Ghent Castle and Brugges

Post written by Carolyn (our second little Mountain Mouse) on Tuesday, June 17 with minimal edits from Mikaela:

Now it's my turn! Mikaela and Mom have been writing all the blog posts but this is my post!

     Today we went to the Ghent Castle. Our first real medieval castle. This is not like the  elegant châteaux. Whereas Chenonceau and Chambord were built for the purpose of being a "house," or at least a leisure palace, Ghent was designed with defense and practicality in mind. 

The gang in front of Ghent castle, photo taken by Grammy.

Ghent Castle

     The first room held showcases containing armor, swords, daggers, and a variety of guns. As we wandered through hallways and staircases and looked out arrow windows or narrow slots where you could shoot arrows out but no enemy fire could get in. The majority of the rooms contained or used to contain, devices used for torture. Another room held a replica of a guillotine, a contraption formerly used to cut off heads, with the original blade. 

A full suit of armor

A dagger specifically designed for stabbing

A HUGE sword. I think that it's taller than me!

Mom and I standing in front of the spear/staff/pike collection. Some of them are designed for battle, and others are mostly ceremonial.

A powder horn for hunting, covered in tiny designs.

A crossbow

This is a pocket crossbow, or basically the crossbow equivalent of a pistol. It's so tiny!

     After we came out of the Ghent Castle we ate bread and cheese for lunch under a statue in the town square. We wandered around Bruges for a while, then decided to go on a boat tour. We saw cool stuff like the oldest bridge in Bruges, a house built for the poor, the smallest gothic window in Bruges, lots of swans and ducks and multiple cathedrals. Unfortunately we were rained on, so we got some hot chocolate before calling it a day and heading home.

That's it for now, but the pictures of the boat tour will be coming soon!

Try, try again

So let's try this again. I wrote a beautiful post (I swear!) about our first day in Brussels, but lost it due to some technical difficulties having to do with the fingers and the brain. Miss M says I'm not a real blogger until that happens. So here we go...

Post for Tuesday, June 17.

After 18 hours of travel, we arrived in Brussels to reunite with the girls! I'm a little fuzzy on the details since we didn't get a lot of sleep on the plane. Basically, we came back to the flat, cleaned up a bit, then went out to old Brussels.

We first went to the Grand Place, or central square surrounded by the City's old Town Hall (Hotel de Ville) and various guild houses (bread, cloth, meat, and beer?). They were all built around the 1600s in the gothic style, but each had their own character.

I didn't take a ton of pictures, but I hope Chummy can fill in the pictorial gaps.

This is the Bread House, or Maison Du Roi or the King's House.

Cookie peaking through the door of the Town Hall.

Grammy and Grampa taking their first selfie.

From there we wandered over to the Manneken Pis, or Piss Boy. I honestly don't know why he is there, or why he is famous, but he is. I know Chummy has a picture somewhere, so maybe he can share it later.

This being Belgium, there are dozens of chocolate shops in every direction, and just as many shops selling Gaufres - the real deal Belgian waffles with lots of toppings. Of course Grammy and Grampa wanted us to have an authentic Belgian experience, so they treated us to lots of samplings.

Curiously, there are also lots of comic stores around the city. We never went in any, but there was at least one on every block we walked on. There were also several building-sized murals of Tin Tin and some gift shops selling Strumpfs, the original Smurfs.

For dinner we headed over to the Petite Rue de Bruchers. I remember this as enticing alleyways crammed with vendors selling fresh seafood - a mix between fisherman's wharf and a flea market. There weren't as many stalls of seafood, but there were plenty of barkers prostituting their restaurants. To be honest, we skipped Grammy and Grampas favorite place in order to get a better view of the TV showing the World Cup game of Belgium vs. Algeria. The service was not unexpectedly slow, but the waiters were definitely entertaining. After each goal and the 2-1 Belgian win, the waiters would run up and down the street, bellowing, blowing whistles, and belly-bumping each other. The sounds of celebration were repeated in every direction and continued for the next few hours.

Girls being girls in the Rue de Bruchers

There must have been about 100 mussels in each of out pots of moules.

The girls enjoy another classic Belgian desert, Dame de Blanche, basically a hot fudge sundae.

I can't remember the name of this place, but I always thought it was beautiful. Essentially a covered mall.

Brussels is a beautiful city, and I would gladly come back. But tomorrow we are off to Ghent and Brugge, on the Flemish side of Belgium.

Driving, a Cathedral, and finally Holland

Post written on Wedensday, June 11:

After today, I've decided that Gothic is definitely a cool style of architecture. Why? Because one of the stops in our driving today was Notre-Dame* de Amiens, one of the oldest and largest Gothic-style cathedrals still standing. Just the outside of this huge church is amazing: high pointed arches, flying buttresses, and carved statues surrounding the doorways (coming in all shapes and sizes, some human some not). 

