CLASSIC TRIP: England, Ireland, Belgium 2005 - Part 3

Brugges

Just a quick word about the classic trip series of reports here, they are presented just as written on our old site, so the information...such as prices and such...may be dated.  They are accurate as of the date in the title.  This is the case in the story below...in 2005 Hoegaarden was a boutique and hard-to-get beer here in the states.  Since then, the company bought out Anheiser-Busch and is now the largest brewer in the world and you can find Hoegaarden in just about any supermarket now...

It took awhile, but we finally found the Ireland we came for.  Now, it was another trip across the sea, this time to Belgium.  Here's the final segment of our trip.

DAY EIGHT – The first half of this day is taken up with travel.. A 7:30am flight is schedule from Cork back to Heathrow. Again, it’s Aer Lingus time. It starts off well enough when a friendly worker is assigned to escort us to the gate. It soon becomes apparent that this was the only thing the airline had done. As this worker is frantically trying to find someone to help us board, the plane is loaded. The door is closed. The jet is ready to go. We’re still in the terminal – even though we arrived 2.5 hours early.

Finally, the food service truck is called back and commandeered to lift us up into the plane. The flight only leaves 1.5 hours after schedule.

We’re lucky in one sense, that’s just about how much our next flight at Heathrow has been delayed so we didn’t miss that flight.

I will not willingly fly Aer Lingus again.

The next flight is British Airways to Brussels. This is a short, uneventful flight with a professional and courteous staff.

It’s Tuesday and we’re in Belgium!

We pick up our rental car and head out. Our first stop is a mecca for beer drinkers, at least a number of American drinkers, the little village of Hoegaarden, about 40 minutes east of the airport.

Having a Cold One in Hoegaarden

This pretty and neat village of brick houses makes one of the best beers around, Hoegaarden Witbier. It’s a rare treat to find this delicately flavored brew back home and that treat will cost you big time ($9.00 on tap at the Yardhouse here in L.A.)

It takes us awhile to find the old brewery (a very large modern one sits at the edge of town) with it’s charming courtyard pub. The villages’s signage is very low key but we eventually make our way in and enjoy the best beer I can remember having. Along with the Witbier (which is as pervasive in Belgium as Budweiser is here), we enjoy the splendid dark Grand Cru that is not available in America.

I grab a pack of the Grand Cru to take to the hotel for later when we leave.
We have come here to Hoegaarden straight from the airport. It’s now time to head back to Brussel’s and find our hotel.

The arrival in Brussel’s puts us right on the street where the EU headquarters are located at the peak of rush hour. I have no idea where we are or how to get to our hotel. When I get a chance, I duck onto a side street where I can pull over and study our map.

I’m armed with several street maps of the city, none of which show the city as a whole. They all come in two parts. I seem to be on one side of the map and our hotel on the other. The big problem is that Brussels’ streets are a real labarynth. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to how the city is laid out.

St. Catherine's Cathedral and Plaza

With my wife navigating and several stops to pull over and study the map, we finally find our way to the hotel about an hour and a half later. The hotel is the Citadines St. Catherine’s, located on a time-worn but beautiful plaza dominated at one end by the St. Catherine’s cathedral and the other with a large fountain.

The Citadines is an apartment hotel, meaning a suite. We get a large suite on the third floor with a bedroom apart from the living room. It also includes a small kitchen and dining room. The bathroom has a bathtub only and is not accessible. It is separate from the toilet which is minimally accessible. The Citadines also has smaller studios which are accessible (I do not have details) but we wanted the larger suite and are willing to adapt.

Our room has three large windows, two in the living room and one in the bedroom, which offer spectacular views of the city. Parking is at an underground garage for an extra charge. There is a metro station in the plaza across the street but it is not accessible. According to the map in the station, I could only find four accessible stations on the metro system. Every bus I saw was accessible.

I go to the small market at the end of the block where 2 Euros gets me enough eggs, ham, coffee, and milk to make breakfast in our room for the next couple of days.

It’s still relatively early and the sun goes down very late this time of year, so we walk over to the Grand Place, Brussels’s old plaza. It’s about a six block walk from our hotel.

Brussels is a beautiful city with many old buildings, plazas, and cafes. It reminds me a lot of Paris with all the winding lanes and alleyways. It does have a kind of dingy glamour like a fading movie star. It’s kind of hard to describe. I really enjoyed this city, more than I did Paris, but you will be stepping around streetwalkers and junkies sleeping off their last fix. I guess this city just feels more real.

The late afternoon sun makes the Grand Place shine. This plaza is surrounded by intracately detailed buildings, each one created by crafts guilds hundreds of years ago. The guilds would be equivalent of our unions today. The ironworkers guild is in one building, the printers in another, and so on. Restaurants line the perimeter.

