Hi Fodorites,



Well, I promised to send a live report from on the road but unfortunately didn’t manage that. I have been home since late on the 15th December, but went into some pre-scheduled surgery on 17th December and have spent the rest of the time recovering from the operation and trying to cope with jetlag. I had no chance to rectify this before the surgery, and then from that time on had painkillers that make you drowsy, so it was one long sleepfest. I am mostly OK now and slowly returning to work some weeks later, and decided it was high time to put down my thoughts on my trip. I will post in sections because I have written 9 pages in a Word document and don’t want to overwhelm you, dear reader.



Konstanz



I should explain that I work in a university, where amongst other things our teaching unit sends students abroad. Uni Konstanz is one of my university’s partners, and they organised what they call a ‘staff week’, this particular one being a staff training week on diversity, inclusion and wellbeing in higher education (but focussing on exchange students). This is funded by the EU and these occur regularly all over the place, but I have never been. This spoke to a lot of my own interests even though I mostly see students only in one phase of this, i.e. our outgoing students, who then study with our European partners. When I applied to them to attend, I wasn’t sure if I’d be accepted, but partners were, and it was a fantastic opportunity to meet like-minded people and learn how other universities deal with issues of diversity and inclusion (for example, how they might deal with students in wheelchairs who want to go abroad). It seems all universities deal with it slightly differently. Anyway, enough shop talk.



Konstanz is a German enclave in Switzerland, a tiny area south of Lake Constance (Bodensee), which forms the border between Germany and Switzerland. I have never been there before (indeed, I have only been to Switzerland a couple of times and not enough to know it). I travelled at the end of November, flying from Sydney into Zürich on Thai Airways and caught the train from there to Konstanz. Thanks to everyone who helped me when I asked questions about this late last year, especially WeisserTee, Ingo, Melnq8, hetismij2 and mitbhashidal7786, and also mjs, margo_oz, neckervd, and Christina. You helped me immensely. Travelling through Zürich Airport was very easy. I literally rolled my bag from the airport to the platform to the train. I might add however that I left with a 21kg bag (I had a limit of 23kg) because on the recommendation of people in Konstanz to bring warm winter clothes, as there had already been snow in November, I brought a pair of sheepskin boots with heels, a winter coat and a jacket, and a heavy knitted dress amongst other things (more on this later, this haunted me). I wore sneakers on the plane and in actual fact there was only one day that I wore another pair of shoes, a lace-up leather pair with a small heel. I needed the sneakers because there was a lot of walking during this week, and pretty much wore the one pair of shoes the whole time. I did wear the winter coat, but my jacket didn’t get much of a run. The rest of the trip was at times 12C – 13C and I did not need 80% of what I packed. In any case, my bag was full when I left, leaving almost no space or weight allowance for shopping. This was a significant drawback in Konstanz because it is a wealthy city with an amazing pedestrian zone full of affordable shopping, plus a nearby shopping mall (Lago). Konstanz is in fact sustained by the Swiss who all come to shop here. The Swiss franc is stronger than the euro, and any Swiss who come to shop can also claim the 17% MWST (VAT) from a bureau at the railway station. So they come in hordes on the weekend, so much so that the Konstanzers stay at home. I was a bit frustrated as I had wanted to buy Christmas presents for family and neighbours and managed a few little things (coffee from Tchibo, darjeeling tea, a drip catcher and a little bottle of rock sugar in elderflower syrup from Tee Gschwendtner, a whisk from WMF, some of the Christmas teas from Müller and the health food shop next to my hotel, amongst other things). I did manage to sneak those into my bag. I will come back to my bag shortly when I come to the next section.



I had a really fabulous hotel, the Hotel Graf Zeppelin. It was in a historic building with amazing frescoes but modern on the inside. It was on the edge of the pedestrian zone, but the opposite side of town to the train station, where our daily bus left from. After I had met some of the other workshop delegates we made a habit of walking together to the bus; Uni Konstanz is out of town in a semi-rural setting, with sweeping water views, as Konstanz itself is perched on the lake.



