We’ll start with another random trip topic:
Coattails: Suzanne made the comment early on that she was humorously annoyed on our vacations now that she was riding on my coattails. But, my coattails have some pretty good perks. Free baggage, cheaper upgrades to better seats on the flights, miles for a free ticket, and the ability to skip lines at check-in and boarding. That’s just for the airplane part of this gig.
The hotel was the same deal too…..free internet (a godsend for the data-starved…more on that later), access to the club lounge (so, free breakfast in the morning and always a stop at night to collect some soft drinks and still water for the room for the evening), etc.
Get up early (6 am) to catch the 6:53 train to Antwerp, and then on to Bruges. We debated a lot about taking this side trip, it violates the Suzanne-rule of spending more time at the place then it takes to get to and from the place. But, it was well recommended, both online and by Melanie, so, off we went. The trip needs to be divided into two phases; the train, and Bruges.
The Train, Part 1: One of the most annoying things about Europe is the credit card issues; European cards have SIM chips in them, US cards don’t….and many European merchants won’t accept cards without chips. Anything automated doesn’t take them…..like the kiosks for train tickets, or, online purchases for train tickets. So, we are stuck having to go to the counter and buy them. Bruges is a connection or two; and this morning was more difficult than most; the 6:53 is cancelled. The woman at the counter prints out the sheet of paper that you will see below, and writes on the sheet that we’ll have to get to Bijlmer to transfer to the trains that will take us to Antwerp. No problem. We pay, she gives us the sheet of paper and our change, and off we go.
We have plenty of time to kill but decide to walk up to the track anyway to look at the schedule and make sure we know exactly where we are going….we get up to the tracks, and another train employee asks us if we were going to take the 6:53….we say yes, she says well, go ahead and get on this train, don’t go to Bjilmer, go to Breda, transfer to Rossendale, go to Antwerp….and this train is high speed. Ok, fine, we hop on.
Train stops at Schiphol (the airport, first stop) and the announcement at that point is to get off here if you are going to Antwerp…..and go to track 5….which will take you to Bijlmer. Annoyance level is growing at this point, but, ok.
Get to Bjilmer and it is literally like a bomb went off at the station….trash is everywhere. So, it’s time for a new topic:
Sensation 2011: Last night, as we got back from Delft, we walked out into the Amsterdam train station and there are people everywhere wearing nothing but white, white shirts, white pants, both men and women. Ask someone at the hotel in the elevator, and he tells us that it’s a dance party….Suzanne puts two and two together; she’s seen hotels, including ours, welcoming Sensation-goers and advertising packages.
Sensation is a concert, it was held at the big arena right near Bijlmer station. I was trying to embed video here and that’s been a big failure: go here and here if you are interested
...and there are still kids who have been up all night hanging around the train station at 7:30 when we roll-in. Have to change trains there, as we walk to the new track we head through the station….what a complete mess!
The Train, Part 2: Finally start heading south towards Antwerp. Nice ride, quiet…..Suzanne and I have our usual discussion after multiple train rides yesterday; will we be asked for our tickets? We weren’t asked at all on multiple trains so far on this trip. Sure enough, two conductors come up and ask us for our tickets. I pull out the piece of paper that the ticket agent wrote on, give it to the man, and he says
“That’s not a ticket”.
Uh-oh.
Tell him that this is all the lady gave us. And he says he knows….they got a call from the station that there were two people going to Bruges who didn’t get their ticket at the counter. He and his partner are really nice about it, and he writes up a replacement ticket for us and a note
He writes us a note because we are going to Belgium….he thinks this note will be ok if they do ask us for our ticket, but, he’s not sure, the Belgian conductor may not honor this note. You can see the writing at the top from the ticket agent (who misspelled Bijlmer…this confused us for while) and his note which I’m sure translates something like “these stupid Americans don’t have their tickets….please let them through; don’t laugh too hard”.
I’ve decided it’s 50/50 on the fault here; I should have known to get the tickets, but, since it was an international trip I assumed the paper she gave us was the ticket, and the ticket agent should have given us the tickets way before the change was finally handed to us (and before the paper I guess). But, I’m very thankful that she took the time to track us down……
Bruges: With the train delay, we don’t get to Bruges until almost noon. Nobody asks us for a ticket on the trip from Antwerp to Bruges. The walk from the train station to the center of town is neat…..it’s market day, and we passed stand after stand. Here in the US, these stands would be mostly people selling their home-made goods; here, it seems like every person has brought every piece of junk they own and placed it on display…..pretty amazing.
Brugges was untouched in World War I and II; so, all of the architecture has survived until today. There’s a ton of huge imposing churches….
and we passed these two on our way towards…the Centruum!
The city hall across on one side of the Market Square
And the inside of the New Church….with it’s 366 steps that lead to the….
the bell tower! It cost 8 euros, but I went while Suzanne looked around (a bad move…her look around resulted in a major purchase…she wandered into a German Christmas store)
View #1 from up top
Panorama #2….these shots were hard because there’s basically a chain-link fence surrounding the openings in the bell tower
Panorama #3
Luckily, I timed the trip right….I was in the bell tower at 1 pm, so, was treated to quite a musical display. I taped about a minute of it…just took video of the view while the bells chimed around me. Click on the picture below and you can listen to
After the long climb up (and down), we walked around town and made our way to the canal tour
Yet another church…..
Almost all of these buildings date to at least the 1600’s….
Another square (with a lot of bleachers)…that’s a museum directly ahead and the Holy Basilica is in the corner on the right
Yeah, this Basilica. The claim to fame here is that the knights coming back after the 2nd Crusade brought back the blood of Jesus. And we went inside, and yes, there’s a priest, at the altar, and there’s this golden container in front of him and he’s looking up to the heavens.
Seemed more than a little strange to Suzanne and me….
Of course, the trip to Belgium wouldn’t be complete without the waffle stop. Oh man were they good. Also picked up quite a bit of chocolate while we were here….
I tried more than a few times to get this panorama….just too may people to get a good one. This is the best, and still the people right in front make it look funny….
The weather was absolutely perfect…..what a great day to go to Belgium!
The Train, Part 3: Walk back to the station, wonder if we’ll get asked for our tickets, and we’re not even 2 minutes out of the station when the nice Belgian conductor comes up and asks for our tickets. Give her our note, the replacement ticket, explain what happened. She reads it, hands the stuff back to us, and moves on.
Arrive at Antwerp to find that yet again, the next rain is cancelled, we have 90 minutes to wait before we can begin heading back to Amsterdam.
Antwerp wins the award for the most impressive train station of the trip (and looking on wikipedia later, Newsweek rated it the #4 must-see train station in the world a few years back). Really impressive both inside and out. The delay meant we were able to have a quick sit down dinner one block away
Had to take this picture for Fric and Frac….and it’s too bad they weren’t here….
because there was a huge Harry Potter exhibit in the main lobby. This may be the only time a picture of me ends up on the blog….
We sent this one, via text, to Fric and Frac
Made it back to Amsterdam a little after 11……a very long, but good, day.
