Vienna

"In Vienna there's ten pretty women ...,
There's a concert hall in Vienna where your mouth got a thousand reviews...,
I danced with you in Vienna...,"
                                                            Take this Waltz, Leonard Cohen
                       
Vienna has a storied past.  For the ~ 200 years of Habsburg rule it was the capital of an empire that had up to 50 million citizens.  Cue the churches and palaces.  Plus an amazing slice of European art.  The last 100 years of history have not been as kind as Austria now has a population of 8 million.
 That said there is still a lot of new infra-structure going in.  Multi- year project is rebuilding the main station so now all trains have alternative designations.  Fortunately our Pension is only one subway stop away from the Ostbahnhof - West Station.  In fact I could literally spit from our third story windows onto the space-age glass & stainless steel elevator that rises through the sidewalk.  This structure, one of several I have seen, is a serious commitment to accessibility for baby strollers, cyclists and folks using wheelchairs.  (Perhaps helps that our cross street is a major shopping area.)

Time for a palace.  I had discouraged Miriam from visiting royal estates up to now.  Wait for Vienna was my refrain.  Schloss Schonbunn, the summer palace for Empress Maria Teresa, (and the others....,) is huge with 1,400 + rooms and extensive gardens.  Imagine the French Monarchs excess at Versaille and add steroids!  Exotic wood parquet, Chinese wallpaper and silks serve as a backdrop for the paintings and gilt detailing.  

I have been here once before at age 19 during a youth hostel / cycling adventure with my brother.  In one small room, black lacquer walls, gilt and multiple portraits of the young Maria Teresa a deja-vue flash-back took me to 48 years ago.  Too much fun.

And now for something completely different - a visit to Hundertwasser Haus.  This apartment complex was built in the early 80s by the very imaginative architect / artist.  We inherited a Christmas plate by Hundertwasser and always found his work very intriguing.  The apartment building has a very organic feel to it, with lumps and curves everywhere.  Add primary colours à la Mondrian, with a touch of magic mushrooms.

New drink - sturm - is a new wine which is still fermenting.  Available only in Sept. & Oct.  It has a light refreshing taste, 4% alcohol with a cloudy white appearance - hence the name.  Add a good dose of Vitamins B1 and B2.  Fermentation is still working so needs caps that breath.  Different toast, "To enjoyment".   During the sturm season you are supposed to drink one glass for each year of your age.  Miriam is planning on one glass for each decade.

Here is the view from our Pension.

Got dressed up for the tourist music evening.  Snippets of Mozart and other classical music with the musicians in period dress in a quite amazing hall.  Cheapest tickets got us two balcony seats behind the orchestra.  Once the evening started we hopped a divider and sat in the 'Directors' chairs.  (For me dressed up means a tie with my 'Nipigon Nylons' & berkies.  Miriam, in contrast, looked quite elegant as her long winter underwear was under her summer dress.)

Snapshots:. There are alot of fashionably dressed women of all ages in Vienna.  Lots & lots!

Crossing the public life smoking barrier in the Tobacco Wars.  First occurred in Prague where many restaurants and bars might divide by floor - non-smokers in the basement.  Vienna facilities have a glass wall divider or nothing and the site is a cloudy stink-hole.

Joined the locals and tourists for Fancy Pastries.  Fragilite with hazelnut cream for Miriam; Scholate Bombe with espresso / whipped cream did me in.  I needed to return to our room to recover.

Weather is changing.  Below freezing forecast for Budapest on Monday with snow.  We do have gloves and multiple layers.  Stay tuned.

Munich

We had an express bus for the five hour journey west from Prague to Munich - significantly cheaper than the train option.  Smooth highway, (auto-Bahn anyone), the whole way.  The rolling forested hills before the German border continued for a while before the cultivated fields took over.  First there were only a few hop fields with their characteristic tall poles and wires for the vines to climb, which became the characteristic roadside view for much of the rest of the trip.  Periodic solar panel fields were also new.