To come back to the hotel: the breakfasts were really a cut above. I filled up on breakfasts every day, and we were fed morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea by the university, so that I really did not need dinner. A few times I went to a bakery and bought a filled roll / Laugenbretzel, and on two occasions I had dinner with colleagues (once at the Brauhaus Johann Albrecht and once at the Weinstube zum Guten Hirten). Both were good restaurants, but of course the Brauhaus specialises in beer and so some of that was consumed as well .



Alongside this, there was time for culture: I visited the Rosgarten Museum, which had an exhibition outhoused in another building near the Münster. I think it was on Karneval. Also the university had organised a lot of entertainment for us. Lunches were accompanied by musicians, they took us on a walking tour of the city one evening (which is really old, my gosh, and definitely Swiss in style, half-timbered houses are very few and far between). One evening they took us out to Mainau Island where there was a light display and a formal dinner at the restaurant Comturey. All this was a lot of walking, they absolutely got our steps up (the wellbeing part of the workshop, I think), and I was knackered every night afterwards. Mainau Island was also an experience: the lights were beautiful (see images below), but getting home from the restaurant was suddenly a problem for all the women on the workshop (nearly everyone) as we were at the furthest point from the bus stop in the dark, on foot. Also a problem for those not staying in the city as no-one really knew where the buses went or how to get to their part of Konstanz. Some left in groups looking for the bus, but a colleague and I rang for a taxi (a mostly carless island). We did not realise we had to wait alone in the dark outside a locked gate which a guard opened for us, then closed behind us. We could see the restaurant employees all leaving as we peered through the gate. Fortunately we only had to wait about 15 minutes for the taxi from the mainland, and I was glad there were two of us.


All this was against the backdrop of the Christmas markets. I did go there one night with colleagues to drink a Glühwein, and the city tour also took us through one part of it, but to be honest I was pretty tired most nights and unfortunately had to respond to work emails every night, so I did not extend nights beyond what was necessary. I have lived in Germany before and have even done a Christmas market self-tour of Germany with my family so it was OK by me to miss out on the markets a bit. After the first weekend I did not have much discretionary time except for the last afternoon, when I repacked my bags, and then went to the Brauhaus with colleagues.

I am not sure how to post my photos yet. I took them with an iPhone and they have the extension .HEIC. I tried just changing them manually to .JPG so that they would be acceptable to Fodor's but that doesn't work. Give me some time until I work this out (or please post your suggestions here). Working in Mac environment.

Lavandula

Hotel Graf Zeppelin - a long history as an inn.

Narrow streets

Breakfast - amongst other things I feasted on pancakes with cherry compote every morning.

Christmas markets (always better at night)



Light show on Mainau Island

The words mean 'Hier in dir', here in you.

Light show.

Dinner at the Weinstube. I had the Wolfsteller, the wolf's plate, and a cherry juice to drink.

Leaving Konstanz and going to Amsterdam



I very cleverly thought I would repack my bags wearing heavy clothing for the travel day and transferring the fruitcake to my hand luggage, to keep under the 23 kg. Did I mention the fruitcake? I bought a heavy traditional luxury fruitcake to spoil the English wife of my father’s Dutch cousin, a couple in their eighties. Problem was that it must have been over two kilos on its own. So I put it in my hand luggage with my laptop and a few other bits and pieces, mostly food. I then donned my heavy knitted dress. It was brown with a cowl neck, and I put on my sheepskin boots and coat. I looked like a lumpy monk in brown robes, and I was a bit hot. OK, I am a woman of a certain age and these hot moments always pass by quickly. But this one didn’t. I think I would have gone into meltdown if I had had to wheel my 21kgs through the pedestrian zone, so I caught a taxi. Good move. I then caught the earlier train to Zürich Airport. At the platform I saw a colleague and full of enthusiasm she bundled aboard my train, but realised in split seconds that she was on the wrong train. She was going to get off but the doors slammed in front of her and she was stuck on the train. It was not going to the wrong destination, but she had bought a fixed ticket tied to another train, while I had bought a point-to-point ticket and could travel on any train. Some of us in the carriage tried to console her, but she was rightly upset and I felt partly responsible because I had greeted her so warmly. The Swiss train guards were merciless: she had to buy a new ticket and pay €50,00.