Like I said, some not.

Yes, they are holding the their own severed heads (we learned that they were brothers beheaded together for I-don't-remember.

However, as impressive as the outside is, the inside is more so. Within the cathedral there are huge three dimensional stone sculptures covering entire walls, depicting events from the bible and/or the lives of saints, carved with immaculate precision and painted with extreme detail. On the walls above the stone murals there are stained glass windows. The ones Rising up from the floor are stone pillars, also bearing statues, that seem to go up and up and then up a little more before connecting with the arches that support the high ceiling. My favorite part of the cathedral was the nave (which I sadly couldn't take pictures after my camera died). The nave is the tallest part of the church, even higher than the ceilings. In the time of the cathedral's construction, a common church idea was "God is light." As a reflection of this saying, the nave has lots of windows to create a circle of light around the priest. 

Sorry, after rereading that, my description took a turn into extremely detailed, a lot more than I had intended. It's just that I found the cathedral very awe inspiring, and although I can't really capture the feeling in words, I sure can try. 

Some of the original stained glass

The nave

Although I would have liked to learn more about the cathedral, we really did want to get to Holland tonight. And, after leaving Amiens behind and driving for several hours, we finally did get there. We're staying with our family friend Jean, who was my grandparents neighbor when they lived in Holland. We can't wait until we get to look around Holland tomorrow!

*At first, Carolyn and I were confused since we thought Notre-Dame was in Paris, but ends up that there are multiple Notre-Dame (Our Lady) churches around France. The "de Aimiens" means "of Amiens. The one in Paris is Notre-Dame de Paris.

Château Time

Post written on Tuesday, June 10:

Châteaux are cool. I would just like to say that while France in the olden days was a bummer for the peasants, it sure did rock to be a nobleman. Actually, in the case of Château Chenonceau, noblewoman. Originally constructed by King Henri II and his wife Catherine, throughout the years it has been lived in by many high-ranking women through the ages. 

In the times before the French Revolution, the noblemen of France used their bountiful piles of money to build huge castle-houses along the river. After Henri II and Catherine finished building the main section of Chenonceau (though it was mostly Catherine's doing while her husband attended other kingly duties), Henry gifted the château to his favorite court mistress, Diane de Poitiers (which I found kinda cold. I mean, he gave the castle that his wife built to another woman). After receiving the château, Diane added the section to the building that makes it famous:   She created a building that actually stood over the River Cher. 

The château in all it's glory:

Diane wanted to have more hunting parties on the other side of the river, and instead of just building a normal bridge, she thought nah. Let's make a huge banquet hall building that spans the entire river instead. While other nobleman lived in château's along the river, she lived in a château on the river. In addition to creating the bridge, Diane also created gardens that became known as some of the most beautiful in all of France. 

After the death of King Henri II, Catherine removed Diane from Chenonceau and took back the château. After she was once again it's rightful owner, she added on to  Diane's work by building a second story to the bridge and another garden rivaling the beauty of the first.

Long story short, the château changed hands many times for a variety of reasons (ranging from bankruptcy to inheritance), each owner (mostly women) renovating and adding on to the château as they saw fit. As a result, Chenonceau has a wide variety of building styles, interior designs, and otherwise small "souvenirs" from each owner. At some point in the 1900's there was a lot of renovation in an attempt to revert the château to its former 1700's look, so much of the building retains an older look. However, some rooms and features were left as is and still showcase the different eras. 

Much of the interior is covered with colorful, detailed tapestries depicting everything from normal castle life to the great Roman gods. Every single room has a fireplace, often ornate and sculptured in older rooms and (relatively) simplistic in newer rooms as the trends changed. There are many original paintings hanging on the walls, and the over all impression of the decorations is fancy and rich. I can't really describe the richness of the château, but maybe these pictures can:

Carolyn and I on a stone balcony overlooking one of the famous gardens.

One of the many tapestries

The personal chapel's impressive windows

That is one of the fanciest beds I've ever seen

One of the plentiful ornate fireplaces, decorated with emblems of King Henri II and Catherine.

Carolyn listening to her audio tour in the chapel.

A queen woven into one of the tapestries. So many details!

One of the river-spanning halls had walls covered with stone carved faces. We're convinced that this one is Shakespeare.

This painting is of one of the court ladies (I don't remember who) dressed as the Roman female god of the hunt.

I don't remember who this is either, but I do remember that the man commissioned this painting of himself and then gifted it to his friend. Do you think his friend appreciated his gift? I dunno, but I think that it's definately a strange gift choice. What I actually thought was more interesting than the painting was the frame. Believe it or not, it's actually gilded carved wood. Look how detailed it is!

