23. Medieval Madness in Belgium.

I’ve often wondered why I like medieval things so much and I know it’s not quite normal.  

I think I first became fascinated with it when I was living in London in the 1990’s.  I joined some friends and visited a medieval castle that had a jousting event going on.  I sat on the grassy ground and watched the entire performance whilst being totally captivated by the sounds of men yelling and horses neighing.  

Medieval

They were in full garb too…both the men and their horses, and as they held onto the long poles galloping towards each other, I held my breath and felt the exhilaration of the moment wash over me and it felt really good!

Yes, you could say I was even aroused by it all and I’ve never been able to figure out why.  

Needless to say my attraction of uniforms/costumes would later cause me much grief, as those who know me well would attest to.

However the closest I would get to being around medieval stuff once back in New Zealand was setting up my honey stores with a boutique olde-world feel and selling honey mead.

In my early store years I would have medieval days and loved dressing up in bar-wench costumes sampling out honey mead.  I’m not sure my staff enjoyed dressing up as much as I did, but I know the customers loved it. 

I’ve often thought that I should join one of those seriously geeky clubs where you dress up in your favourite medieval attire and 100% become that persona for the event.  

I would dress up as a buxom bar wench because I love the vests tied up all tight with string and my boobs are quite buxom!

To be fair, I’ve not really thought much beyond these fantasies, especially after I learned about Furries.  

What’s a Furry, I hear you ask?  

It’s someone who dresses up as their favourite animal, say like a wolf, and then they go in complete costume and character as a wolf.  They might even go to Furry parties where they meet other Furries and the wolf chases the chicken into a bedroom for some rompe pompe, apparently.  Weird.

However is it much different to having an avatar on Facebook?

I have completely digressed, haven’t I?

Needless to say, I love medieval things and so, Belgium was both a surprise and a treat, as I hadn’t done any research before I arrived!   

I simply decided to end my European travels in Belgium because I had never been there before and I really wanted to take the train through the Chunnel to the UK.  

My brother had suggested I visit Bruge and Ghent while I was there, and I was so glad I did. 

I flew Ryan Air from Pisa, Italy to Charleroi, Belgium, which ended up being some 50km out of Brussels.   I shouldn’t complain as that flight only cost €80 including a checked in bag.   

I then had to pay €17 for a bus trip into the city, then €2.50 for the metro, which was just six stops to my hotel.

Nonetheless, the day was still young when I arrived and my hotel room wasn’t ready but they stored my pack so I could explore the city by foot. 

The main high street, Rue Neuve, was not far from my hotel and had typical clothing shops like Zara and C&A.  The road lead me into the city centre and to the central square, Grand-Place or Grote Markt.

Grand-Place

Honestly the square was a surprise!  I walked into the middle and turned 360 degrees to admire the very opulent buildings.  There’s a lot of wealth just in here, I thought 

From baroque guildhalls to the impressive City Hall and other neo-gothic buildings that surrounded the square was quite possibly, the most beautiful square I’d ever seen.

 

Most Beautiful Square

The ground levels of these buildings had many restaurants with outside seating, and just to sit and absorb the atmosphere was worth the €20 burger and beer.

Later once I got exploring again, I happened across a crowd taking photos of a statue of a black boy taking a pee and had to Google what was going on.

Beautiful Belgium

The boy is called the Manneken Pis, and has become a recognised symbol of Belgium.  He was first  designed in the 1300’s but his exact origins isn’t known. 

Some say back in the day it was common place for tannieres to let boys urinate on leather as it made them more softer.  

Manneken Pis

Another story was of a boy who inadvertently peed on a fuse placed there by the enemy and saved the city from an explosion of epic proportions.  

And still others have said he represents the throwing up of hands in a satirical way of saying who are we, because we’ve been overthrown so many times during our history, we do not know.  

I’m also confused about many things in Belgium, like what their culture is exactly as they have no la giage of their own.  Flemish is essentially written Dutch but spoken differently, but most people there speak either Dutch or French.

The Dutch speaking part of Belgium is called Flanders… and I was reminded of the Ned Flanders personality in long-running TV series, The Simpsons.  

The well-meaning-good-natured Flanders personality seems to fit the culture here, but it still just felt like something was missing here.

The temperature climbed out of the late teens as the day progressed and I got beer thirsty again so I eventually settled at another pub with outdoor seating.  

Beer ‘n Cheese

It sold a nice hoppy beer and a wedge of cheese, with some mustard and celery spice for €12.  

What a strange place, I found myself thinking again as I watched people walk past.  

Being a capital city, an administrative hub of Europe, it definitely had that political feel about it.  Aside from the tourists, I noticed there was a real mix of people who lived here, many not from Europe. 

An older local gentleman got talking to me and told me that there are too many immigrants here now.  It’s the new face of Europe, I told him.  