Back at the airport, I felt less buoyant than when I had arrived. The bag was heavy and felt like toppling over with the hand luggage threaded over the handle of the suitcase, I was hot, and then I had to figure out how to self-label and drop my bag. I am a seasoned traveller but don’t like having to do this for myself. After a while I managed to drop my suitcase and it registered: 21 kg. Yay! My trick worked! But I still had the fruitcake in my hand luggage, which I hauled off. I went on to a mini-supermarket just a bit further on and drank a cold coffee drink, and calmed down a bit, then made my way upstairs, which seemed to be where to go next. When I got there, oh gosh, there was a tremendous queue for security. People in the queue were not going to make their plane and a number of people tried to get ahead in the queue because they were panicking. I did not stop anyone doing this. I eventually got to near the head of the queue, which snaked along a number of open glass doors. Suddenly the doors snapped shut without warning and we all had to stop and wait. Through the glass I could sort of see a man was being patted down, and was being scanned and swiped with those drug-scanning wands. I can only assume it was something like maybe a joke about carrying a bomb in his luggage, because eventually they let him go and the doors opened again, although not at full capacity. When I got to security I must have looked like a sweating, sticky fright because they pulled me over, swiped my bags and made me take off my sheepskin boots. If I had thought about how difficult it was to get those boots on and off I would not have worn them. It was excruciating, and all the while my bags and coat and laptop and phone were still on the belt while I panicked and tried to get my boots back on and get the little buckle done up. Aargh!



Of course, once I got through, I was greeted with the vista of the Sprüngli Café. I thought I deserved a reward after that ordeal through security so I treated myself to a hot chocolate which came with a glass of water. Didn’t need to eat as I had eaten so well at breakfast. However, this was in Switzerland, with Swiss prices, and so while it didn’t sound so expensive, I worked out later looking at my Wise card account that it had cost about A$15.00, so it’s good that I didn’t eat!



The rest of the trip was a KLM flight to Schiphol, without any significant event. I also managed to collect my bag quickly. However, I decided to catch a taxi from the airport to my hotel. If I think about how unwieldy my bag was and how sweaty I was, it was worth it, although if I had had my family with me on my travels this time we just would have caught the train into Amsterdam (Amstel Station?). The taxi fare was enormous – not because I was getting ripped off but just because I did not want to exert myself in travelling that huge distance. I think I paid about €70,00. But I was comfortable, safe and relaxing a little bit. I stayed at The Social Hub in Amsterdam, which is on the Wibautstraat, which is out in Amsterdam Oost. This is a chain that clearly appeals to a younger crowd, but at breakfast I realised that many people there were about my age. When I got to the hotel they greeted me with a glass of prosecco, gave me a wooden room card with a little chip in it and explained how the hotel works. Every zone requires the card to get access. My room was a single and I paid about €115,00 per night for it with breakfast. I think this is a fabulous rate for Amsterdam, and in all the hotel was pretty nice, with a TV, a coffee machine, a kettle and complimentary teas, coffee pods and cookies, and a very good breakfast buffet. It is also a reasonably good location. The area has been gentrified and many students have moved in, and there is a metro just out the front door (Wibautstraat). There is also an Albert Heijn supermarket just across the road. I wanted to eat something by this stage and went down to the snack bar in the foyer, but they were closing so that was a lesson to me. I went across the road to Albert Heijn and bought a few provisions, only realising later that there was no fridge in the room. Too bad!



I also had the motive of wanting to buy up some Sinterklaas (St. Nicholas) wrapping paper and bits and pieces, as I had arrived in the Netherlands on 6th December (where Sinterklaas is on the 5th). But there was nothing except some pepernoten, which I did not buy as you can get these in Australia. I did however buy a friend a small present. You may find this odd, but in Dutch supermarkets there are several shelves dedicated to sweet things you can sprinkle (‘Strooigoed’) - chocolate sprinkles, for instance, are called Hagelslag (hail) and you use them to make sandwiches for children. You could also use these on a dessert like vla (custard), ice cream, etc. I bought my friend chocolate-covered cereal in loops, also for the same purpose (oh, that was so hard to explain!). Anyway, if you ever find yourself in Albert Heijn be sure to look out for the sprinkles aisle, you will be transported by the possibilities! And I was thinking that pretty soon I would give my cousins their presents, including the Christmas cake, so I would have a little more space and better weight.