Our budget hotel is near the Hauptbahnhof - main station - with all the stores and options to service the traveling public; every third storefront offers Turkish pizza, doner and other instant take-away foods, every fifth building is a hotel or a hostel with a sprinkling of casino-slot machine sites, sex shows, barbers and gold jewelry shops.  Wander half a block in the opposite direction and the street-scape becomes quiet with University of Munich buildings.

Our focus is family visiting with my 84 year old aunt.  Her seniors' residence is eight subway stations from the centre, which gave us the chance to walk around a middle class suburban neighbourhood.  Mix of private houses and many low apartment buildings.  The treed streets, extensive grass and tree buffers between buildings are a major contrast with similar Canadian neighbourhoods.  (Parking underground so no need for the large foot-print of parking lots.). All serviced by multiple subway and bus routes.  Excellent example of what planning and population density can produce.

Did the Hofbrauhaus tourist thing Sunday afternoon. Sometimes you just have to give in.  After all:  an oomhpapa band, litres of good beer and sausages / sauerkraut with pretzels - what's not to love.

Last afternoon explored the 'Englisher Garden'.  Huge park right downtown complete with rushing streams, pond, treed paths and, if the day was not so cool, lawns paved with naked locals.

Prague

Lovely train journey from Berlin to Prague.  The farmer's fields are noticeably larger in southern Germany.   The last third of the trip the train was travelling up river in a picturesque narrow valley with steep treed hills hemming in the occasional small village.  Periodic cliffs and exposed rocks tempted photos.

Prague's old town is wonderful eye-candy - especially when you learn the next door Nove Mestro - NEW Town was constructed in 1348.  Checkout the photo of the clock.  The centre piece of the town's seven bridges, Charles Bridge, dating from 1357, was the only bridge linking both sides of the city for over 400 years.  Our first view was of a phalanx of tourists coming towards us.  Wow - In the summer high season visitors must be here in battalions.

First morning we walked from our hostel/hotel to the Old Town.  Just strolling around offers serendipitous discoveries.  The imposing National Museum, overlooking the large equestrian statue of King Wenceslaus, had an evening concert by the Prague String Ensemble - "On the Stairs".  A Czech custom, the audience is given cushions to sit on four broad marble stairs with the six musicians on the landing in between.  Atmospheric doesn't come close to describing the experience.

Our second 'serindip' of the day was finding a little, tucked away restaurant on 'Devil's Stream', next to a bridge festooned with locks.  An antique waterwheel turned beside us.  The sheepskin chair throws and hot wine took the chill off the day from Miriam.  Beef stew in a bread bowel took care of our other physical needs.  Best of all - not mentioned in the Guide books!

A sunny, early fall day was perfect for our climb of Petrin Hill.  Climb the sloping paths through the trees we did as the funicular train had its annual two week shutdown.  Magnificent views from the top.  PLUS a funky pint-sized Effiel Tower.  Elevator for five going up and 300 stairs down.  The structure gently swaying as the stream of Czech school children thumped up and down.

Further semi-focused map reading took us to Loreta, a baroque Catholic shine filled with paintings of dead saints and a female Christ on the Cross, dressed in a dress and add-on fake beard.  Genuinely weird.  Oh, add the Star of Prague - 6,200 diamonds and sundry other excesses.  The near-by street of tiny houses for long ago employees of the castle was delightful real world in comparison.

Last full day was modern Czech art since 1930 to the present.  The push and pull of ideology as the 1948 Communist government sought to recruit the artists in building the new socialist man.  The social realism works bring a full meaning to the word 'dreck' while the contemporary artists produced 'unoffical' art alive with meaning and snapping originality.

Tram 22 we love you.  This two carriage, red & cream machine has carried us every day on all or part of our day trips.  Originally to our hotel then every day after downtown to the day's wander-round.  Up the hill to Prague Castle and back down.  Tomorrow, Friday it will start our trip to the bus and Munich.

