Let's get medieval

There were so many cool things at the Philadelphia Art Museum and I know I only saw a fraction of them in my whirlwind trip. For one thing, there were three other locations with even more stuff, including the Rodin Museum, and the Perelman Building, which appears to have all sorts of modern collections, including costumes and clothes.

One of the coolest things I did get to see were all the little rooms that have been brought from actual castles and manors and temples and so on and reconstructed at the museum. This is the ceiling of a small chapel-like room (can't find the specific room in the collection database, but others are there). The rooms that are complete with furnishing give you a real sense of what it was like to live in a medieval manor house, or a German monastery.

I like this painting of St. Catherine of Alexandria for several reasons. First, she is reading a book; second, she is standing in front of Bruges, and it has a special place in my heart since we were there last year; and third, she is totally standing on the pagan emperor who killed her. Awesome. I didn't spend too much time in the medieval/Renaissance painting rooms because a lot of it was similar to all the art we saw last year in Europe. If I had been there longer I probably would have spent more time there. But I wanted to make sure I got to see the other cool stuff:

Like 14th and 15th century swords. While I was in Philadelphia (and for a month afterwards) I was listening to A Distant Mirror, Barbara Tuchman's history of 14th century France, and was excited to see things that came from that time and place. I also saw later dueling-type swords, but these were true war swords.

And where there are swords, there must be shields and armor. I decided not to try your patience with the (many) pictures of horse armor I took (not sure what I was thinking at the time other than "horsies, in armor!"), but this shield is amazing. All that detail, all done by hand without any modern tools or computer renderings or anything. So. Much. Detail.

If you ever have a chance to go to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, do it. It definitely belongs in the same class as the Metropolitan Museum in NYC, and the Smithsonian, and the British Museum.

Next time, I will turn to the sights of Colonial America at Constitution Hall.

Friday (Foreign) Food

It is Friday at last, and I don't know about you, but I could use some good food. How about a lovely Belgian waffle (which we actually ate in Amsterdam, I think)? A nice, dense, sweet, but not too sweet waffle, with real chocolate syrup (none of that corn syrupy Hersheys junk).

Not a waffle person? How about mini-pancakes?  These little beauties are from the cheese market in Alkmaar. Fresh and hot off the griddle. I am making myself drool.

And of course, we need something to drink.  This lovely libation is a cherry beer - tart and tasty. Benjamin imbibed this one at a restaurant on the covered shopping street in Brussels.

If you prefer a more traditional beer, here is one from our beer tour in Brugge. I even tried this one. I think I prefer fruity beers myself, but that is what is great about Belgium: there is a beer for everyone!

And, should you need some solid food after all the sweets and beers, try a rice table at an Indonesian restaurant.  You get all these little dishes, with enough for each of you to get a taste. So very good... Is it lunch time yet?

Brugge Boat Tour

With all the canals we encountered on our trip, we were bound to take at least one boat trip.  On past trips, we have had limited success with boat trips - in Bath, the water cooled motor on our boat stalled out after sucking in a plastic bag; on an attempted trip to Victoria B.C., the weather was too rough for the Victoria Clipper to sail. Anyway, this time, we had no such problems. The entire tour was very well-run, and we had a good tour guide.

He was very British, sort of Prince Charles in a boating cap, but he easily spoke German and French on the tour as well, and I am sure he could have done at least Dutch/Flemish, and probably Italian and Spanish, if required to do so. Every anecdote was given first in German, then French, then English.  It was sort of funny, because he would tell a story or joke, and one group of passengers would laugh, then he would repeat it in German, and the German passengers would laugh, then finally in English, and the rest of us would laugh. So you could prepare yourself for something humorous.

The canals and the now silted-up harbor are what helped to make Brugge a big trading center back in the Middle Ages.  They circle the old part of town, and give you a great view of the various architectural styles, as well as the ducks, swans, and trees that live on and around the canals.

In some areas, the doors that traders and merchants would have used to bring in cargo and move goods are still doors, and not bricked over.  Here, a duck uses the ledge as a napping spot.

This is my favorite image from our boat ride.  The dog in the window clearly had it made - an open window, sun, and a soft cushion on the window sill from which to watch the passing boat traffic. And a glorious cascade of flowers on the vine next to him, if he cared about such things. Now I want a house on a canal...

More Brugge

Brugge was full of these lovely little views, ones that would surprise you as you looked down a canal or an alleyway.  Centuries-old houses and canals, still lived in, still used. Living in the United States, we don't really have a good perspective on "old."  Here, something is old if it is 100 years old, if it was here during the Civil War, or the Revolutionary War. Brugge was old during the Revolutionary War; its heyday was long gone.

