Belgium - Brugge and Gent

After two full on weeks and three big cities (London, Barcelona, Paris) it was a relief to return move on to some quieter, more relaxed areas. Both Andy and I were looking forward to Belgium - Andy for the beer and me for the chocolate - and it certainly lived up to our expectations. Andy described our time in Belgium as beer, beer, beer, chocolate, chocolate, beer, chocolate, chocolate, beer and waffles, and I think he was fairly accurate although we managed to fit a fair but of walking and cycling in as well so hopefully we worked off some of the beer and chocolate.

Brugge. We stayed here for four nights in a pretty dodgy hostel but it was the only place in the town that matched our budget. We were very lucky to be sharing a dorm with nice people.

Brugge again. Lots of canals and more bikes than cars which was really nice.

Beer.

Waffle with chocolate and cream.

Strawberries from the market - the best, juiciest, sweetest strawberries I have ever eaten.

...and the best hot chocolate ever! You are given a cup of really hot steamed milk, a little  pot of melted dark chocolate that you mix into the milk, some cream to go on top and a selection of home made chocolates to sample (just in case you hadn't had enough chocolate already).

We hired bikes for a day and rode to a small town about 5km from Brugge called Damme and then went on to the beach - about a 40km round trip.

A windmill.

The bike path. It was really beautiful riding along the canals on tiny back streets with almost no cars and no hills.

Scenery on the ride.

The beach. It was very cold and windy! The beach itself was nice but there were lots of ugly high-rise buildings very close to the shore that I didn't like.

Another day we took the train to Gent to check out a bigger town. 

Gent reminded me of melbourne a bit, it was probably the tram lines everywhere.

A River in Gent

Gent.

On the footpath - I guess this is how they keep the streets clean!

Paris

We only had 3 nights (2 full days) in Paris so we were on the go all the time to try and see as much as possible. Fortunately, we were lucky enough to sit next to a really friendly man from France (now living in Barcelona) on the plane. He gave us his map of Paris, made some excellent suggestions of things to do and circled all the places we should avoid at night.

We found a good deal on wotif so stayed in a hotel which was like luxury for us - our own room, an ensuite and a decent breakfast!

The Seine River at dusk

A street in Paris

The Catacombes. By the 17th century people were getting sick from drinking water contaminated  by decaying bodies in the cemetery so they dug up all the graves and lined the walls of an old quarry with the bones. 

More of the Catacombes

Entrance to the Louvre. We decided not to go in and went to the Musee  d'Orsay instead to see the old train station and the impressionist art inside. It was really good... we saw some Monet, Manet, Van Gough and many others.

View from the Arc de Triomphe

Cars on the Champs Elysees. And this was only a Sunday evening...

The Eiffel Tower

Andy and the Eiffel Tower

.... and the tower at night from a river cruise.

The delicious Macaroon we shared with our picnic lunch. 

Inside Notre Dame Cathedral

Inside Notre Dame Cathedral

Barcelona Part 2

After 6 days in Barcelona both Andy and I feel like there is still so much more to see - we will definitely need a much longer holiday in Spain some time. Some of the things we did do include: a spanish cooking class where we went shopping for fresh ingredients at the market and then learnt to cook tapas, paella and sangria; a free walking tour of the gothic old town; a tour of the barcelona football stadium; a pub trivia night (Andy and I won free shots for coming equal third which we thought was quite impressive as there were over 12 teams, we were the only 2 person team, and we are usually fairly ordinary at trivia); and a couple of trips to the beach. We also got into the Spanish way of life - sleeping in until 10am, lunch at about 3pm, dinner at 11pm and bed at 2am, with plenty of tapas and sangria whenever we got hungry.

Beach at Barcelona. This is a man made beach and was very different to the beaches at home - far more people,  quite dirty (lots of dirt mixed with the sand i think) and cheap cocktails :)

street leading to the beach

A random street in Barcelona

Santa Eulalia, a patron saint of Barcelona (the other is saint George). She was killed when she was 13 for refusing to give up her religion and was tortured in lots of horrible ways.

candles at a church

A choir practicing in a cathedral.

The port

At Nou Camp, the soccer stadium in Barcelona. Andy said I should say it is the largest in Europe with a capacity of about 100,000. 

Fruit at the market.

"Magic Fountain" this was a free show at a big fountain. The water  changed in time with music and lights.

People watching the magic fountain show.

Barcelona Part 1 - Gaudi

After three quite cold weeks in the UK both Andy and I were looking forward to some warmer weather in Spain and we have definitely had that! Barcelona is a fantastic city - there is so much to do, everyone seems really friendly and the weather has been a sunny 25-30 degrees every day. It feels warmer than 30 degrees in Melbourne because it is much more humid, so I am glad we are here now and not in the hottest part of Summer.  

We have done heaps and I have too many photos for one blog post so this post will be about the Gaudi-related things we did and the next one will be on everything else.

We went on an excellent free walking tour that covered Gaudi's life and took us to see some of the houses he designed. For anyone who doesn't know, Gaudi was an architect who lived and worked in Barcelona in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was quite eccentric and has a very original style as well as being lucky enough to have a financial backer who gave him full artistic freedom and paid for anything he wanted.

Front view of one of Gaudi's houses.

Entrance to Park Guell. This park was designed to be a housing estate for rich people. Gaudi designed all the communal areas and then people were supposed to buy land and build their own hoses but no one wanted to because it was so far our of the town so now it is a public park.

Park Guell

Park Guell

View of Barcelona from the hill at the top of Park Guell

To get to the park you had to walk up a really big hill (and it was really hot). Fortunately some really lazy but smart person decided that it would be a good idea to put escalators all the way up :)

The current entrance to Sagrada Familia - Gaudi's cathedral and his only project for the last 40 years of his life. It is still being built - they have been building for the last 100 years with a few breaks when they needed money and for the Civil War.

Close up of the stonework on the outside.

Another close up. There were carvings like this all over the church telling biblical stories. When Gaudi realised the church wouldn't be finished in his lifetime he made detailed plans for the entire building.

This carving was made to commemorate Gaudi. It is part of one of the carvings, but the old man on the left is modelled on Gaudi and the two soldiers on the right are based on chimneys from one of his houses. Apparently George Lucas visited Barcelona and those chimneys inspired the creation of the storm troopers in star wars.

Inside the cathedral. I don't think the photos do it justice.

windows inside the cathedral

A model maker at work. They make the plaster models to help with the construction of the rest of the cathedral because it is so detailed.

I thought this was really cool - This is a model that Gaudi made to help him work out what shape all the beams and columns should be. He tied sand bags to bits of string, so all of the strings would be in tension. Then in you look in a mirror or stand on your head or something it looks like the cathedral!
http://memetician.livejournal.com/201202.html this site explains it and has much better pictures.

Andy and I outside the cathedral.