Fermé

A bit of information, learned the hard way.  Everything in Belgium is fermé, or closed, in March.  Well, not everything, but anything you might want to show visiting family.  And by March, of course, I actually mean entire winter.  Belgium’s interesting things don’t come out of hibernation until April at the earliest.  Now, don’t get all huffy with me and give me a long list of things to do in Belgium in the winter.  I know.  Plenty to do… blah, blah, blah.  Unfortunately, we seemed to be consistently choosing all the wrong things.

But at least that means that we had visitors who we wanted to show things.  Nana and John (my mother and step-father) came for a visit!  And the weather cooperated.  Sunshine and warm temperatures.  A true rarity in March.

We started touring with a day trip to Thuin.  Want to go up in the Belfry?  Sorry, fermé.  But the suspended gardens are a good place for a steep walk.  So after the second of many poulet curry sandwiches we did a little exercising up and down the paths.

Just down the road from Thuin are the ruins of Aulne Abbey, a former Cistercian monastery, founded in 656.  Yes, that’s a year.  It stood for a thousand years until the damn French burned it at the end of the eighteenth century.  You can visit the ruins (or the many brasseries, or the mini golf course surrounding it, which is hard for me to type with my eyes rolling so far back into my head).  Or at least you could… if it were April.  Because right now?  Fermé.

So we thought we might try Pairi Daiza.  Fermé.  Damn it.  Guess what IS open… the Euro Tunnel.  So we decided that the white cliffs of Dover might be fun to show off.  Plus, who doesn’t want to go back to America and be able to say, “Yeah, we took the Chunnel to England one day”…

The cliffs were looking especially white in the sunshine.  We drove down to the little town of St. Margaret’s at Cliff, which we had discovered the last time we were here.  With it’s completely empty (at least in the spring) parking lot right on the beach, it’s the perfect spot for cliff viewing from below.

Since none of us had actually walked on the top of the cliffs, we found a parking spot at the end of a path and took a stroll through farmer’s fields right to the edge.  They warn you, if you bother to do some research beforehand, that walking on the edge isn’t recommended due to the cliff’s habit of suddenly sliding into the sea but no one seems to take the warning seriously.  As it isn’t posted anywhere and there isn’t a fence in sight, I’m not surprised.  It was windy but warm and we all soaked in a little vitamin D.

Next stop, lunch.  Ben discovered Dover’s oldest pub, which was perfectly cozy and provided us with sandwiches and fish and chips.  The walls were covered with writing and we considered adding our names until we realized that we didn’t meet the criteria.  Every signature was a name, with a date and time, of swimmers who had crossed the Channel in the water, not by train.  Maybe next time.

The second most popular site to visit is Dover Castle.  And it was also open so we jumped at the chance to visit a castle that we could actually enter, rather than stare at over a fence.  It was only later that night after returning home that I did a little reading and discovered that the castle is supposedly haunted, which I wish I had known beforehand as it would have made it even more fun to skulk around the dark tunnels, although I’m glad the kids weren’t aware of the ghosts.

I must give Ben his due, here.  He can drive on the left like he’s been doing it all his life.  I tend to spend the whole time we’re in England making “whoa!” kind of expressions and wondering aloud just how we’re going to get through that roundabout backwards, all from the passenger’s seat.  He really is quite the driver.

So we headed back toward the Chunnel, first stopping at the terminal to buy some Duty Free Liquor! and to pick up some Last Chance Before the Tunnel! reading material for the 30 minute passage.  Just kidding.  While, yes, that stuff is available, we opted for the  Last Chance Starbucks! instead.

And that’s just the first three days.  Plenty more of the whirlwind Nana and John visit to come!

London, Part Three… Welcome to Hogwarts!

In case you weren’t aware…

…we are a Potter loving family.

Halloween, 2010

Yep, all of us.  Some of us have read the books and seen the movies more than others, but everyone joins in the fun.  So our quick trip to London last weekend was actually planned around our tickets to the Warner Brothers Studio Tour in Leavesden, just outside the city.  Of course, just outside the city meant over an hour of driving.  Seriously, traffic in London is no fun.