General Observations:
Czech are a civilized people with a deep understanding of human needs, proof > WC signs are everywhere!  Perhaps the citizen's record consumption of beer helps to promote this helpful feature for travellers.
Throughout Europe we have been amazed by the number of young women pushing strollers.  There are certainly more babies here than we see in Canada.
Public begging is much less than say Toronto.  Different approaches for the dollar.  In Hamburg the practice is to sit silently with eyes downcast.   A second method which I may be mis-understanding involves a young woman approaching as ou exit a subway station with a sheet seeking 'pledges' as they are deaf-mutes. There appear to be an extraordinary large populatioxn of such folks.  In Prague the few beggars are on their knees and elbows or lying prostrate with head down.  No eye contact -no interaction at all.  Strange for me as I need a verbal or eye contact before contributing.
Wall tagging - Britain and Belgium not so much while Germany and Czech Republicans lots.

Berlin

Berlin - We have feasted on a range of experiences.  A four hour walk around the main central attractions gave our 'Famous Walks' host the opportunity to talk his way through 750 years of tangled history.  Berlin means 'swamp town' in an ancient Saxon language.  Present day locals claim with a fair bit of justification Berlin is an 'eternal building site'.  Everything was knocked down in WWll so has been faithfully re-constructed or is new.  Add the different philosophies of East and West Germany expressed in architecture and after reunification this city is now reclaiming its status as the national capital - more building.  Construction is everywhere and will continue with a growing population of 3.2 million.

Museums - There are so many here they even have a 'Museum Island'.  The Film Museum had classic pics and clips of the early German pioneers inventing the medium.  Audio guides at the ready we skimmed 15th & 16th century master painters.  The Pergamon has a knock-your-socks-off collection of antiques.  Imagine huge halls that have reassembled classic Greek shrines or two story Roman temples and entire Babylonian city gates.

The Neues houses the famous Egyptian collection.  We were not the only ones interested in seeing Nefretiti.  The President of Mexico showed up with a small entourage of body guards, minders, official photographers and women.   I had just been told no photos of the fabulous bust by museum staff when el Presidente's road show entered.  We backed off as the cameras popped to capture the moment.  Miriam slid into the official party and was able to catch this quick shot.  Enjoy.  Moments later when the ordinary Mexican press tried to take their own pictures - No, no, no!

Berlin has their own TV / viewing tower.  Lovely sunny day for our 360 scan of the city.  Only an hour & a half wait for our time slot to go up.  By noon ticket holders had a two & half hours of pause.

Last day we toured the Topography of Terror, an exhibit of photos that walk you through the Third Reich's secret police and the other agencies of repression.  The scale of the evil is hard to absorb.  To the credit of present day Germany they are looking straight at the past and not equivocating on the shared responsibility.  This is something Japan or Italy are ducking - to the shame of their respective governing elites.

Came out of the exhibition to a major anti-racism / pro-refugees demonstration going up the street.  Lots of energy and noise, banners and two sound trucks alternating between hip-hop / raggae and political rhetoric.  Basically asking for refugees, once in Germany, to be treated humanly.  Guesstimate 2000 of mostly 20 to 35 year older - the crowd was more than three blocks long and covered the road.  We joined the march and ended up at the the Brandenburg Gate.  The sound of the chants off the gate made my heart swell.  Miriam had been looking for evidence of the alternative Berlin and it happened in front of us!

On an earlier, rainy evening we had wandered down the Avenue of Lindens, a fancy shopping street off the Brandenburg Gate, and a block sideways found shelter and a good supper in a small, wood paneled pub.  Sitting next to us at the crowded bar, an international German businessman said this place was a typical East Germany bar which he always visits when in town.  On our last night we retraced our steps and found it again.  Miriam had a cabbage roll - all meat, no rice - that took up most of the plate while 1/2 a braised pig's leg with red cabbage and boiled potatoes did me in.