About two blocks beyond is Brussels most famous sight, the Mannekin Pis. Remember those cheesy fountains you see at your local garden center of the little boy relieving himself? Well, the original is here. Erected a few hundred years ago, the Mannekin Pis is just what the name says. A statue of a boy urinating into the pool.

The Famous Peeing Boy (no, not Tim)

Many stories abound as to its origins, my favorite is that the boy peed on a witch’s house that stood on the corner and robbed her of her powers. A museum stands nearby that houses the many costumes people have made for the statue over the years.

On the way back, we have dinner at one of the many restaurants lining the streets here. A pot of mussels cooked in a garlic broth, accompanied by steak, bread, and fries (which, of course, is a Belgian invention) is what is on our menu tonight. It is all very good. We wash it all down with Hoegaarden, which at 1.5 Euros is less than my son’s coke at 2 Euros. I don’t know if it’s this way everywhere in Belgium, but a glass of water on the side also costs a couple of Euros.

DAY NINE
It’s about an hour and a half drive to our next stop, Brugges. When coming into Brugges, you're directed to one of the many underground parking lots. Don't worry if you end up at an outlying lot, accessible shuttle buses will take you into town.

The old medieval port town of Brugges is a perfectly preserved masterpiece. The heart of the old city is spared much...but not all...of the vehicular traffice due to those underground garages. It's a strollers paradise with sidewalk cafes, chocolate shops, and museums galore.

The centerpiece is the main square where fishermen used to bring their catches via the canals that came in from the sea. The canals now stop about a block short of the square and the fish market has moved over by the city hall. Dominating the square is the tall clock tower with its hand operated carillon.

We start off with a hot cup of coffee at the first cafe we encounter upon exiting the garage and then start winding our way to the center of town.

A special note here for wheelchair users. Brugges is very bumpy. The roads, squares, and many walkways are, for the most part, cobblestones. In the Rick Steves book about accessible Europe, it is stated that there are smooth paths where cobblestones are that make for easy travel by wheelchair. We did not see any such paths, so be aware of this.

There are many chocolate shops along the way so we stop in at one and are offered many tastes of some of the best chocolate we've ever had. Of course, we have to by a few boxes to take home but it's very reasonable here and only sets us back about $20 for a pretty large assortment of sweets.

Market Day in Brugges

Emerging in the main square, it turns out today is market day. Vendors fill up the space with fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, cheese, and flowers. Being lunch time, we decide that our midday meal will consists of whatever we can come up with by walking through the market. Starting at the west end, a vendor is grilling delicious pinwheel sausages on skewers. Next, Tim and I share a bratwurst. Some good Belgian beer is purchased at one of the stands to help wash it down. To make it a little healthier, some plums, peaches, and grapes make a nice side dish. A large sampler buffet of cheeses makes for some great free snacks. Arriving at the other side, a cart is making the most delicious Belgian fries and we finish it off with a couple of orders and a couple of cans of Hoegaarden.

Wandering around the many alleyways, we emerge upon the gold plated magnificence of the city hall. We are looking for a restroom and find one that requires three steps up and then another three steps down. I spot a wheelchair lift at the entrance of city hall and a gentleman standing there says to come on up. It turns out that he is an artist who is having a show of his work in the lobby of the building. Good paintings and nice gentleman but we really need some facilities. He tells us that the bathroom we saw is accessible...and that the Flemish are a forward thinking socially aware people...but I cannot for the life of me see how they were accessible.

We finally had to make do at one of the restaurant bathrooms which at least was level if not fully accessible. I did not find any accessible restrooms in Brugges.

There are many beautiful canals here and many boats to tour on. All of them require the navigation of stairs so that option was out for us.

Later on, we found a restaurant on one of the back alleys that made waffles. I know that many U.S. restaurants serve Belgian waffles but I have never had one like the waffle we had this day. It was slightly crisp, very buttery in its flavors, light, and covered with melted chocolate and cream. Very sinful and delicious.

After Brugges we took a drive through the countryside. It's only a 30 minute drive to the Netherlands so we head north to add one more country to our list. The first thing we notice is when you get over the border, there are as many bicycles as cars...if not more. Every road has a corresponding bike path and many paths go beyond the roads. It's very beautiful and clean in this area.

Ijzendijke

We make a quick stop at a local pub in Ijzendijke, a pretty little town with friendly people, a windmill, and a small cannabis shop. A two hour drive across the Dutch countryside leads us back across the border at St-Niklauss, just west of Antwerp. From here, it's a short drive south back into the maze of streets that is Brussels.

One more night of rest overlooking St. Catherine's square and then we get back on the plane to go home.