This brightly colored dock is where we caught a boat for a canal tour, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. Next up for us is the brewery tour.

On Monday, after we finished our bike ride, we took a tour of the Halve Maan (half moon) Brewery. On the tour you get to see the workings of the old parts of the brewery, most of which are only used for tours these days.  Lots of narrow stairs and dusty bottles.

But the view from the roof of the brewery was pretty good - that church in the distance is where the Michaelangelo Madonna lives. 

Each of these large holding tanks had to be cleaned at the end of each aging cycle - by hand. The person who was sent inside was instructed to whistle continuously while he was in there - if he stopped, the workers outside the tank would know that he had been overcome by fumes and would then pull him out.

At the end of the tour, everyone was given a glass of beer to enjoy in the cafe. Benjamin enjoyed it. I still haven't come around to beer - lambic (fruity beer) is OK, and I really like cider, but not so much the beer. But it was fairly good, for being beer. *smile*

A Madonna and Bicycles

So, I promised pictures of the Madonna in Brugge.  She's a Michaelangelo - reputed to be the only one that left Italy during his lifetime - and she's lovely. Not very big though.

 You can't get all that close to her, and I couldn't use a flash, so she isn't as well photographed as I would have liked, but you can still get an idea of her beauty. Seeing the works of great artists in person really makes you appreciate them more - especially when you have been surrounded with their contemporaries who are not so great. Vermeer was like that. Before we went on the trip I knew the name Vermeer, and I had seen pictures of his paintings, but by the end of our museum going on the trip, I could really appreciate his use of light, his colors, his settings. So much better than endless pictures of men in ruffs...

We arrived in Brugge on Sunday afternoon. On Mondays, all the museums in town are shut. So, we took a bike ride to Damme, and then tried to find the North Sea. The ride to Damme was easy, once we found the right street and got out of town proper. It was like riding on the Erie Canal path.

The canal is to the left, hidden by the blooming plants. It was an easy ride, mostly flat, on our own path. The bike seats were a little bit too hard, but otherwise, they were in good shape.

We even saw a windmill.  Then, after we ate our picnic lunch in the shadow of the windmill, we decided to follow the signs along the Nord Zee route. A route we figured would take us to the sea, since we had seen a sign in Brugge saying it was only a 40 minute bike ride away. The path seemed promising - heading in the right direction, and passing through farms and country lanes... But it never did get us to the sea. After biking for quite a while, getting very sore, er, delicate areas, we gave up and followed the signs back to Brugge. Ah well. It was a lovely day, and the countryside was worth the trip.

To Brugge

After a couple of days in Delft, it was time to move on to Brugge (or Bruges, if you are a Frankophone - they speak both French and Flemish in that part of Belgium. I am going with Flemish today.) Here is one of the many trains we rode. Some were more comfortable, some were older, but all in all, I heartily approve of train travel as a way to get between cities. Much better than driving, for certain. If only we had good train service from Little Rock to Conway, with a stop in Maumelle, and then to Texas and Memphis and New Orleans...Sigh.

Anyway, we journeyed to Brugge by train.  Brugge is a medieval city that sort of got forgotten when its harbor silted up, in the 16th century. As a result, most of the buildings got left alone, and despite being a rather big city (around 117,000 overall), it doesn't feel that large;  more like a bustling town.  It was "rediscovered" by tourists at the end of the 18th century, and let me tell you, they haven't left. The place was jammed with tourists of all stripes and nationalities.

I can see why. It has canals, it has medieval buildings, it has a Michaelangelo sculpture (more on that tomorrow, or the next day) and a great art museum. It has chocolate and beer (again, later). The first afternoon we mostly just walked around, absorbing the town. This corner of the canal is possibly the most photographed spot in Brugge.

The thing about walking around Brugge, and later Amsterdam, is that you have to watch out or you might just get run over. In Brugge, it was mostly for the horse carriages that took their loads of tourists around the city. Here you can see Benjamin about to get run over (not really, but it certainly looks that way, doesn't it?) And you have to look out for the other tourists who are all wandering around, like you, with their eyes on the sights, with chocolate or a cone of crispy frites (Flemish Fries - they are not French - they were invented in Flanders, so they are Flemish) in one hand and a camera in the other.

Here, in the central square of Brugge, you also had to look out for the cars and buses that zipped around, because there really wasn't a clearly defined street - to my eye, they just drove wherever would get them to their destination quickest. Well, maybe not right down the center, but you get my meaning.

Coming up next, bicycling to Damme and (not) to the sea, and a Madonna.