Pretty neat, right?

Our grandparents' plan was to give us a day education of châteaux by taking us to the two most famous ones: Chenonceau and Chambord (?). However, due to time restraints, it ends up that we had to limit the visit to our second château to just walking around the outside grounds and reading the pamphlets, since a full inside tour would take too long. Nevertheless, we still learned a fair amount about Chambord. While Chenonceau is famous for its river-spanning structure, Chambord is known for its enormous size.

Believe it or not, this château was originally a "hunting lodge" for one of the kings of France (since we weren't here as long, I don't really remember the details). When I think of hunting lodge, I imagine a cozy little log shack in the woods, not an enormous stone castle decorated with arches and sculptures everywhere that covers about the same area as Inner Paris. 

An incredibly fancy tower in the "hunting lodge." Geez!

After a quick walk over to view the château from another side, time was up and it was time to hit the road again.  Which sidetracks me: if you ever want to go to Europe, make sure you have lots of cash. Or euros. Or whatever. Just make sure that you have lots of physical money. Ends up that European countries have fancy credit cards with two "chips" that the computers scan. In America, credit cards only have one chip, and as a result they don't work in a lot of the scanners. If you have any desire to get through the multitude of toll booths in a reasonable amount of time, have some euros on hand to pay the booth. 

Anyway, back on topic. Originally our plan was to get to Holland (our next stop) tonight, but we got stuck in highway traffic (bouchon in French, or the cork in a wine bottle). Grammy was worried about Grandpa driving for too long and stressing himself out, so we checked into a nearby hotel for the night. Time to get ready for tomorrow!

*Side note: there was this side pond at Chenonceau covered in algae or something. Can you spot the frog?

Stone buildings and farm animals

Right. Ends up that we never got wifi yesterday, or the day before that, so I'm even more behind on posts. Here's our adventure from two days ago (Saturday, June 7):

Today, it seems that we were all over Brittany and saw enough old stone structures to last a lifetime. We started the day with a visit to a French market, complete with everything from artwork to clothing to fresh produce to bread and cheese (we bought quite a lot of the last one). Then, we took a whirlwind tour of the bay/harbor/historical site of Saint Malo and some of the surrounding areas and attractions. Among our quick drive-byes: the ruins of a castle, an old jousting ground, the remains of a World War II German base, a historical abbey, the grave of our host Jeremy's great great (great?) grandfather (where we actually got out of the car and saw a lot of old graves, some of them dating back to the 1800's), a huge (at least 12 feet) rock with carved pictures (more on that later), and the actual fort of Saint Malo. It was pretty cool, but after a while they all started to blur together as a bunch of old stone ruins. Nevertheless, we enjoyed ourselves.

The one old stone that stood out (at least to me) was The Rock, or as it is known as, the Mehrir (I think that's how it's spelled, but I might have gotten one of the "r"'s switched around). This rock was truly impressive. At at least 5000 years old, this huge rock is dug into the ground at roughly a 45 degree angle by prehistoric people.  Although I say roughly, experts are of the opinion that it was carefully placed at a special angle for some particular reason that is TBA (or more like To Be Discovered). Along all sides of the rock are carved drawings of people and axes and other similar subjects, though we have to take the word of the informative sign nearby because they've become to faint to see in broad daylight. According to the handy sign, they're best seen at sunrise, midday, and sunset. The sign also informed us that there was a medieval tradition involving the girls who wished to marry, climbing the rock, and "christening knickers." After reading the sign, of course we preceded to try climbing up with complete disregard to the marriage section. None of us made it more than halfway up (and I'm proud to announce that I made it the farthest, albeit by sprinting up the flattest side with sweaty shoe-less feet).

Once we returned to the house, we went to the neighbors' farm. While small by American standards, it was still large enough to be impressive. We were able to watch as the farmhand milked some of the hundred or so cows. In modern times, there's none of that "stool and pail" stuff. Now, they have these chugging machines that do all the squeezing. Still, the farmhand had a lot of work to do. She was calming the cows, disinfecting utters, attaching the machines, fixing them, taking them off,  and even scrubbing them shiny after a clumsy cow tripped over one (all the while talking in a continuous stream of fast-paced French). Unfortunately, I didn't think to bring the camera so I don't have any pictures of the entire farm visit. 

After witnessing part of the cow milking, we head over the the smaller barn filled with all the calves (they had about three barns of varying sizes-one for cows waiting to be milked, one for more cows, and one for the calves). They were so cute! But not in the traditional cute of puppy eyes and furry tummies. Instead, they were all spindly legs and tufts of fur on the crown of their head. When we entered their barn, they all rushed to the edges of their pens and stuck their heads out, and we had a laugh after seeing that some of the bigger ones got stuck. Two smaller ones even stuck their heads through the same gap. None of them were hurt, which was good, and after we recovered from laughing we went to get the farmhand to help the poor guys out.