The next day I did laundry in the hotel (free, but you have to book a dryer), and made my way to my cousins, who live nearby. They just had their first grandchild staying with them so I spent lunch with them and then dinner also, reacquainting myself with them all – one of the sons and his partner were also there for part of the time, so it was nice to meet the baby and his mum for the first time. Then I gave them books and a little wind-up platypus for the bub and some small packets of nail files with Australiana on them, and the fruitcake. Everything was well-received. Dinner was a traditional Dutch meal (rookworst met andijvie stamppot en uitgelaten spekjes). I went home, and planned to return the next afternoon.



The next day I was planning what to do after reading a brochure from the lobby and spontaneously decided to go see a van Gogh display in the Noorderkerk. To get there I walked to the Ceintuurbaan and caught tram 3 as far as the end of the line, Frederik Hendrik Plantsoen, and then walked through the Jordaan taking photos, then down to the Noorderkerk. When I got there, I realised that I had misunderstood – the display was a light display which I think must only happen at night. I think it’s still on now if anyone is interested, but I missed out. When I got there, there was a morning tea for senior citizens and I felt out of place. Never mind. I walked through the Noordermarkt which was mostly second-hand clothing, although a little bit of bric-a-brac also, and found it quite interesting, although I would not have dared buy anything. The art and culture of a city spread out on trestle tables. I then retired to Café Hegeraad and got a seat in the window so I could watch the market. Very crowded, and all old people. I had a koffie verkeerd (a latte) and rang my husband and daughter, and reported back to them what I had been doing. As my cousin’s wife pointed out, I wasn’t in the tourist districts there, there was no English. I have to say though, it’s been seven years since I was last in the Netherlands, and English really is everywhere now. Even the ticket seller in the booth of the trams uses English to admonish passengers before Dutch is used. I have mixed feelings. I think it’s great how everyone speaks English. I take advantage of it at times (my Dutch has holes in it), and it really is a good social lubricant for visitors. But it’s also a bit nutty that the first language on the tram is not the language of the country the tram is in, and that has to build resentment, particularly amongst those who don’t/didn’t learn languages like the old or lesser educated. Language learning is not for everyone, and I know because I have built a career on teaching languages. But striving for another language is character-building and while it still helps society to be multilingual, I will not complain. When I left an old woman asked raucously if I was going and I let her have my seat. I then walked down Prinsengracht, stopped in at the Westerkerk and then went to the Negen Straatjes (Nine Streets). I just walked through there as not everything was open, then caught a tram from the Nieuwezijds Voorburg Wal to the station, then metro back to Wibautstraat. I then went to visit my cousins for the last time, and then of course, after I had been so clever as to give them the fruitcake, they gave me pepernoten and banketstaaf. Thankfully not as heavy as fruitcake, but a challenge to pack.



The next day I went to the van Gogh Museum on tram 3 again, and saw an exhibition about van Gogh’s association with the Roulin family when he was in Arles. I then had a look at the rest of the museum. The former was a nice exhibition spread across 2 floors but the second floor was not really worth it for normal visitors (facsimiles of chairs that van Gogh sat in, etc. Mostly good for school groups to do some practical imagining). There were in fact a lot of groups of small children around 8 years old and docents were teaching them a lot about techniques and equipment and brushstrokes, and everywhere on the walls at kid height were questions for children to think about. Art appreciation starts early here and I was thoroughly impressed by this. I had lunch in the museum café (hot chips and an orange juice), and then made my way to the Rijksmuseum. My feet were tired so I was a bit judicious about what I selected to see. I paid to see the exhibition “At home in the 17th century”, and I chose to see also one floor in the permanent exhibition, also about the 17th century. I had a break in the café between these two and had a matcha latte and a cream cake. I got to see the restoration of the Nightwatch – they have set up a framework for the restorers to sit on while they are doing the restoration and it is enclosed in glass. Unfortunately the restorers were not there at the time. The next room has a life size picture of the Nightwatch painted on the wall, so that no-one feels aggrieved that their view of this masterpiece is impeded. I bought a modern Delft porcelain tealight holder for my daughter that went into my handbag.



