Bruxelles la sérieuse
En voulant rejoindre La Haye pour visiter une amie, j’ai incorporé une virée de 2 jours à Bruxelles juste avant. En famille, nous y avions déjà séjourné entre Noël et le Jour de l’An en 2007. Mais une combinaison de restaurants fermés pour les vacances de fin d’année et notre logis étant loin du centre ne nous a pas laissé de souvenirs marquants. Cette fois-ci, avec beaucoup plus d’expérience et plus d’informations disponibles, nous étions mieux préparés pour ce weekend printanier dans cette grande capitale européene.
Notre premier reflexe avant de visiter une grande ville est de se trouver un “Free” Walking Tour. On donne à chaque fois une contribution volontaire à la fin du tour, les guides étant habituellement très compétents et des résidents à long terme. Ces tours se concentrent naturellement dans la plus vieille partie des villes et on est informé des plus ou moins bons plans de bouffe sur notre parcours. Je me souviendrais particulièrement de ce tour pour la partie d’histoire relativement récente de la Belgique et l’oppression et l’exploitation de ses colonies en Afrique. Un article récent en souligne l’ampleur “Confronting Belgium’s Colonial Legacy“.
Nevertheless Belgium is very much busy living in the present. Or trying to. Our guide did his best to summarize for us his country’s government system. The many levels of bureaucracy with numerous political parties in a three language environment (French/Wallon 40%, Flemish/Dutch/Vlaams 60% and German 1%) and sometimes religious affiliation is a high risk for its stability. The outcome had been for instance in 2019-2020, a country without a working government in place for 16 months. Day to day activities were able to continue at other levels (communal/municipal, regional, community) for this country of 11 million population.
Quiet Living in Brussels
Sur une note plus ludique, on est quand même dans le royaume des gauffres, du chocolat fin, des moules et frites, de la bière et de la bande dessinée! Les espaces verts sont nombreux, les rues piétionnaires protègent les plus vieilles parties de la ville, et leurs musées (dont celui des beaux-Arts) sont très spacieux et de très haute calibre. C’est bien la première fois que je vois des bancs dans un ascenseur !
On my last morning before catching the train towards The Hague (Netherlands), I walked around following a well done blogger’s Google MyMap to find a few more of those BD related gigantic murals.
Off to The Hague
So from one bureaucratic city to another, the train journey took me 2hrs 25 min and cost 22 Euros with a couple of connections. An anecdote about the train journey: we came to a full stop between 2 cities and we got quickly informed (in Dutch and in English) that a technical issue was detected by the train conductor. Five minutes later, we got an update that the issue was fixed and we would be late by about 5 minutes and they were very sorry about the delay. Thinking back on the problems of airlines delays this summer especially, I would say that was a non-issue and totally appreciated to have been kept in the loop
My visit with my Canadian friend ended up around the Koningsdag or King’s Day, a national holiday in the Netherlands. Besides the gigantic drinking parties, people are allowed to sell things on the street without requiring a permit. So days before the holiday families and individuals sellers would draw in chalk the portion of the sidewalk to claim it for their “yard” sales.
La Haye est très proche de la mer et puisque un bon 26% des Pays-Bas se trouve sous le niveau de la mer et environ 59% des terres est à risque d’être inondées, c’est avec curiosité que je suis allée faire des promenades sur le bord de la mer du Nord. C’est fascinant de constater tout le travail et l’ingéniosité mis pour maintenir les eaux en dehors des terres et quand même profiter pleinement du bord de la mer.
But the pure quintessential “Dutch” experience on my last day was to visit of the iconic city of Delft inaugurated as such in 1246. Until the 17th century, Delft was one of the major cities for trade and industry. These days it is more important for tourism for a number of reasons: you can easily walked around, two major Churches are still standing (The New and the Old), the last manufacture of the famous Delftware, the Delft Blue Porcelain is still producing and a remaining windmill is being kept in working order. Of course, we could have visited much more but for a few hours, the visit was quintessential including a lunch break.
The New Church (Nieuwe Kerk) was first on our list. Having been constructed between 1381 and 1496 (as opposed to the Old one completed in 1350) it has the honour to hold the Dutch royal family’s burial vault under its floor. It is a private and closed off area for the family and at the time of our visit, it was being worked on to make it bigger and better laid out. But its tower is open for who is willing to climb a total of 376 steps. We understood pretty quickly why the backpacks had to be left in lockers downstairs. We were kind of glad to be visiting when they were not too much traffic in the very narrow staircases.
