Last night I decided while M was enscounced in the room with her computer and Wi-Fi watching a movie - I was not going to waste a wonderful evening. I grabbed my GPS and some coordinates and headed out to geocache. I know some of you may not be familiar with geocaching, but honestly it is a great way to explore a strange town and you can never get lost if you take care to get coordinates close to your hotel.
I struck out for a cache that was over 1 KM away. After weaving through the streets, I was now in a very quiet residential area. Let's hope after all that walking that I can find the cache. And yes - there is was. Thanks to the sun for helping with the directions - I really need to get my Dakota 20 GPS out which has a compass on it or find the compass on my bike GPS. BUt I think I do not bad.
On the way back, I decided to stop by this one cache that had eluded me TWICE earlier in the day - once because the GPS was bouncing all over the place and the other time because there were too many people there. I got to the square - that is the easy part. Of course - there were people around, but I sat on a bench and put the coordinates into the GPS> I am just getting up the courage to start walking around the square when I noticed a couple of young men stoop down on the opposite side of the square. OH MY GOD - they just picked up the cache!!!!! That was too funny. So I waited for them to move on and then picked it up and of course - this time the GPS led me directly to the cache - no bouncing around. Once I had signed the cache - I had to wait a bit before I could put it back - there were a lot of people around.
I managed to get one more as well so that makes a total of 8 in one day. Yeah! I still have three more that I want to try and get.
By this time, my legs and knees were just about done in and I headed back to the hotel. Oh yes - the Belgians DO NOT have public washrooms readily available so you need to get back to your hotel or a restaurant if you need to pee.
I did not sleep well. But that seems to be par for the course on this vacation which is strange - I actually slept much better in my tent on the biking trip. Can't say it is lack of exercise - we are walking every day. Well - who knows. I guess I will catch up when I get home.
We got up early this morning and out the door as we were going to take a bus trip of the BElgium country side. We picked up our usual pastries for breakfast. My goodness - all these pastries - I will be happy to have a bowl of cereal for breakfast when I get home!!!!!
Then we hopped on the bus. A small bus (a Mercedes no less) that seated NINE people - three rows of three people - yes - three people in the front. M and I sat in the back. The driver/guide was a very nice fellow who entertained us all day. Philippe and his wife run a small tour company and we had the choice between The Best of BElgium in One Day or Flanders Fields. We chose Best of BElgium.
We started the day by visiting The moated Castle of Tillegem. The Castle is now used as a government building, but in the most gorgeous setting. Yes - I took lots of pictures and will update them to the blog once I get home. Then since you have read the blog - you can just peruse the pictures!!!!! Philippe has done this tour many times and once we got close to the moat - he called the swans and one of them came. A black one no less. Pretty funny that they answered his call.
Then back in the bus and next stopped at The Chateau of Loppem. We spent quite a bit of time there as Philippe related a lot of history of Belgium, including the languages which was most interesting. He expained why there are two languages here - Dutch and French and Flemish is mostly a spoken language. Previously Belgium was mostly French, but during the Second World War, the Belgium King (who lived for a brief period in the Chateau) was appalled that most of the men in the trench spoke only Dutch and the officers spoke French. There was NO access to higher education in Dutch here so the King had the university in Ghent converted to Dutch!!!! How is that for change!!!!!! All in all it was very interesting and I would like to now find a good book on BElgium history and sort of refresh what he said.
We saw the bridge to nowhere. Literally in the middle of a farmer's field there is a highway overpass. The government had decided that a new highway was going through and then after 3 million E were spent on the bridge - they decided the highway should go somewhere else. And to complete the folly - they keep the bridge maintained. It was repaved a couple of years ago!!!!!!
Brugges is very dependent on tourism and the standard of living is VERY high making everything very expensive. Nea the Chateau we passed some beautiful houses (not big compared to Canadian standards), but huge in European terms. The price - about 800,000 E. Yikes!!!!!!
Then we passed through some beautiful little villages, saw BElgian Blue cattle which are extremely muscular with BIG butts. Apparently they cannot have calves naturally and all had a scar from cesearean birth. After one birth - they are not bred again as the meat is no longer as good.
We passed by some HUGE bunkers made by the GErmans to store artillery (gosh I think that is what he said - my brain was getting all muddled at this point!!!!!) the country side just BEGGED you to get on a bike and ride. The small country roads, the beautiful canals, the trees lined lanes and the bicycle lanes all wanted me to get out of the bus and onto a bike. So many cool little places to stop. Hmmm - maybe a bike trip to Belgium is in order!!!!!
We stopped at Restaurant Ter Doest in Lissewege for lunch where we had a lovely ham sandwich and BEER. Since it was getting late (about 1:30) by this time and only having a croissant for breakfast - I very quickly felt the effect of that beer!!!!! Then we had a Belgian waffle for dessert. OH MY GOD - we are buying a waffle maker when we get home. They are to die for!!!!! Of course - I will have to get our on my bike a LOT to compensate for the whipped cream as well.
WE also stopped at a historic cathedral!!!!! HA HA - what little town doesn't have a cathedral!!!! I mean - the tiniest of towns have a cathedral. It is amazing, but what is sad is that most of the cathedrals are not used much any more. such a shame, but people just are not going to church like they used to. All the churches are Catholic. Anyway this particulate Cathedral had started off small and then was added on to and then added onto again. Part of it is in ruin, but it is still a viable Cathedral. It is weird. Oh yes - this was in Damme where we had a walk around the town and saw the town hall. Amazing that all the buildings and such date back to the 14th, 15th century - I mean everything is OLD!!!!!!
Oh yes - at the restaurant is also the LARGEST TITHE barn in Europe. It is HUGE. This is the barn that was built by the monestary that owned the property (4,000 hectares or so) and the grain was stored in this barn. It is HUGE and the wood in it was about 1,000 years old!!!!!! It had been partially restored. anyway - pretty cool place.
Then off to the chocolate place. Now for health reasons they cannot take us in where they make the actual chocolates, but our guide gave us a demonstration at this store to show us how chocolate was made. And it all looks so good. He then popped around the store and got samples of various chocolates for us. OK - while good - after three or four of these RICH chocolates - your body goes ENOUGH!!!!!! Very delicious though. We did not buy any chocolate as I do not think it will travel well at all!!!!!! And it is very expensive here. The Brits who were also on the tour said they could get it cheaper back home!!!!! And no worries about traveling with it.
The last stop of the day was a pub. Oh my goodness - we are going to have a BEER tasting. Did you know that Belgium has 750 DIFFERENT beers. There is a huge book with them all outlined - what is in them and a picture. EAch beer also has it's own glass. I believe there are 135 brewies. Wow - we had four different beers - a small glass of each. Didn't like the first one as it was fermented in old wine kegs and had a vinegary taste. The next one wasn't bad - the third was great and the fourth one was cherry beer. I believe M drank up Philippe's glass!!!! It was only 3% alcohol. Wow - a very full day.
We are now back at our hotel and got to figure out what to do this evening and what will be our plans for the next couple of days. Got a bit of checking to do on the internet so I had best go and figure that out.
Have a great day!!!!!!
Ciao!!!!! (Dag!!!!!!)
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