As we toured the area, I think we saw a very wide variety at the animals typically kept at a farm. We saw ponies in their little stables (we saw the farmer's daughter's pony), domesticated ducks in a fenced in pond, pigs in their pen (ooh and in a different pen four little piglets), geese (big grey ones with orange beaks, not like the Canadian geese back home), sheep (and little ewes), farm rabbits (we tried not to think why they would be at a farm, and Carolyn got especially upset after seeing a litter of baby bunnies), and chickens. 

At the end of our tour, we stopped by the farmer's garage, where there was a special little "shop" of farm goods set up for the neighbors. It was a very honor-driven system; there was a little refrigerator of eggs, milk and butter available for the taking. Next to it a small whiteboard posted the prices for each. At prices like one and two euros, it was definitely a deal compared to the supermarket prices. The money was placed in an old tin can on top of the fridge, and then you were done. Very trusting. I thought that it was kinda cool, just being able to do that. Not only were the products cheaper (and not to mention better tasting), but they were also given more freely. It's not like we've been to a farm in America, but still, I don't think that they do that. 

Oh! Carolyn just reminded me to talk about the cats. All over the garden and dirt road just outside the house gates often you can find cats wandering around. From the farm next door, these cats wander everywhere. There's one particular calico cat that  likes to hang around the garden that we've taken a liken to. Carolyn creatively christened it "Kitty," which I found humorous considering I've just started reading the Diary of a Young Girl. 

Anyway, it's late. Here in France, we're closer to the pole and as a result, it he sun stays out until about 10:30. Combined with my remaining jet lag, my sense of time is hugely skewed and I hadn't realized the time. Till later! (Au revoir!)

Mont Saint Michel

Since I missed a day of blogging, I have an entire adventure to catch you guys up on. Yesterday we took a day trip to Mont Saint Michel, a centuries old abbey/monastery and later fort and prison. It looks like a giant castle blanced (somewhat precariously) on a rock, and of course Carolyn declared that it looked like Hogwarts (she also said the same about Bates College). During low tide, the huge building is surrounded by sand but after the tides rise, it becomes an island.

In this picture, you can see some of the construction going on to repair and maintain the old castle.

The sheer enormous size of the monetary may look awesome now; however, after you've had to climb all the stairs up to the base, and then all the ones inside, it gets a little tiresome. And although our Grandmother and her sore feet may disagree, I still thought it was worth it. We took an audio tour of the monestary, which I though was very interesting and as a result, forgot to take pictures of every single thing. Here's what I did photograph:

One of the many entrances and turrets of the monestary (ignore e random person's head. There were too many other tourists there to get a perfectly clear picture).

The bell tower and another entrance

The monestary was full of arches. Arches in the gardens, over doors, over windows, supporting the roof. Absolutely full of arches.

These pictures are all of the actual chapel. The room is shaped like a cross, and the first four pictures are of each limb/branch (so yes, we were standing in the Literal Heart of Jesus in a stone cross-shaped room). The last picture is of the alter. One thing I found really interesting about the monestary is that, despite it being a World Heritage site and popular with the tourists, there's still an order of monks that live, work, and worship here. While we were in the chapel we saw two of them, a man and a woman (which I found interesting, since I thought that all monks were men), praying. Then later, while we were in the souvenir shop, we saw another monk talking to the tourists. He seemed very nice, but sadly we couldn't understand his French. I guess we weren't doing as well on French as we thought we were...

The impressive Romanesque arches supporting one of the rooms.

More Romanesque arches, with Carolyn standing next to one for size comparison.

During our tour, we learned a lot about the history of the monestary. Built sometime in the 12th century (but I'm don't entirely remember the date), it was originally a place for the monks and abbots to worship. Neither of us knew the difference between the two, so Grandpa informed us that the abbots were the head monks who eventually decided that they were more important than the average monk. They gave themselves better accommodations than the simple-living monks and took on more power. Eventually, they got involved in the political affairs with the rest of the country. Later, during the French Revolution I think, the monestary's position on an island created an easily defendable location and it turned from a place of worship to a fort. Fast forward some time in the war and it became a prison for political prisoners. Eventually it returned to its original position as a monestary and continues to be so to this day.

After we were done with our audio tours, we stopped at a crêperie (a crepe store) in one of the stalls at the bottom of the monestary before dipping our feet in the incoming tide. Overall, it was a pretty fun day! Once again, it's too late to upload my posts that are behind but I'll try and get them up tomorrow, ASAP. Till then!