Yes, but too many here! he replied seriously.  

The following day I bought a €38 return train ticket to Bruge, in West Flanders.  It allowed a stop off anywhere in between so I decided I would also visit Ghent on my way back to Brussels.  

Walk by the Park

It required a really early start and was in Bruge by 8am, walking along the empty cobbled pavements with only the street cleaning trucks for company.  

View from Tower

I decided to follow the water along a park until I reached the picturesque Grote Market square, which essentially means grand market.  

For a better sense of the city landscape I climbed the Belfrey Tower for €14 and almost had my eardrums rupture when the bells rang just after I had climbed to the very top and positioned myself under them for a decent look.

Bruge

There was a good view of the rooftops and city below and I could see some more medieval buildings worth visiting.  

A took a quick walk to Sint Anne’s Square, past the Church of our Lady and a few other medieval buildings before finishing up with a lovely walk along some really pretty canals.  

De Markt, Bruge

By then it was 1pm and I was already feeling a little tired and broken-foot-sore (which began  annoying me after walking on those uneven medieval cobblestones).

Still, I pressed on and made my way back to the train station and caught the returning train to Brussels.  

I got off at Ghent and discovered it was four or more kilometres into the city so I got a tram in and got off with the crowd.  I looked around to see I was surrounded by many very cool looking medieval buildings so used Google to help me work out what was worth seeing.

Gravensteen

I sought out Gravensteen first and paid €12 to enter the 1100’s castle.  Unusually it came with free audio and the funny story telling really brought the whole experience alive.  Best value ticket ever!

Ghent had many medieval sites to see, including the St Michaels Bridge, St Bravo Cathedral, St Bavo’s Abby and the Castle of Gerald the Devil.  All incredibly well preserved and stunning architecture.  

 

Like Bruge, the city had some very pretty canals and many boat loads of tourists went up and down and under the stone bridges.

I wished I could have shared this day with someone because it was full of beautiful sights and many times I wanted to yell out…wow, look at this and look at that. 

Both Bruge and Ghent were worth visiting and I could have spent another day in Ghent especially.  Still, a day trip to both was doable but I did a lot of walking.

Of course Belgium is renowned for its chocolate and every second store sold some… but it was very expensive, as was the nougat! 

I did enjoy some free chocolate samples nonetheless after visiting a chocolate museum, and later splashed out to try some potato frieten, frites or fries for €6 and a vanilla waffle for €4; all just to say, yes, I tried them in Belgium and yes, they were good too!

Those Prices!

The following day was a spare day since I squeezed my Bruge and Ghent trips together, which was just as well because it was a rainy day.

I walked back to the square but got wet despite having my sister’s umbrella, which kept blowing inside out when the wind got up into it.   

At one point when the rain got heavy, I ducked into a building for some shelter and found myself in front of the ticket counter and paid €10 to enter the Brussels City Museum (which was where I learned about the full history of the Manneken Pis statue).

The rain had mostly stopped by the time I walked back out into the square and I slowly retraced my footsteps back to my hotel, grabbing some food from the supermarket along the way.  

I took off my wet clothes and slid into a hot bath.  I looked at my Dr Martin sandals on the floor and noticed the rubber soles had worn down on the outside edges.  Gosh… I’ve obviously walked a lot in the past two and half months.

The hotel room suddenly felt empty and I missed the companionship of a friend. It’s not all sunny days and roses as a solo traveller I thought, feeling a little melancholy.  

That was my last full day in Europe and even though it ended on a wet and slightly lonely note, I felt proud that I had not only survived without too many hiccups, I had seen and experienced a great deal.

Tasted like a Waffle!

I sat on the Eurostar train from Brussels to London the following day.  When the train suddenly plunged into a dark tunnel I wondered if it was the long awaited Chunnel. It was!

My brother said they drove their car on to a train which then took them through the Chunnel and for some reason I thought we would stop before entering… but we didn’t. It was just another tunnel really.

The train travelled very fast through it and I couldn’t help but sense the heaviness of all that earth and water above us.  

The volume of voices had quietened and I wondered that if anything serious was to happen way down here, we’d probably never get out!  

My brother later reassured me the level of engineering in the Chunnel was way beyond anything seen in New Zealand! They even have escape tunnels down there, Kris! he explained.  

Just as I was feeling a little uncomfortable, the train suddenly reemerged back into the light and then we were in the UK!  

Not long later the train pulled up to St Pancras station in London.  Ahhh, the familiarity of this city settled over me and I thought back to my early life.  

London hasn’t changed much over the years but I certainly have!   

I thought back to the young guy in Belgium who had helped me with my train ticket.  Do you qualify for the 65 plus ticket? he asked.  

No, I smiled.  Not yet. 

Ah… the passage of time!