Last day of European Adventures

I am sitting here at a friends house in Frankfurt, relaxing before I go get my flight home. Yesterday was not with out anxiety and the sheer dread of being stranded in Europe. I went up to the counter in Brussels to find I had reservations for two paid seats going to and from Frankfurt but nothing to indicate I had to pick up tickets to catch the train itself.

I was standing there with 80 Euros and I needed 102 Euros and 20 cents to get the train back to Frankfurt. As you can imagine I was about ready to break down as I had no other money and I had given my money to my daughter for her honeymoon and bought them dinner and paid for our boat cruise with the last of my Euros. I had no credit card for emergencies, nothing. In future I will do my own bookings.

Last Day in Gent, Belgium, River Cruise

My last day in Gent and Vanessa and I embarked on a river cruise. To be continued dinner arrived. The Pizza is on me!!

I AMsterdam - Netherlands (Holland)

Yesterday we went to Amsterdam. We left Gent around 10.30 am and arrived in Amsterdam around 1.30 pm. The highways are fast through out Europe I noticed. The only disappointing thing about travelling around Europe is no one stamps your passport any more, there is no border security and you have to be really quick to see the sign that welcomes you to the next country. basically it is now like travelling interstate and I love it.

We passed through Antwerp and Rotterdam on our way through to Amsterdam. I saw a few of the traditional windmills but there are now a lot of the modern wind turbines that are used for energy all over Europe, tall ugly things.

Once we found where we could park the car we sat and ate our lunch then set off to walk around Amsterdam. We had planned to see the museum of Anne Frank's House but the queue was too long a wait so disappointed we walked on to see the next attraction, but not before we rested and revived ourselves with a drink along one of the many canals in Amsterdam.

So off we trudged when we found Anne Frank's statue outside of The Westerkerk ("western church").

The Westerkerk ("western church") is a Protestant church in Amsterdam, built in 1620-1631 after a design by Hendrick de Keyser. The church is right next to Amsterdam's Jordaan district, at the bank of the Prinsengracht canal.

This spire is the highest church tower in Amsterdam, at 85 meters (279 feet). The crown topping the spire is the Imperial Crown of Austria of Maximilian I. The church bells were made by the brothers Hemony.

Back in Gent

The view from my room in Paris directly across the road, from my window. Leaving my window open kept the smell of stale cigarettes out and the fresh air in and even though it was noisy I loved it all!!

Gard De L'Est (Train Station I could see from my window)

Gard De L'Est (I got a good deal here with the station so close and my room cost 49 Euro's a night)

After a fond farewell to Paris, I headed to the station way to early to catch the train back. The reason why I did this was that on the way to Paris we got held up in Gent picking up our tickets. We then had 3 minutes to spare to get the train to Brussels, and the memory of running for that train remains firm in my mind. Soooooooo since I was there early enough to catch the train before mine which I didn't, so I sat down and watched the board change.

There was an announcement my train was late and on the board appeared the "retarde" which means delayed. By the time it arrived and we boarded the train it was 20 minutes late which meant I missed the connection to Gent but could pick up a second connection. Got to Brussels safely and I almost caught the wrong train, which was all stations and was going to take a good hour compared to the half hour and I am so glad it was late and I caught the correct train instead, although I had a feeling I missed one somewhere between the missed connection and the one I finally caught..

Whilst travelling back to Gent, I was highly amused to see all these people kicked out of first class with the guard following closely behind them.

Once we reached Gent my next challenge was to catch the tram to Koren Markt so I could pick up the house key off Vincent who works near there. I made it collected the key and then had to get the bus back to the house, which I also managed to do and even got off at the correct stop. Seems silly that normal everyday things become an achievement in a foreign country where English is not always spoken!

Paris - France (Day Four)

I am so tired, but needless to say it was another awesome day. I will update this blog tomorrow back in Gent, Belgium. Today I visited The Arc de Triomphe L'Etoile {ahrk duh tree-ohmf' duh lay-twahl'} a triumphal arch in Paris commissioned by Napoleon in 1806 patterned after those of ancient Rome and dedicated to the glory of his imperial armies.