Mastering each city's transportation network is an evolving puzzle of mental quesswork.  Signage and the availibility of systems maps varies from excellent, (London) to vague, (Brussels).  Berlin has 9 S-Bahn lines, U-9 Bahn lines, multiple tram lines and buses.  Our budget hotel was close to subway and bus but not on the lines to where we wanted to go.  We would hop from system to system, following signs that took us out of stations,  across roads and bridges and back down to a platform and transportation.  Germans must have excellent eye sight as the complex metro map is often ridiculously small.
We definitely need to return, since we missed the zoo/aquarium, the Dali museum, murals on the Wall, and much more.  And it was too cold for the nude beach! 

Hamburg

It was a rainy morning leaving Amsterdam for the three and a half hour train ride north to Hamburg.  The Dutch countryside genuinely flat with occasionally steep roofed, red brick farm houses.  Here and there a small canal or river. At the Germany border the train crews changed.  Also the view from the windows.  Now there was more woodlots among the feed corn, pasture and vegetables crops.  Plus the first hills.
 We had to change trains twice on this journey.  The first had only four minutes between arrival and departure.  Checking with a conductor gave us the cheerful advice, "Most people take the train that
leaves half an hour earlier in case the first train is delayed.".  Well gee - thanks for that.  Hard to realize the implications of changing trains when the train ticket is being booked on line in Canada weeks ago.
Fortunately it all went well with three minutes to spare!
We were staying on the train through the Hamburg Hauptbahnhof - main station - to the Altona station three stops further on.  And earlier confusion on which end of the rail car would be our assigned seats had our two bags separated, one overhead close to one end and the second at the opposite end.  Not a problem - Miriam will go to the far end before arrival and we'll get off from both ends of the rail car.  Except Miriam got off one station too early!  I sprinted the length of the rail car, banged on the windows - no acknowledgement - then shouted out the door.  "Wrong station, wrong station".  With seconds to spare Miriam wrestled her suitcase back aboard.

Hamburg is large, 1.8 million and growing, industrial town with a an active seaport for container ships. If there isn't a giant crane or a ship in your tourist photo it is not a picture of central Hamburg.  (Slight exaggeration).  Most of the buildings are postwar due to the Allied forces "fire storm" bombing raids in the later sages of WWII.  Germany architects have taken advance of the urban blank canvas.  There are fanciful office towers and imaginative apartment buildings all over the downtown core.
We are staying with two friends that we first met on our Big Trip thirty years ago.  They have visited us in Canada and twelve years ago they showed us various unique Hamburg sights - we canoed on the the canals and rode in one of the surviving old wooden, open-sided "pater noster" elevators.  We had a wonderful time sharing stories and exploring the city with them.
Altona is close to the Elbe river.  A short stroll brings you to a series of narrow parks along the river bank.  The far side of the river has the harbour sky-scape of row on row of huge cranes for loading the container ships. Half- way upriver to downtown you pass Dry Dock 11, complete with a container vessel inside of it.  The water front bustles with activity as other boats large and small, commercial and tourist go about their business.

We spent one evening wandering around an urban renewal site where the city is adding fancy office towers and condos to an old finger of docks.  Penthouses - without furnishings - cost millions.