Thoroughly exhausted I went back to the hotel. I watched TV for a while. In Australia I had been following the remake of All Creatures Great and Small, the semi-fictitious series about the vet James Herriot, and I was able to follow some of the episodes on Dutch TV over a number of days. It was in English, subtitled in Dutch, but a bit ahead of where I was up to in Australia. Then I repacked my bag, playing banketstaaf tetris and settled in for the night.


Dramatic scenery from the Swiss train window.

Hot chocolate at Sprüngli in the airport.

Can you believe I saw this in Albert Heijn? I didn't buy any but I guess the sweetness of stout would work with caramel...

Houseboats in the Jordaan.

Buildings with open shutters in the Jordaan.

This is the new way people are getting around Amsterdam. Electric and silent, they drive in the bike lanes. There are also single person cars similar to this.

Docent teaching small children in the van Gogh Museum.

Rijksmuseum.

Nightwatch under restoration in the Rijksmuseum.

A light snack in the café of the Rijksmuseum (matcha latte and a caramel cheesecake).

We spent a night in Meersburg last September after a long day of driving. Didn't end up with enough time to hop across to Konstanz, so thanks for sharing. We also enjoyed the Bodensee area overall.

The trip to Brussels



The next day I left early for Brussels. I had booked a train from Central Station, and because I got to the station early, possibly I could have caught an earlier train, but it was fairly hard to figure out which train/s could be an alternative to the one I had booked. It was hard enough trying to figure out if the train I was supposed to catch was the one at the platform. I was supposed to transfer at Schiphol, but the train’s end station and what was on the indicator was Hoofddorp and there was no mention of Schiphol. Plus the ticket I had printed up had train numbers, which do not figure on the indicator board at Central Station. I know you buy a ticket for the day, not the train. Anyway, I waited patiently until the right train departed. Once I got to Schiphol, I found out that my onward train had been cancelled. I would have to catch the next train to Rotterdam and change to a train to Brussels there. None of this was arduous, but it added a good hour to the trip, not counting waiting times. Rotterdam – Brussels was a milk run and we stopped everywhere possible. However, I was comfortable, I had a seat, and I arrived in one piece. I took a taxi to the hotel as I did not feel like conquering the metro with my bags. I stayed at the Citadines Toison d’Or near Louise, which is the hotel we now stay at regularly. There had been a refurbishment since the last time I had stayed, and my husband and daughter saw it earlier last year. My room was nice – it was an attic room, facing away from the street but looking over a small courtyard where there was building work going on. Oddly the only time I heard building works was between 5 and 7 pm in the evening.



All rooms have a kitchenette, and there is a small, high-end supermarket around the corner. I love supermarkets and I took the opportunity to go shopping for groceries that I cannot get easily in Australia. I bought blood orange juice, strawberry drinking yoghurt, some limited edition winter patés (4 different kinds), some interesting bread rolls, good butter, shallot red wine vinegar, walnut oil and salt, and a box of 4 different kinds of salad leaves. I also bought a pastry called a ‘huit’ / ‘acht’, because it is in the shape of an 8 and filled with custard. Sticky but good, you will notice I like sweet things. I supplemented this with daily purchases of bread rolls, and on the last day I had a breakfast in the hotel. I eventually ate almost everything I bought except for some of the lettuce leaves and I took home the vinegar, oil and salt, all wrapped in a plastic bag. That was the last thing that I put in my suitcase. I transferred a lot to my hand luggage, and that was how I managed that.



