Brussels, Brugge, Aachen & Amsterdam

Oooh it has been a busy week.

We enjoyed the trip to Brussels on the Eurostar. Except for the pressure changes as it went through tunnels. Which it seemed to do very often. It does go very fast. London to Brussels in just under 2 hours.

We only stayed in Brussels one night, so we dumped our bags at the hotel as soon as we arrived and went out to see the sights. It is a much bigger city than I had imagined. We walked and walked. Some of the time in the rain - the first and only that we have seen. We went to the Musee Horta, which is devoted to the work of an art nouveau architect named Victor Horta. It was a real highlight. http://www.hortamuseum.be/

The next day we went on to Brugge. A wonderful old well-preserved town in the west of Belgium. We stayed at the Maison de la Rose. A bed and breakfast place. It was by far the nicest place we have stayed.

It was time for some rest. So we went on a canal cruise and just watched the town slide past.

On Sunday, we took the train to Aachen, just over the border in Germany. It was, in about 800AD, the capital of Charlemagne's empire.

Now it still has the magnificent church he built, but its glory days are well and truly over.

Still, I am glad we went.

Tuesday we came to Amsterdam. What a funny place.

One of the first things you pass as you come from the railway station into the city is the sex museum. There is the red light district. There are "coffee houses" where the smoking of marijuana is allowed.

Yet there is this elegant and stylish look to so much of the city and its people.

Again we did a canal tour. Again it was a wonderful way to pass the day.

One thing you can not help but notice here are the bicycles. Thousands of them. They have a multistory bicycle parking station at the railway station.

We paid a visit to the new Amsterdam library. It was a real treat. I was going to post some photos I took, but it seems that there is a video tour you can take. I haven't because the internet connection I am on is very slow and the video is stopped more than it is running.
http://www.oba.nl/index.cfm?vid=BC638BCA-3FFA-497D-9CA1C74A819C832A

It should be good.

Nice old town. But with a lot of building going on.

We are off to Berlin tomorrow, where I believe there will be even more of that.

All in all, we are having a wonderful time. Seeing all sorts of interesting things and generally eating way too much.

Bye for now.