Sunday morning up early for the St. Paul Fiskmarkt.  Perhaps upward of 60 trailers with open sides and built in coolers sell fish, vegetables, live animals and clothing in a square next to the water.  Sellers conduct an auction, loading up their arms with an assortment of fish - one eel, chunk of salmon, add a mackerel all the while shouting out prices.  The shoppers press around and when one person thinks the price is right waves their money.  No takers and the fish are returned to the various piles and then another armful is offered.  Quick jokes and word play means there is a lot of laughter among the crowd.  Our host, "I want a small one.". Reply, "Yes, you have a small one."
Half an hour's drive is a 'Fleichtmuseum' - a building museum with reconstructed old farm houses made of half-timbered wattle and dab or brick walls and thached roofs.  Staff in period costume weave baskets, cut cabbage for sourkraut and demonstrate the carpentry of the time.  Other buildings were more recent such as a Nissen Hut - a 20' long corrugated iron tube, (invented by a Canadian!) - that showed the crude dwelling of some of the flood of Germany refugees that were expelled from Eastern Europe after WWII.
A new 'Agrarium' was a modern three story display of old and modern farm machinery.  Very well done with interactive displays and many food samples.  What's not to love about a 15' long sand box to push your model tractor and plow.  The highlight for children was climbing in the cab of a large combine and watching their steering efforts be displayed on a screen in front.  I think the pretend field will need a second pass.
Yesterday afternoon was a long walk downtown alongside the river.  The fish market now just a bare cobbled plaza.  Our destination U-435, an old Russian submarine.  What a cramped, tunnel of machinery and cables.  Add tiny closets that were rooms for three or four men each and port-hole hatches between each section, making sure that the head-bumping pipes are everywhere.  Not for the claustrophobic.
Our visit ends with much good German beer and red wine and reminiscing with our hosts.

Amsterdam #2

Our last full day had necessary trip maintainance and a dash of culture.
First a sorting through of unnecessary clothing - swim suits, we don't need you - made up a package to mail home.  Then off to find the main post office.  Quite an efficient work area in the basement to prepare parcels to mail. There goes seven pounds we no longer need to carry.  Spotted a Tibetan restaurant on the way that served us well for lunch.  (Our path skirted through the 'red light' district.)
Next the culture.  Off to the Hermitage Museum where a sample of Van Gogh's paintings are on temporary display while his museum is being renovated.  The paintings were grouped by six themes; such as light, colour, Japanese influence and self portraits.  While an interesting approach, this method of arranging the paintings mixed later with earlier works.  And many paintings were not on display.  I have visited once before as a teenager when the complete collection of over two hundred paintings were in simple chronological order.  I found this arrangement made clear his struggle to become a painter.  His growing mastery leap off the wall, so much so, that I was unwilling to talk about the paintings afterwards and chose to walk in a near-by park for half an hour afterwards to digest the experience.  This time I was not so deeply moved.  (One later self-portrait, short red hair, at the easel and looking directly at the viewer while wearing a blue collarless smock; he has such red-rimmed eyes that he maybe showing long-standing sleeplessness or more immediate - being hung-over.)
For supper we tried the restaurant downstairs from our apartment.  "Eat Me" turned out to be very fancy.  A 'living wall' of plants dominated the entrance and crisp, minimalist furnishings and similar decor made for an inviting space.  The place was crowded and we were lucky to get a table.  (For fun we had both dressed up - I think that helped.)

Here are two views from our apartment.  The older Dutch houses are built with a pronounced lean forward, the better to hoist furniture to the upper floors.  (Long ago taxes were on the width of the house, number of windows and the area of your stairwell.  Now you can understand the older city's street views and the steep, break-your-neck stairs).  The lean to the right of the second house is due to unstable foundations.

Beep went the alarm on the phone at 6:00 am.  Pack and walk through the rain to the Central Station - fortunately only 400 or so meters so very close.  Good-bye Amsterdam, we will be back and stay for longer.

Ramblings on the Amsterdam stay;
Watched an ambulance navigate at speed; Woo-Haa woo-haa ..., coming into view while changing lanes on a major street then turning right onto the 'Blue Bridge', accelerate and use half the bike lane over the bridge to get past traffic, brake and hard left in front of us, then another surge of  acceleration and gone.  We had a good view of the woman driver's giant grin.

This town / civic authorities are taking care of business.  In four days we had the municipal garbage and recycling trucks up our narrow street twice on alternate days.  Multiple crews repairing brick pavements, laying the blocks with a combination of hand-labour and machines walked by an individual worker that picked up half a sidewalk course of blocks.  Blunk - set in place.  Add the road work crews changing pipes, both large and small plus the barges that were walling off sections of canal wall and replacing the rotting bricks and you have a sense of a city that is ready to invest in upgrading and repair.  Too bad our town of Thunder Bay would rather wait for catastrophic failure before begrudgingly doing the necessary.

