The Eurostar is undoubtedly the best way to travel. From St Pancras station to Brussels in 1hr 50min. Getting through customs is about as complicated as hopping on the tube and when you disembark at the other end you simply walk out of the station, no unnecessary lines, forms or waiting around for a a chance to land.
After a diabetes inducing breakfast of authentic waffles and triple choc hot chocolate it was time to see what Brussels had to offer, it was 9am by this stage, the city must be buzzing, surely? it is the capital of the European Union afterall...
WRONG!
Adam quickly pointed out upon leaving the station that although I had not yet been to Eastern Europe, this was as close that it made no difference. We crossed onto the aptly named Stalingrad Drive and realised the scale of the town was substantially smaller than you would think from perusing the tourist map, today's adventure would be swift!
Within 2hours we had seen the Grote Markt (the center of any Belgium city), taken photos in front of the famous Manakin Pis (the orginal 'little boy urinating' staue) and walked the breadth of the city into the new district. Ieper, we will see you for lunch!
Advancing on the Menin gateIper/Ypres pronounced eep-air is an eerie town in the middle of a 10 sq mile area where roughly 1000 000 people died over the course of both World Wars. The soil is incredibly fertile with Maize being the crop of choice. This is what bought Mooney and myself to Belgium, a tour around the battlefeilds of the Ieper Salient.
The town itself was destroy totally in the Great War, then subsequently rebuilt at great cost to the German government. This rebuilding of continental europe,paid for by the Germans of course, encourage the climate which led to WW2.
There are so many directions to head in while pondering the signifigance of Ieper that I am not going to attempt to get into detail. To quickly breeze through a few things of note-
The official remeberance poem 'Flanders Fields' was written by John Mcrae here and inturn lead the Poppy to be the flower of remeberance.
38,000 (yes thirty eight thousand) Australians died here during the battle for Passchendaele.
Hitler was injured and commended for his bravery here a few short years before entering into politics.
There are 176 cemetaries in the Ieper Salient region
Ieper was bitterly cold, Im glad we were not knee deep in mud.
Brugge
With the futlility of war behind us, we headed east for the coast. This city comprises twin rings of canals to aid fortifiaction, a Michaelangelo scultpure and the Basilica of the Holy Blood, where a vile of christ's blood has been protected since the crusades. Food and Beer, here, was easy to come by.
Antwerp
Diamonds, Beer, quite, possibly save it for the weekend...