The started out with me arriving at the top of the hill of Chaillot, with the Arc de Triomphe at the center of a star-shaped configuration of 12 radiating avenues, to view this incredible monument. I refuse to do stairs unless necessary so took a ton of pictures around the base of the Arc de Triomphe. I got close up shots of the art work, something that is lost but a memory to great artists of two centuries ago.

The structure was designed by Jean François Thérèse Chalgrin (1739-1811), completed in 1833 and inaugurated in 1836 by the French king, Louis-Philippe. Its deceptively simple design and immense size, 49.5 m (162 ft) in height, mark it unmistakably as a product of late 18th-century romantic neoclassicism. The arch also serves as a reminder that Chalgrin was a pupil of Etienne Louis Boullée, the father of visionary architecture. The most famous of its sculptural reliefs is La Marseillaise (1833-36) of François Rude. Specific historic associations notwithstanding, the arch has become an emblem of French patriotism.

Since 1920, the tomb of France's Unknown Soldier has been sheltered underneath the arch. Its eternal flame commemorates the dead of the two world wars, and is rekindled every evening at 6:30.

At the bases of the Arc's pillars are four huge relief sculptures, commemorating The Triumph of 1810 (by Cortot); Resistance, and Peace (both by Etex); and The Departure of the Volunteers, more commonly known as La Marseillaise (by François Rude). On the day the Battle of Verdun started (1916), the sword carried by the figure representing the Republic broke off from La Marseillaise. The relief was immediately hidden to conceal the accident, so that it would not be interpreted as a bad omen.

Engraved around the top of the Arch are the names of major victories won during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods. The names of less important victories, as well as those of 558 generals, can be found on the inside walls.

I then walked down the Avenue des Champs Elysées, where I did a little souvenir shopping and stopped and had lunch at Jardin Des Tuileries. The Tuileries Garden covers about 63 acres (25 hectares) and still closely follows a design laid out by landscape architect Andre Le Notre in 1664. His spacious formal garden plan drew out the perspective from the reflecting pools one to the other in an unbroken vista along a central axis from the west façade, which has been extended as the Axe historique.

I then dragged my aching feet back to take a second cruise down the Seine and back again. A good way to finish off my adventures in Paris.

Got an early start in the morning at 6.00 am all because I wanted to save a few Euro's!!

Paris - France (Day Three)

The Notre Dame

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would ever get to see Paris. All I ever wanted was a chance to fly to the northern hemisphere and visit just one country before I turned 50. I did that when I went to India, but now I am 50 and in Paris and I feel all my dreams have come true. I have to thank my family for being here. My Dad, my Mum, my sister, Sandra and Amelia for helping me to get here. I also have to thank Vanessa for encouraging me to come here and I don't regret taking her advice!!

Today I decided it was Notre Dame day and if I felt like it would visit The Louvre as well. Well Notre Dame, was basically it. It costs 8 Euro's to see The Louvre and it was free to enter the Notre Dame and well I really wanted to see the Notre Dame. So I did. I walked around it twice and visited the treasury and bought some booklet and a medallion as souvenirs.

In the middle of it all they were conducting a service. It was midday mass. And despite the signs asking for silence. It was virtually impossible with the crowds that passed through and I mean crowds. I nearly didn't go inside seeing the lines but found out the line to go inside was moving very quickly, where as the lines to climb up into the towers was longer and slower and since I had sore feet and the thought of climbing stairs was the last thing I wanted to do, I opted for the inside tour.

I had lunch behind the cathedral and made my way back to the station. As I made my way back with aching feet I found an archaeological crypt nearby. This crypt has ruins in it dating back to the 3rd Century!!

"Under the square in front of Notre Dame de Paris is one of the largest archaeological crypts in all of Europe. Before the 1860s, the area in front of the Cathedral of Notre Dame was filled with buildings, some dating to the middle ages.