Bicycles and cycling, now there is a topic;  we first looked forward to a day of joining the locals and pedalling around the city core.  Yikes - watch out!! as we narrowly escape again from being run over by a cyclist.  Most inner city streets consist of narrow sidewalk - pedestrians, single lane for cars, smooth / flat wide bike lane for two way cycling, narrow strip for parking bikes, (numerous) and cars, trees then the canal.  Repeat on the other side of the canal.  The car traffic is predictable and often noisy due to the paving stones giving good warning of their approach.  In contrast the bikes are silent with large bells used at the absolute last moment and do not slow down for foot traffic.  Add the novel street signage and we decided to wimp-out and just explore on foot.  Maybe next time with a longer stay we will saddle-up.

Amsterdam

Three full days of exploring and another day - today - to go before Friday's early train to Hamburg.

First to describe the city-scape; the center core has seven main concentric canals, each with a ration of Amsterdam's 1500 bridges.  Add a few narrow lateral canals, plus a couple more bridges; some able to lift with ancient beams or strange chains and gears.  Place a narrow street down each side with a path for cyclists, a single lane for cars and an even smaller sidewalk for pedestrians.  Decorate the railings for each bridge with clusters of locked bicycles.  Between the the bridges there are more rows of bicycles waiting reclaiming.  The background sound will be the gentle click of plastic wheeled rolling suitcases dragged by tourists over the pavement bricks.  Plant a few trees and line each canal with tiny bars, restaurants and occasional coffee shops and you have our neighborhood in 'Nieumarkt', Wandering the streets / canal views of Amsterdam, whether night or day, is a constant delight that just makes me smile. This town is also a 'foodie' heaven.  Indonesia, Chinese, Suriname, Argentina, Brasilia, Mexican - that's before the frites, kababs and Turkish pizza.  Oh, must not forget waffles and pancakes.
On the road one must make time for self maintainance.  First day's activity was locating a dentist to get a temporary filling to repair a broken root-canal, a morning surprise from Bruges.  Patched for 25 euros.  Walked back through 'Negen Straagjes' - Nine Streets,  a grid of block-long shopping that spans across three canals in the Western canal belt.  Eclectic mix of items, most regular clothing stores but also one store that sells nothing but toothbrushes!
Frozen Foam has high-end Dutch design.  Very witty items - I must throw out half our furniture and start again from this store.  Make your own neon sign at 15 euros a letter or own a tea pot with a gorilla on the top.
 A similar interior design store is 'droog' - they claim using their items will transform your life.   Certainly will transfer your cash, from your bank account to theirs.  Beautiful and functional although I'll only keep my bicycle built of bamboo in the house.
Day Two included Rembrandt Huis, his home and studio for 20 years has been loving surrounded by a modern shell for the small museum.  You walk through each room with period furniture and paintings galore over the walls giving a brief overview of contemporary 16th century artists and his pupils.  Miriam got to assist in making an etching.

Day Three was the St. Nicholas Boat Club tour.  This is the alternative canal view.  Rather than the giant glass topped tourist boat with canned announcements in five languages we walked half way across town to join 20 others in a small open boat.  (Russian water rescue craft, functional and sturdy). Got to see from the water that we have covered most of the down town core by foot.  Bonus the sky cleared up during our hour plus on the water.  Tour guide was an American actor / stand-up comedian who came to visit 20 years ago and is still here.  Knows his town!