So you pull into the parking lot and there they are.  Two huge soundstages labeled J and K.  Get it?  J and K.  JK.  Because who wrote the books?  That’s right!  J.K. Rowling.  Those Hollywood types are so clever.

So here we go….

(L’s hands are the same size as Emma Watson’s.)

And then we actually walked through the front door and the kids went nuts.  “Mommy look it’s the car!  Mommy look there’s Draco!  Mommy look, Mommy look, Mommy look!”  It was awesome.

So they herd you in, about 50 at a time to see a little movie about the studio.  Then the screen rises and behind it is the door to the Great Hall!  It’s right there.  And you get to walk through it.

And it’s just like you see in the movies.  And those aren’t cardboard walls and flimsy paper props.  You might as well be in a real castle.  That is solid stone floor and intricately carved wood and a beautifully detailed fireplace.  A-mazing.

Gryffindor Costumes. Check out Neville’s sweater!

Ben and Hagrid

You guide yourself through, taking as little or much time as you want.  There are plenty of people to ask questions to, who seem to be quite excited about their jobs.

Snoozing former Headmasters

Nobody home at number 4 Privet Drive

As promised, Snape’s Hair

Check it out!

Yep, I made them do it.

One of the last things you see is the 1/24 Hogwarts model.  Now, after all the props and costumes and information you get you wouldn’t think that a model of a castle is going to be necessarily “Wow”, but it is.

They used this model in all eight films whenever they had to show the outside of the castle.  Now every time we see  Hogwarts in a movie, one of us yells, “There’s the model!”.

And so our London trip came to an end.

The next morning we said goodbye to the city and drove back toward the tunnel.  We had a little time to spare so we headed toward the coast to check out the white cliffs of Dover.  And what better way to see the British countryside than in a cold drizzle.

Sometime during our trip we got into an elevator with a British couple.  They had heard us speaking and asked us if we were from the States or Canada.  I told them we were from the States but we currently lived in Belgium, to which the gentleman replied, “Oh, well you’re practically local then”.

I like to think so.

London, Part One

If you didn’t get the hint from last week, our adventure this week was… London!  Actually, the hint was even more specific but we’ll get to that part much later.

So Friday I picked up the kids and Ben a little early from school/work and we headed straight down (over? west?) to Calais, France, got our passports stamped, and drove our car straight onto a train.  We took the Chunnel!  Or Euro Tunnel as I guess it’s actually called.  Thirty minutes later we were in England.  Green, hilly, sheep-y England.  Amazing!  Two hours of driving (on the left) got us to our hotel in London.

Saturday morning we got up and headed out to pick up a quick breakfast to fuel our long day of sightseeing.

And the angels sing… Venti Cappuccino, please.

Guess what!  They have Starbucks in England.

Second stop, the tube.

L was our map reader.

Third stop, the London Eye.  Let’s see London from above!

The trip around takes about a half an hour and you really can see the whole city.  We were lucky we had a clear day.  The kids spent most of the time playing with the screens that tell you what you’re looking at rather than looking out the window at the real thing.  My kids love anything with a screen.

Once we got down we headed out to see from below what we had just seen from above.  Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, double decker buses, bright red phone boxes…. you know, London.

Big Ben, Mini Ben and the other Big Ben

And of course we had to find at least one geocache.  Guess where it was…

In the phone box!

Lunchtime.

Filled up with fish and chips and beer and burgers we headed off to the Tower of London.

Off with her head!

The Tower of London is surrounded on all sides and across the river with huge new glass buildings, including The Shard, the biggest structure in Great Britain.  So strange to see so new and so old together.

Day One ended with an ice cream and a quick ride back to our hotel.

I just love those Underground signs!

Taking my boots off after that day was quite a relief.

See you tomorrow for a review of Day Two!