The next day I had some business to do in Uccle, but that did not take so long and was fairly successful, so after that I went to a museum that I did not know, the BELvue Museum, which is a museum about Belgian history. If you know nothing about it, Belgium only goes back to 1831. This museum was fairly modern and up to date (last inclusion was 2022), and everything was in four languages (EN, FR, NL, DE). It is out on one wing of the Royal Palace, so you can go there and watch the soldiers patrolling the palace. But an interesting aspect of this museum is that it is also the entrance to another museum, Coudenberg, the archaeological remains of a former palace built on the same site, which dates back to the mid 18th century. It burnt down and Brussels is a city built in layers, and they just built a street on top of the ruins. But they have done a splendid job of excavating the palace cellars, and you can get a double ticket and access the cellars as well. After this I caught a bus back to Porte de Namur and walked from there down to Ave Louise and had an explore of the shops. Then I went back to the hotel and watched the Dutch channels again to see All Creatures Great and Small (there is a good selection of international TV channels in numerous languages here). I also found another channel, a Belgian francophone channel which has the show in English, un-subtitled, but out of sequence with the others, although I had not seen that one yet.



The next day I had planned to meet up with a Brussels Greeter. The Greeters are an international organisation of interested locals who will take you to show you their side of their city. They are not tour guides, and do not accept money, they do it to show goodwill to travellers. When you book a Greeter, you tick boxes as to what you are interested in and a Greeter who sees this will propose an outing and if you accept it, you are locked in. I was in contact with my Greeter on WhatsApp, and we had planned to meet at the Horta Museum and he had offered to show me St.-Gilles, which is a commune with a lot of Art Nouveau architecture. From there we would end at the flea market at Place du Jeu de Balles. However, it turned out that on that morning there was a public transport strike with limited services. Stéphane wanted to know if I still wanted to meet. The museum was quite a hike from my hotel, down Chaussée de Charleroi, a good 20 minute walk. I agreed and Stéphane told me he would come by bike. True to his word he met me at the appointed hour, and took me on a tour of the Art Nouveau houses for a few hours. St.-Gilles is not a wealthy part of the city and you can tell. There are marvellous sgraffitos (i.e. frescoes) on some buildings but they are so covered in years of grime that it is hard to even notice them in the first place, and you really need that guide to show you what to look out for. But here and there, there were quiet gems and you could see the plant-like curves or the stained-glass windows. The whole commune needs a good scrub . Interestingly he told me that he and his architect wife were contemplating buying an original Horta office building (Victor Horta was the main exponent of Art Nouveau), and he took me to see it from the outside, explaining what a forerunner Horta was, so that he even had hot air in the basements of buildings at the end of the 19thcentury. This was considered crazy thinking in those days, but Horta was doing it. However, buying a building like this comes with a price. While you pay no tax on it you have to promise to renovate it and there is an aesthetic element that must be respected. You can’t just make changes, it has to be preserved.



We walked past Porte de Hal, a surviving city gate which now houses suits of medieval armour. The park there is very gritty (we passed a man urinating en plein air, that’s a thing in Brussels) and yet there was a woman with a baby carriage also walking through the park – I guess it’s what you are used to ...? We then passed a hospital and Stéphane showed me a series of seven public housing apartment blocks also designed by Horta. All had balconies, which was also radical for that era (i.e. late 19th century). Since Covid it’s now the law in Belgium that all new apartments must all have balcony space. We walked past the flea market and all the way Stéphane was telling me about the church there and the history of the market. I had asked him if I could buy him a coffee to say thank you, and after walking partway up Rue Blaes and Rue Haute (buzzy, trendy neighbourhoods, Rue Haute in particular is wealthy, Rue Blaes is poor), we found somewhere to chain up Stéphane’s bike. He took me up to the lift that goes from the lower town (Rue Haute) to the upper town (Place Poelaert) and showed me some of the skyline, and then we went back down the lift and to the café at the base of the lift, Kosto. It is a nice café. When I go back to Brussels I would feel comfortable dropping Stéphane a WhatsApp now. I highly recommend the Greeters.