Amsterdam Factoids:
There are two bicycles for every citizen.  The city periodically tags long parked bikes - move it in six weeks or we will cut the chain and take it.
The canals average  9 feet deep.  The Dutch say 3 ft of mud, 3 ft of bicycles and 3 ft of water.
A boat with special grapple hook makes a sweep of each canal twice a year, pulling out the old abandoned bikes, sunken cars and the aprox. 12 bodies.  (Not foul play, rather drunk people who try and take up boating or swimming.  It can be a fair swim to a chain or other handholds to climb out of a canal.)
Two types of houseboats - genuine boats and floating platforms with a wooden box on top, placed in the canals in the '60s for emergency housing.  Both discharge their sewage straight into the canals!! Eeuuh.  Once a week the city opens the locks that connect with the river and sea and flushes out each canal in turn for general cleaning.
Last night took in "My Big Fat American Election", at Boom Chicago, long running English language comedy club.  The show doesn't start till next week but we lucked into a preview for 5 euros.  Three improv comedians riffed off the audience between their set skits.  (How do you parody Mitt Romney when his every comment reveals such a hollow man.).
The Van Gogh experience has been saved up to day.  More on this later.

Bruges

After Brussels we trained 4 hours to Bruges, in the Flemish / Dutch-speaking portion of Belgium.  Change trains in Antwerp.
 (Digression on trains and public transit; Do not imagine, gentle reader, that each journey is a seamless flow from point A to point But.  Rather, picture two directional-challenged travelers in the bowels of three and four level level combined train / metro stations with minimum local language, surrounded by an energetic flow of locals who do know where they are going.  Trying to avoid being trampled is important.  Figuring out the elevators might be specific to each platform also counts.  Add a pack sack, rolling suitcase and misc. hanging bags will complete the picture.)
Bruges has a 14 / 15 cent. core when it was the leading commercial Centre in Europe.  (World's first bourse - stock market invented here.). Then the access to the sea wilted up and the trade moved, leaving a time-capsule of cobble stones, canals and beautifully preserved medieval buildings.  Now a major tourist designation for Europeans and others with crowed streets.  The summer crush must be off-the-scale.

Checked into a modern, budget hotel next to the train station.  Only three rooms left so they had taken down their Web Site - making prior booking a non-starter.  Our room was compact with every thing we needed in a tight 8'x15' space.  Bunkbed at right angles over the main bed, large shower - lights in the hand-held shower head and space ship sink/mirror pillar mid-room.  Such a contrast with the previous funky bed and breakfast.
Found a recommended small restaurant for local dishes.  Fish soup with old beer as the stock for me and Miriam started with creamy leek and potatoes.  Then the mains...,
Belgium lays claim to superior frites - served a bit too blonde / under-cooked for my taste.  Their oil of choice, lard naturally.  (Great grandfather was a fish and chips man and swore by lard for the best chips.  In T. Bay the Greeks on Hodder or Nippers on Simpson use lard.).
Bruges has one of the few remaining "Begijnhof", a cluster of historic houses around a courtyard, walled off from the town, originally to house lay-sisters who had being widowed by the deaths of their crusader-knight husbands.
Most of Saturday we just walked around - found the 'Half Moon's brewery in an enclosed courtyard. Bruges Zot is the brand, harlequin jester the symbol and robust yeasty-ness the taste.
Joined the hundreds in the Main Square for mussels and frites under the shadow of the massive 'Belfort' clock tower - 84 meters with 366 stairs described as claustrophobic.  Let's pass on that one.
Large old church has an exquisite, small Michelangelo Madonna and Child while the Choco-Story private museum had a very good overview of the world fascination with chocolate.  The Meso-American origin was very well done.  Finish with a demonstration of chocolate making.  (Heat the liquid chocolate to only 29C and it is shiny coming out of the mold, higher its surface becomes dull.)
Finish the day's stroll walking the ring canal home, passing two windmills.
Walking - Now there is a topic: We prefer to ration our museum/church/cultural enlightenment to once a day - two hours max.  For the rest we walk, exploring our neighborhood or finding local markets, shopping streets and similar local flavour.  Some days we easily do 6 to 10 km and more.

