On Wednesday 5th August, we drove to the very pretty town Ypres in Belgium. It was totally flattened during WWI and has been rebuilt using plans and photographs of the original buildings. We went to the Menin Gates, which have the names of nearly 59,000 allied soldiers from WWI who fought in Belgium, but whose bodies were never identified. One of the churches in Ypres has individual kneeler pads for each seat, which commemorate all the different Allied military groups who fought in the War. We found the New Zealand and Australian pads next to each other up in the front row.
We also visited two war cemeteries - Bedford House (5,000 graves) and Tyne C (12,000 graves). Both places were very sobering, but Tyne Cot was more so due to the sheer size of it. We found NZ and Aussie graves of unknown soldiers in each of the cemeteries.
Whilst in Ypres, we bought a map book of Europe, as we were tired of Gloria keeping us on a need-to-know basis that essentially meant we could only see about 5km of the road ahead of us at any time. The book helped us see the big picture a lot better, and let us decide if Gloria really was choosing the best route. From Ypres we drove onwards to Brussels, arriving around 7pm. We were nervous wrecks by the time we found the place we were staying – the roads and traffic in Brussels were a whole new experience for us (including a very large and unexpected tunnel system that required changing lanes and direction underground).
We were hosted by Kasia (Karshia) & Iwa (Eva), a Polish couple who both worked for European Commission. We ate Belgian mussels for dinner that night - they are about ½ the size of NZ ones but every bit as good. We had a lovely night getting to know each other.
The next day we drove to Brugge. There was terrible traffic on the motorway and took 2 hours to get there, but should have taken 45 minutes. We got to spend the afternoon wandering around Brugge, avoiding pushbikes and horse drawn carriages and people. An afternoon was long enough in Brugge with all the hustle and bustle of the tourist trade. Finally we gave in and joined the tourists and took a boat ride on the canal, which was really good and worth the effort. Brugge is a very pretty place with a long history, and of course let’s not forget the movie “In Brugge” - a bit of black comedy for those who haven’t see it (we checked out the cobblestones at the bottom of the clock tower where the guy landed after jumping off – we couldn’t find any indentation). We got back to Brussels in time to cook dinner and went for drive with girls around the city, checking out the European Commission, the main square of the old town, the statue of the pissing boy, and the Atomium building – and of course we sampled some of the famous Belgium beers.
We started slowly the next day as the pace of the travelling was catching up on us, so we didn’t do much before meeting the girls in town for lunch. They took us on a quick visit to the European Commission (we felt very important with our special stickers). We had to show passports and go through x-ray scanners to get into the building, just in case we had a ‘you know what’ on our persons. Then went and bought French Fries (invented by Belgians) from the most popular kiosk in the city (took us 15 minutes to get our order taken) – they were certainly better than any hot chips we tasted whilst in the UK and Ireland.
After saying goodbye to the girls, we were finally on the road by mid afternoon, this time headed for Maastricht in the south of the Netherlands. The people who were hosting us are family of Laurens, who stayed with us for a week earlier this year. While he was at our home we were in the process of planning a rough itinerary for our trip, and so he offered us the opportunity of staying with his sister and boyfriend in Maastricht. Laurens was there to meet us when we arrived, in spite of only having arrived back in the Netherlands 2 days beforehand. We had a nice evening around the BBQ getting to know Ralph and Marielle, and hearing of Laurens’ adventures in NZ and Australia.
On Saturday we all rose and headed off on a walk around the city. Maastricht is about the size of Dunedin, just no hills - well not what we would call hills. The first thing we really noticed was the relaxed feeling about the city. Next was the bikes. We had noticed an increase in bikes as soon as we left Paris, but this place was something else. And bikes have right of way everywhere. Riders ring their bell when riding up behind you and you have to get out of the way, especially if you’re a dumb tourist walking on the bike path.
Maastricht city still has parts of the original walls that protected it from invaders from about 300AD. Now that’s history. We also checked out a very old and famous bakery which still has an operational waterwheel driving grinding stones for making flour. After all that history we were thirsty, so a stop off in a café was in order. Turns out this place won an award for the fastest service in Netherlands. Literally within a minute of ordering, our drinks (hot and cold), were served. Once refreshed, we wandered around the city for a bit – some more churches, the main square, the other square where Andre Rieu plays his outdoor concerts when he’s in town (he’s from Maastricht you see –and the locals can’t understand why the rest of the world is so infatuated with him). Then of course it was wine o’clock. So we found a café on the edge of the river and sat there and watched the world go by with a beer and wine. We just finished our second drink when Laurens and Marielle’s parents arrived – so we had another round of drinks before heading back to the original café for dinner (where the drinks service was still as fast as in the morning). Then it was back home for coffee and Dutch Tart to finish off a thoroughly enjoyable day – we decided we really liked Maastricht. And our hosts had certainly put to rest all the silly sayings you hear about the Dutch.
Next morning we were once again we were saying goodbye to new found friends, but we had more of Europe to discover and Germany was our next stop.
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