After that, I had done a lot of walking, so I just went back to the hotel, which is close to Place Poelaert, and stopped for the day. I didn’t need to shop as I had already enough food in my room. When I was planning this trip I had been intending to visit Delicatessen Fernand Obb for the shrimp croquettes, but that was back in St.-Gilles and I had passed my opportunity for that. Instead I did some more laundry as all my warmer weather clothes had already been worn. Unfortunately it is a bit expensive to wash at this hotel and you have to download an app, but it is not too difficult. I had the app already from a previous stay.



On my last day I was really ready to come home but I needed to buy the final presents: three slim-line little boxes of artisanal chocolates from Elizabeth on Avenue Louise, for my in-laws and my husband’s uncle, which fitted into my hand luggage, and a pair of fishnet socks for my daughter from Inno Louise. After my last purchases I went to the centre-ville by metro and explored the Winter Wonders market. However, as it was early, many of the stands were not yet open, so I went for a stroll down to Place de la Bourse and up Boulevard Anspach, now pedestrianised, and then off to Rue Neuve (the main shopping street), where I looked at everything and had a coffee in the café in the Inno there. It is a much bigger shop than the one at Louise and they have a fabulous kitchen and homewares section in their basement, which I enjoyed looking at. By this time many of the stands were opening and I did a tour around the stalls in the Theatre de la Monnaie forecourt. I was interested to see a Ukrainian promotional / food stall side by side with a stall selling Belgian specialities such as carbonnades flamandes. I had been intending to catch the metro back but I was just at the bus stop where the 71 bus left from and so I caught that back to Porte de Namur, and walked back to my hotel at Louise. The final day was at an end, so I went home and packed for the last time. I opened the expanding zip on my bag, finally!



The next day I had breakfast in the hotel and checked out. I caught a taxi to the airport and the rest went swimmingly. My bag was 23kg, not a gram more. Thanks for reading this far and I hope you enjoyed my journey.

Underground corridor in Coudenberg.

Another corridor in Coudenberg.

A mostly intact floor from the cellar in Coudenberg.

The Royal Palace. You might just be able to see a guard. Nowadays this is used as an office for the King, he doesn't live there.

Art Nouveau house in St.-Gilles. This one was a surprise egg!
This is the Horta office building that I mentioned.

Horta office building. I don't know if you can see the two holes at the base of the front door - many houses have this. There should be a piece of metal inside each hole, which functioned as a boot scraper. This dates back to the days when there were horses and horsesh•t everywhere and no proper footpath.

Horta social housing - there are seven of these in a row, all with balconies, in a time when it was innovative and radical to give the poor facilities like this.

View from Place Poelaert, overlooking the lower town. What looks like three men carrying a chrome cloud is actually an artwork.

View of the Atomium from Place Poelaert.

Galeries Royales de St.-Hubert in Christmas garb. Outside people are gathered for market stalls.

Inside the Galeries (Christmas decorations).

Christmas tree in the Grand' Place.

Tourists in the Grand' Place for Christmas festivities.

Passage du Nord in festive dress.

Green tea and a raspberry cream tart.

Théâtre Royale de la Monnaie, where there was a cluster of market stalls.

Ukrainian promotional/food stall in front of the Théâtre ...

...and next to it a stall with Belgian fare. Interesting counterpoint!

Hi ANUJ, I would have liked to have gone to Meersburg. This definitely feels like somewhere to come back and explore on holiday. I know some of my colleagues who were in Konstanz longer did get out to Meersburg by ferry. I will definitely return!

Lavandula

Thanks for sharing - I was interested to read what you packed vs what you actually wore, as we had considered a Christmas markets trip last Nov/ Dec and I kept wondering how on earth I would dress appropriately for the cold.

Surgery right after returning though, that’s quite a feat, the jet lag is so brutal coming home.
Hope your recovery continues to go well.

Yes, there was no snow when I got there and it was far too warm for my clothes. But what if it had snowed, and I didn't have the right clothes or better footwear? Such a gamble.

Thanks, I am 99% better now and the jetlag has improved a lot over the last few days. My husband is a night owl so I have seen a lot of him at night as a result of this !

Lavandula

Very much enjoyed your journey lavandula, thank you for posting. Those horse poop scrapers are a hoot, but no doubt a necessity at the time💩

Thank you for sharing. Appreciate getting a view of these places from your perspective.

