Ostend/Brugge/Belgium

[redfiona99]

First, an apology: At various points in this, I will get the spelling of places wrong in at least three languages. I have tried to fix it but my brain got a bit scrambled during the trip.



We caught the crack of dawn flight to Brussels, because, due to the way British public transport works or rather doesn't, flying to Brussels and then out to Ostend was about half the price of getting a train to London and then Eurostarring it over.

I took a couple of photos of the plane, not because it was anything particularly special in design, but because it was named for George Best. I'm still not sure that's an entirely good thing. Also not good was that I recognised the picture of George Best even when it was a half seen silhouette.





Once we got into Ostend and checked into our hotel, we puttered around for a couple of hours.

During these few hours, the following was discovered.

1) Ostend, or rather the restaurants therein, is expensive. It's weird, everything else, clothes, accessories, food for home cooking, seems to be reasonably-ish priced, while the restaurants are extortionate.

2) The tourist information place in Ostend is the least helpful I've ever been to. It also lacks a guide book. [It turns out, after much searching, that there is no Ostend guidebook anywhere.]

3) Ostend has gone pleasingly gaga for Halloween.

4) It also contains the finest neogothic cathedral I've seen.



See also about 10 other photos in the photo album.








The day was mostly spent walking around Brugge, getting our bearings for where we wanted to go the day after when we went museum hopping.

I decided that Ostend, in general, reminded me of Hull. I don't know if it's the same thing, ex-industrial seaside fishing city and then the 80s happened, or what, but that's definitely the vibe I get.

I did like Brugge and it's gingerbread architecture. One of these days, I'll learn what the proper name is for that.

This is Old St. John's bridge. It is entirely possible to get a good shot of it without almost getting yourself killed, but most of the tourists there didn't seem to consider that. In a five minute stretch I saw about 3 near accidents.

Slightly along from that, we saw this . It took a couple of minutes to figure out it was a gargoyle, not a very precariously positioned panther.

We took the train back, and apparently our bad luck is contagious, because the train to Ostend ended up being 15 minutes late.

Once we got back into the hotel we ended up watching gymnastics, so there'll be a post about that later, and spent most of the time trying to figure out Flemish. One amusing subtitling went like this:

Dialogue: "3000 miles away"
Subtitles: "4500 kilometres away"

One day, metric will win the battle.








We went the opposite way around Brugge than day 2, so I spotted this statue.



It's St. John Nepomuck, in his aspect as patron saint of the falsely accused. Exactly what he's doing over a bridge in Belgium, I do not know.

We went to visit the castle, and the basilica of the Holy Blood

The castle front is full of statues, I particularly liked the one of Our Lady With The Inkpot, who is apparently the patron saint of council workers.


She's the statue on the left of the picture.

We were then going to see the art museum but it was closed to set up the next exhibition, "From van Eyck to Duerer", which I would have loved to have seen.

Instead we went up to the Gruuthuis Museum - Interesting collection, and a really good way of presenting it. The special exhibition was about Louis Delacenserie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Delacenserie), who was responsible for the St. Peters and Pauls church in Ostend, and lots of other lovely buildings.

We ended up hiding in a cafe to ride out a torrential downpour. There I discovered the vitally important information that Zot beer is good.











Mostly, I suspected the Belgian train network of trying to kill me. It's the gap, the one you're supposed to mind. There's rather a lot of them to mind and I only have little legs. Then again, I'd almost been run over by cyclists, pedestrians, cars, horses, schoolchildren and segways. Yes, that's right, I almost became the world's first segway victim. They're a silent menace.



I think it's because there were more people about.

We went to the other side of the bay, originally to see the Earth Explorer Museum, but that was closed till April.

Instead, we went along to Fort Napoleon.

It's a must visit. We saw it at a strange time, it was all done up for Halloween, but it was very interesting, and the audio guide was brilliant. And yes, I got to get my geek on over Napoleon.

We then came back to the centre of Ostend, and visited the Mercator



which was a training vessel for the Belgian Merchant Navy. Beautiful boat.

We then visited the Amandine

which was the last trawler from Ostend to fish up in Iceland, and has since been converted into a museum. Again, interesting, and it's nice to see a working ship be museumified for once.




We started the day by visiting the Ensor House, a museum (-ish) dedicated to James Ensor - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Ensor The lady that ran the museum was lovely, but I do rather understand why he's not a big name. Totally a forerunner of expressionism though, and he seems like an interesting man.

We then went for a bit of a promenade along the seafront, where we got to meet the real power of the Ostend beaches, the birds. We're talking Hitchcock-esque, particularly when they can smell chips.



We saw some interesting birds that I'd never seen before. If anyone can name what this is I'd be obliged. We also saw a small bird, that looked a bit like a blue tit or a finch, but green and very small (~ 5-10 cm) that we couldn't identify.


Full photo album can be found here - http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v11/redfiona99/Belgium%202010/

Comments

[idleleaves.livejournal.com]

we got to meet the real power of the Ostend beaches, the birds. We're talking Hitchcock-esque, particularly when they can smell chips.

The shithawks here are like that, too. Sometimes it's a little freaky.

That black bird looks like some kind of cormorant.

[redfiona99.livejournal.com]

We did wonder if it was a cormorant of some sort, especially with the way it's wings were shaped. Thanks.