Catch Up Observations:
First destination after southern England was Brussels.  Short visit.  The Bed and Breakfast appeared to be just north of the City Centre.  Oops - No so much.  Follow-on directions involved a "pre-metro" from the bus station to the real Metro to two buses, the first a short run to a suburb shopping Centre.  Finally found and an excellent neighborhood bar/restaurant restored calm and full bellies.  Our 72 year-old hostess told us the forest was only 200 meters from the house!
Only one day for a Brussels walk-around.  Back downtown to main station to stash bags.  Then the tourist sites.  The journey of finding your intended sight is much of the experience, mastering odd maps, traffic hazards and massive columns of lock-step tourists, marching along the sidewalk behind their guide.  National symbol is "manneken pis", a small statue of a naked young boy taking a leak.  Once the streets start to narrow to single lane and the road becomes cobblestone you know you are getting close.  Then a crowd of 30 plus folks squeezed around a fence - all with cameras and cell phones held high and you have found it.  (I can't imagine the mid-summer crush.).  There is an even smaller young girl "jeanneke pis" statue which is harder to find.  It is at the end of a network of pedestrian alleys lined with high-end cafes and funky bars.
Reward for success was Cafe Delirium where the attached bar boasts of 2000 types of beer.  The 25 taps of draft were enough for us.  Miriam tried apple beer, a light 3 per cent with a gentle fizzy genuine apple flavour.  Delirium Tremins is the house special, a 9 per cent smooth strong ale with an undercurrent taste of ginger.  The label and cafe sign feature a pink elephant.
Between the two statue locations is the Main Square with a suitable Grand Place / Palace and fancy Guildhalls.  Extravagance in stone as the statues and baroque encrustagions climb up the face of each building making one think of frozen wedding cake .  The gilt topping strengthens the image.
The surrealist painter Rene Margette is beautifully celebrated in a modern museum, tucked within older facades.  What a trickster with light, ideas and the meaning of spoken language.  His symbols reappear throughout his artistic life giving food for thought.  He is much more than black bowler hats and floating pipes.
Found a large formal park close to the museum.  The broad avenues had humourous constructions of giant brussel sprouts - one being carried by a stork.  Multicultural Brussels symbolized by different legs coming out of a huge cone of frites.
Late afternoon train to Bruges.  ....,

England updated

Hi, Yes we are alive, well and having good time on the road.  Indifferent WiFi access and our challenges with the new Blackberry Tablet have delayed new content on the blog.  We have entered lots of content that disappeared and have missed-remembered attaching photos.  Double plus Piffle.

We are now in Amsterdam.  We splashed out a bit and got ourselves an apartment overlooking the canal.  We are basking in luxury, with our own washer/dryer, dishwasher, rain shower and two flatscreen TVs.  And everything that Amsterdam has to offer just steps from our door.   So from here we will catch up on the past two weeks. 

We had a lovely time in southern England.  Crowborough, Tunbridge Wells and an extended Hoad family gathering with Simon's 90 year old uncle a highlight.  Add a tour of old Hastings, Battle Abbey and the 1066 battle field, Hever Castle (think Anne Bolyen and Henry VIII), include a stately home with lots of "arts and crafts" William Morris.   Also a fine selection of English ales.
Then we were off to Devon where the cousins  toured us along the rolling, green quilt of hedgerowed fields.  Seaside towns combine a fishing past with a heavy tourist present.  It is known as the English Riviera and certainly has that feel about it.  The town of Sidmouth, with its large number of retirees, is called "God's Little Waiting Room".  The picture below is of the Central Harbour of Brigham complete with a life-sized replica of Sir Francis Drake's ship The Golden Hind.  It seems far to small to have been able to circumnavigate the world.

Quick London experience for three days staying at a London School of Economics residence as school doesn't start till Oct.  In was located in the Bloomsbury area, near the British Museum.  We had an excellent tour of St. Pauls Cathedral - 527 steps to the top gallery, followed by a visit to the Tate Gallery.  The next day we took a cruise down the Thames to Greenwich Observatory, (top photo is one of the 1700's observatories, founded to solve the challenge of finding longitude at sea) and toured the Cutty Sark clipper.