walking around, we went back to the apartment and relaxed and started packing up to leave (boo hoo). Then we went back down to the crowned heads - de Gekroond Hoofden to get some dinner. Really good place; food was great as it has been everywhere we've gone in Belgium. Had some Four Roses bourbon with dinner; first time we weren't drinking Belgian beer, I think.

de Gekroond Hoofden - The Crowned Heads

After dinner, we walked back home and finished packing and cleaning up, and then... Zzzz. Passed out!

8 Apr 2016 (Fri)

Got up and met with Elizabet to check out. Took a bus to the station, and timing was perfect to get the train to Bruges. Love traveling this way in Europe. Just get to the station, and there's pretty much a train headed your way.

Got to Bruges, walked out of the station, and caught a bus 30sec later that took us to the grote markt square where we stashed our bags and walked around. Holy crap… beaucoup de touristes! A whole lot of people just there to look. Different than Ghent, in that there were a lot of locals going about there life in Ghent, and there seemed to be very few here.

The bell tower in Bruges.

The stairs ARE all windy!

Bell tower from the courtyard (Lynne down there in the corner).

The view down from the top.

Walked up the bell tower because of course we did (had to… we weren't f’in elephants, and we’re not being funny). Stopped in at a cool “luxury commuter” bike shop: Exceller. Went to the chocolate museum, and the friets museum (um... interesting…), and then went and got a beer in a cozy little brown pub. Brown floor, brown ceiling, brown beer...

Everything in Exceller was high end.

These are a couple €2400 commuters.

Brown pub. (Okay, our beer's not actually that brown...)

Went to check in to our place, and then turned around and walked back to old town. Did a canal boat tour first, and then went to get dinner. More good food… gosh, it's just getting really boring. Chicken for Lynne, and flemish stew (again) for me. Though in my defense, I wasn't sure what I was ordering, and thought it was something different. Then we walked around outside the main tourist areas. Really nice! So glad we got that experience, because we were really overwhelmed with the number of people when we first got there. Super nice little town. Really pretty, cute, quaint...

Cool building (it's a hotel) taken from the canal.

The oldest bridge in the city.

Under a bridge that was built in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries.

(Yes, the NEW part was built in the 1600s...)

Making up for the not-brown beer earlier!

Ho hum.

Whatever.

Lynne sitting pretty by the canal.

There's the oldest bridge in the city again!

Yawn.

Snore.

ZZzzzzzz.

Panorama of the canal

(taken from right next to the hotel in the earlier picture up there).

.......

Our apartment in Bruges

9 Apr 2016 (Fri)

Woke up, and spent an hour and a half on the phone trying to sort out our luggage issue with British Air. Think I finally did, but then didn't have time to walk around Bruges anymore. Bummer…

But we did walk to the train station, so we got a little walking around in before we left Bruges. Got a train ticket to Oudenaarde, and hopped on a train. Again with the train travel! Jenny’s son picked us up, and brought us to our little flat just outside Oudenaarde. We walked back into town, browsed around, and then got some food and a beer o’course. Went to the Sint Walbergskathredral. Then to the Ronde museum. A little grocery shopping, then back to the square for a sit and chat in a pub (along with families - kids and all) before heading back to our room. Tomorrow… Paris-Roubaix!!

Where we were staying - Jenny's place.

Walking back into town.

Kids playground in town.

Pre-lunch beer/wine (starting to see a trend here...).

Central square and statehouse.

(Lunch and the above beer were in the brown building to the left.)

Another cool pipe organ in a church.

See? I keep telling you...

Old art/new art.

Canal view when walking back to apartment.

10 Apr 2016 (Sun)

Paris-Roubaix today!

Walked back into town to catch our bus south. Got delivered to the Arenberg Forest cobbles section, and walked around and chatted. Lynne got interviewed by French TV. A natural in front of the camera. Watched everyone go by on the cobbles, and then got back in the bus.

Walking to town

Saw a hot air balloon taking off on our walk.

Kinda cool as it went over the church.

The entry to the Arenberg Cobbles!

Ouch! Imagine riding your road bike over these!

Sipping wine on the cobbles.

Lynne practicing for her next career as a reality TV star.

Tom Boonen and ...?

And the bus took us the velodrome in Roubaix! Awesome!

The riders come in, and do 1.5 laps to the finish. This year, there were five riders that were in the final lap together. Great finish!!

In the velodrome!

The leading group of five is over at that far turn.

Hayman leading Boonen to the line.

And he holds him off to win. Stannard gets third.

A post race Kwak!

Walking back to Jenny's place.

11 Apr 2016 (Mon)

Since our flight out of Brussels was cancelled, we had to get back to London to fly home, but our train didn't leave until 8pm. So we weren't in a great rush. We got up, and Jenny took us to the train station, and ... we went to Lille, France to kill some time before going back through the Chunnel into London.

Train station at Oudenaarde. I think.

(Or Kortrijk?)

Train station Lille-Flanders.

Hey look! A church!

Got a sandwich in the train station square at Paul's (duh), and then went to the Palais des Beaux Artes. We hadn't actually spent very much time in art museums despite how many there are in Europe. So it was a pretty cool way to kill some time.

Palais des Beaux-Artes.

One cool thing at the museum were these relief maps that Louis the 14th would use to plan potential battles in cities along the borders of his kingdom. So there are quite a few in Belgium, Netherlands, and France. Just a couple here...

Lille (the city we're in) in 1700ish.

Relief map of Namur 1740-50.

Same from little different angle.

Saw works from Rodin, Monet, Van Gogh, Goya, and more.

Liked this sculpture by Desruelles. Monument aux fusillés.

Found out later that it is a monument to resistance network organizers that were executed by the Germans in WWI.

Rubens.

Goya

Lepic. Liked how it looks so plain, and yet there is so much happening in the line in the middle.

Le Voyageur by Meissonier.

Really captured the movement and feeling of riding into the wind in miserable weather.

Picasso.

Rodin (mini Les Bourgeois de Calais).

Van Gogh. Lynne likes Van Gogh a lot.

Monet.

Left the Museum, and got on our train to London for our last (boohoo) night in (sniff) Europe.

Waaaah.

Final pub pic of the trip...

12 Apr 2016 (Tues)

Got up and took the Tube down to Westminster for one more quick walk around before we had to get to the airport. Wanted to see Westminster Abbey in the daylight, and such. Hit it right at morning rush hour commute. Tube was busy!