Yes, and after I had noticed the first ones I saw them everywhere. Very practical, they must have been!

Lavandula

You're welcome! Wish I could do it all over again - just wouldn't have brought that brown dress next time!

Lavandula

I really enjoyed reading about your trip, thanks for sharing it with us. I'm going to look up what a lot of the Dutch words mean, especially the food.

Hi KayF, thanks for your compliment! OK, I can oblige: the meal I ate was a kind of fat, boiled smoked sausage (rookworst) served with mashed potato mixed with chopped endive, and fried lardons of bacon. Very stick to your ribs food, it's a winter meal. The pepernoten are little spiced biscuits about the size of a fingernail (children get masses of these at St. Nicholas, along with sweets, gold coins and a huge number of presents). St. Nicolas (Sinterklaas) is the main gift-giving festival in the Netherlands, Christmas is secondary. And banketstaaf is a long rolled pastry filled with almond paste, to emulate St. Nicholas' staff. Some bakers fashion these into letters for each person's name, and then it is called banketletter. Chocolate letters are also popular. We ourselves usually celebrate with chocolate letters. Every Dutch grocery shop in Australia (and there are a few) is armed with a good supply of letters although after St. Nicholas, there are always a few letters that don't sell so well . And koffie verkeerd literally means 'coffee the wrong way', i.e. coffee with more milk than coffee. But it's really just what Australians would call a latte.

Lavandula

Thanks Lavandula. I remember the chocolate sprinkles from a hotel breakfast we had in Amsterdam. They were in a little packet and we weren't quite sure what to do with them. Similar in some ways to our 'hundreds and thousands', and fairy bread. Kay

The chocolate sprinkles are for an open sandwich, exactly like fairy bread, but this is a regular children's snack and not party food. There are also coloured sprinkles (pink and blue) which are aniseed flavoured. These are called 'muis' (mouse, I have no idea why), and you put these on buttered beschuit (rusks) to announce the birth of a baby. Not exactly a gender reveal, but to celebrate whatever you got with friends and family. I remember when they were commemorating 50 years since the liberation after WWII, De Ruiter, who makes a lot of these sprinkles, put out an anniversary tin with orange sprinkles (the royal family is the House of Orange, and orange is the national colour). We bought it but never ate it, and I ended up throwing it out a long time later in a big clean-up And evidently there are other kinds of sprinkles, but I am not really one of the initiated in this, although I could be persuaded (which would mean I would need a research trip to Amsterdam to investigate Albert Heijn again). Twist my arm ...

Lavandula

I'll come too! I love looking in supermarkets overseas. You can tell what they sell a lot of. Wine and cheese by the aisle in France, soft drinks and over the counter drugs in America. England - ready meals. Probably a vast generalisation 😄

I remember being in London 30 years ago in a supermarket on Oxford St and being blown away by the bags of chopped vegetables and pre-prepared foods. Perfect for me and my then boyfriend (now husband), because we had spent a full day sightseeing (husband) and in the British Library (me), and were returning to make dinner in our boarding house / B&B in Cricklewood. There was nothing like this in Sydney, and it was such an enormous help. I totally understand why this goes down well in London. Now there are so many services that provide pre-chopped meat and vegies in the capital cities in Australia. I keep intimating to my husband that maybe we should try one of these but so far no luck. Maybe one day he will crack!

Lavandula

lavandula, I really enjoyed reading your report and photos! I haven't been to Konstanz or Amsterdam, and we spent only one day in Brussels in the 90's. Your report about the trains, the airport, getting through security are so interesting. Not fun for you to endure, I am sure, but still interesting to read and an inevitable part of traveling. How nice of you to lug that fruitcake around for your relative!

I would love the pancakes with cherry compote, too!

We don't travel at Christmas so it's nice to see the Christmas markets photos, etc. But we might be in London this year in December, so hopefully will see Christmas markets and decorations then.

Thanks for your TR, lavandula! So nice to see the photos of christmas decorations and christmas markets. It's been close to 2 decades since I've been to Amsterdam and Belgium and I miss them.