Bruges - a Classy Place

En Route from Holland :

A 4 Storey Station : Changing at Antwerp.

We drew in on the bottom level of 4, had a sandwich on the third level, and our train left from the top level, like the train (above) in the photo.

On the Square : the two grand public buildings. The top of the tower of the Town Hall has an octagonal extension, but one of the church steeples is a little taller.  A carillon of bells rings before the clock strikes.  Very nice, but Prague's hourly celebrating trumpeter beats it by a short head.

Red brick and Dutch gables, in this case from 1669.

















And grey bricks.

On the canals....
in the left corner is a covered boat parking place, where discreet clergy may enter & leave - discreetly.

Wooden fronted house,


right next to :




that tiny pedestrian bridge,

that boats have to squeeze under...

No road signs! Only the rule of the road for boats.

Windmill, one of four,

on the east side of the city.

Only one on its original site, and only one working.

Then we had a drink at "de Verloren Hoek" or "the Forgotten Corner". Could have been the edge of a village green in east England.

Just happened to be there when the bells rang and the two road bridges went up on the "real" canal for the passage of this barge.  Below the barge's bridge is the living quarters and above is the family car, with adjacent crane to unload the car onto the nearest wharf !

Modern sculpture in the big square on the edge of the old town. All underground is a huge car park.
A homage to the Low Countries and their bicycles.

Kroller-Muller Art and Sculpture Museum

Netherlands/Holland

At last we stayed near enough to reach this Museum east of Amsterdam for a Grand Day Out. It is based on the collection of Helen, wife of a big businessman, and is now in a purpose-built museum in the very large grounds of their estate in the country.

Of the many and very varied exhibits, we concentrated on the Van Goghs.

This is the cafe in Arles, which we have visited, of course, & enjoyed its coffee.  It has more neighbouring businesses crowding round it, these days.

This blossom tree was a painting Neil copied in order to improve his style.

You see some pictures reproduced in many books.  Others are rarely chosen & seldom seen.

A "nice" Picasso, one Sandra can appreciate in this fractured style.

There were also fun things, like this "Brewery", (for you, Steve).


Or these colourful objects - which all you grandchildren would enjoy.

Outside in the beautiful park among the tall trees is a Sculpture Garden. [Frankston has one, too.]  This is the "Email Garden".  It is entered by a little tunnel, leading to the white landscape inside, which is great for kids !

A tall tower of steel tubes held by cables.  The top quivers in even a slight breeze.
Looking up from the bottom, a tight pattern is clear.  It is amazing that it works !

Rodin's Crouching Woman.
We have seen a lot of Asian women crouching over laundry or washing-up, but this one is more elegant.

Neil says good-bye to Monsieur Jacques.
We had strolled round and round all day, while he just stood there, waiting for us to leave.

A Very Special and a high-sensory-input Day.

Wonderful.

We reached it with the help of a very highly organised system of Dutch bus routes with good schedules.  We failed to reach the Museum from Amsterdam 2 years ago because we did not realise how good they are.  The Dutch are organised !

Hamburg Weekend

Into Germany, one of the first question in our minds was about the Kiel Canal, - was it still operating ?   We soon came upon a magnificent late 19th Century steel (& rivets !) Railway Bridge, which our train approached via the required loop,

and crossed (the bridge has many similarities to the Eiffel Tower) above...

... a convoy of ships going northwards to the Baltic Sea.  It is pure history to see such a famous landmark, still functioning in this day & age - [except the big cruise ships are just too tall to use it].

Arriving in Hamburg on Saturday evening, the Binneralster (lake) in sunshine & suffering from the loud noise from the left - the Christopher Festival (the Gays) -  & the city did show us its two sides whilst we were there.

The yachts were sailing on the larger lake, the Aussenalster...

the skyscrapers & telecoms tower looked down... 

..on a couple of folks on holiday, talking to our neighbours, a couple from Frankfurt, a lawyer & a banker, whose 3 year-old daughter was hanging out with Grandparents for the weekend.

Sunday morning and the other side - the elegance of Hamburg came to the fore, with bikes,

the Rathaus (the City Council !),  - a beautiful building -

modern city blocks of advanced architectural design...

and memorabilia of an earlier era, (when we were teenagers)...

and then of an even earlier time, when a Junkers JU-52 (1932-1980), flew over...

and down in the town planners' dream of HafenCity, new residential blocks are shaping up..

amidst the many old bridges, rebuilt after the destruction of WWII,

like much of the city, nearest the docks,

but with imagination, verve, & a lot (a very great deal !) of money...

Next morning was another moving on, considering possible purchases..

And our next train...   to the Netherlands...  was awaiting us... on another platform !

Scandinavia Farewell

It was time to move on, first from Norway to Denmark, and also from Scandinavia, too.
We enjoyed these northern countries very much indeed, especially Sweden, where we spent time with old friends, Jack & Mildred, from our shared Malaysia days, and Norway, for its majestic scenery, and new friends, the Crockers.

Stavanger has its sculpture, both modern and ancient, one beside the harbour, and the other inside the Railway Station, as we were about to board the train to go down the coast, to catch the ferry to Denmark.

There are a lot of rocks in Norway, and they are so much a part of the landscape that after a while, you don't notice them... until you get to Denmark !

The country is softer and flatter, its harbours carved out from... sand !

Aarhus was our transit city in Denmark, as we were en route to Germany.

But Denmark still had some special moments, with the harvest getting under way, and architecture to surprise...

AND we filled up our second page in our EuRail Passes, 25 May to 4 August, which now looked like this :