Darryl
Copyright 2009 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

NEW YORK BASEBALL TRIP - Part 1

We love New York. If you saw our first trip report to the city, you can see we were a bit intimidated but that soon passed. I would never pass up a trip to this great city.


In our ongoing quest to see every Major League Stadium, this time we’re headed to the Big Apple. Our flight is scheduled to leave John Wayne Airport in Orange County at 6:30 in the morning. We’re on Frontier Airlines today and have comfortable bulkhead seats at the front of the plane.

We taxi and wait. Although Frontier schedules a 6:30 departure, airport rules don’t let any planes actually leave until 7:00am. The flight attendant tells me they do this so they can push back and be first in line.

It’s a comfortable, direct one-stop flight (in Denver) to La Guardia Airport in New York City. Out front, we get to the taxi stand and immediately the dispatcher tries to get us into a regular sedan that is in the front of the line. We explain that the wheelchair won’t fit and we at least need a minivan. He won’t budge…until I ask him to tell me how to get there by bus since there isn’t a taxi that will work. That does the trick. He loads us in a minivan that was about sixth in line and off we go.

Our hotel for this trip…our third to the city…is the Beekman Tower, adjacent to the United Nations on 1st Avenue. It’s a roomy two-room suite with a dine-in kitchen and marvelous views. We were able to book it just between to high periods and got four nights for just a touch over $200 a night, including taxes. A quick online check shows that normal rates run from $276 - $350, still not a bad deal for a good Manhattan neighborhood. The tub was doable and the toilet tiny, but we managed.

The next day, we took the subway up to the Bronx to see the Yankees play the Detroit Tigers in the old Yankee Stadium. You could see the new stadium going up over the left field side. The corridors are were very narrow but our seats above first base were very good but the view was just a bit obstructed by the second deck.

The Yankees required us to write in for tickets but we were rewarded with a great location for the three of us for only $86. The staff was very helpful and the concession workers very friendly. Say what you will of the Steinbrenners, they make sure their fans are treated well. I’d go into the complete specifics of the stadium’s accessibility, but since it is demolished now, it just seems a waste of typing.

We met a couple from Tennessee sitting next to us that were at the game to complete a dream of their son, Wes, who had been killed in an auto accident. It’s a sad story, but they’re wonderful people who are honoring their son as they get on with life.

The Yankees went on to win the game and Tim says this is the best baseball experience he’s had other than being at the playoffs in 2002 when the Angels took it all.

The Rooftop Bar and one of the Views From the Bar

Back at the hotel after the game, we went up to their magnificent rooftop bar and had a couple of martinis. There is a mostly accessible deck where you can get a view from all directions around the hotel. Drinks aren’t cheap…around $10 for a happy hour martini…but just this once.

The next morning we have breakfast at one of the most wonderful bagel bakeries we’ve been to, Tal Bagels, just a couple of blocks north of the hotel on 1st Avenue. Hectic and delicious, you need to know what you want before you hit the counter…they will have no patience with you if you don’t. When you do decide, get in line, order quick, pay at the end, get your food, and find a table. You’ll have one of the most mouth-watering experiences you’ll every have.

It’s off to the subway, heading downtown. It’s time to see just what those idiots did to us on September 11th…the ruins of the World Trade Center. A cobbled-together walkway in the buildings surrounding the site give you a view of the giant hole that used to be the world’s tallest buildings. It’s accessible but in fits and starts as you sometimes have to take an elevator to another level or go out to the street for a few feet…but we make the circle slowly. It’s a sad and somber reminder, looking into that grave, of man’s inhumanity.

I wish they would be faster about erecting the replacement building…as long as that hole is there, al qaeda gloats.

Back on the subway, we head up to the upper west side for one of New York’s great cheap eats, Gray’s Papaya, located just outside the accessible subway station at 72nd and Broadway. For a couple of bucks, you get two delicious hot dogs and a glass of fruit juice. We go with the management’s recommendation and choose papaya. For some reason this goes real well with a hot dog.

On a previous trip here I limited the amount of food we had here so we wouldn’t be full when we had dinner at Tavern on the Green. My wife later told me she wished I had just cancelled those reservations and let her and Tim eat to their heart’s content. Today, she got her wish…which was an extra two hot dogs, I guess.

They are great dogs. Savory, tasty and packed in a natural casing that provides a great snap. Fine dining Gray’s is not. There are no tables or chairs…you just stand at a narrow shelf that wraps around the room and eat. Still, one of New York’s best food deals.

One of the Views from our Room

We finish the day with a walk through Central Park before heading back to midtown and our hotel.

There's more, stay tuned for Part 2...

-Darryl
Copyright 2010 - Darryl Musick