When the buildings were torn down remnants of foundations and artifacts dating back to pre-Roman times were discovered.

This area on the banks of the Seine has seen human habitation since the early Paleolithic Period, some 500,000 years ago.

Remnants of the Gallo-Roman period, which had been lost to memory, were first unearthed during the renovation of Paris during the reign of Napoleon III. During this renovation digs along the banks of the Seine near Parc de Bercy revealed artifacts that pushed the dates of human habitation into the deep mists of pre-history.

Excavations under the square uncovered parts of Roman ramparts, rooms heated by an system with underground furnaces and pipes, medieval cellars and the foundations of an orphan's hospital."

I then dragged my aching feet back to the train and back to my hotel, where I am sitting now contemplating whether to give my poor feet a rest and get up early tomorrow and go visit the Arc De Triomphe Etoile and walk down the Avenue Des Champs Elysees swing by Place De La Concorde and then finish it off with another river ride and maybe better shots of the Eiffel Tower or just crash! I decided to crash for the evening!! My poor feet are screaming at the thought of more walking.

PS: I forgot to thank good old Kevin Rudd for making this possible as well!! Thanks Kev!!

A little History of the Eiffel Tower

For the Universal Exhibition of 1889, a date that marked the centenary of the French Revolution, the Journal Officiel launched a major competition to “study the possibility of erecting an iron tower on the Champ-de-Mars. The tower would have a square base, 125 metres on each side and 300 meters high”. The project proposal by entrepreneur Gustave Eiffel, engineers Maurice Koechlin and Emile Nouguier and architect Stephen Sauvestre was chosen out of a total of 107.

The design

Fifty engineers and designers produced 5,300 drawings, and over 100 workers built more than 18,000 different parts of the tower in a workshop. Another 132 workers assembled them on site.

Construction

Work on the foundations began on January 26, 1887 and took five months, with the workers using only spades. The rubble was taken away by carts drawn by horses and steam locomotives.

The pillars.

While there was no problem building pillars 2 and 3 on the Champ-de-Mars side, on the Seine River side, pillars 1 and 4 required air-compressed foundations using corrugated steel caissons five meters under water.

The deepest foundations lay just 15 meters underground. The feet of the tower were set in each of these foundation ditches (four foundations in masonry, which supported the four pillars, known as truss frames). Assembling the first floor. The difficulty of the assembly lay in the point of departure at the base of the truss frames.

They had to be positioned at a slanting angle so that they would meet the horizontal beams on the first floor. To achieve this, the engineers used hydraulic jacks to move each “foot” and erected an original scaffolding system, on top of which were a number of boxes of sand that emptied to regulate the slant of the truss frames. The jacks no longer exist, but the Eiffel Tower operating company, Société d’Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel, has reproduced them, and they are on show in the Ferrié Pavilion on the first floor of the Tower.

The second floor was assembled with cranes that took the same route as the elevators. All of the parts were built in the Eiffel workshops in Levallois, on the edge of Paris, and riveted into position on site. The Tower was mounted rather like a giant Meccano® with remarkable precision, which was a major innovation at the time.

From the second to the third floor, the carpenters worked wonders and there was not one single fatal accident during the construction period.

The monument was inaugurated on March 31, 1889. On that day, Gustave Eiffel climbed the 1,710 steps of the Tower to plant the French flag at its peak. He was followed by the members of the Council of Paris, including Emile Chautemps, President of the Paris City Council. The Eiffel Tower was the highest building in the world until 1929, when the Chrysler Building in New York topped it at 319 metres.

The four pillars of the Eiffel Tower stand in a square that measures 125 meters on each side. They are oriented in line with the 4 cardinal points.

• The metal structure weighs 7,300 tons.
• Total weight: 10,100 tons.
• Number of rivets used: 2,500,000.
• Number of iron parts: 18,038.
• Cost of construction: 7,799,401.31 French gold francs of 1889.

Paris - France (Day Two)

I took a river cruise down the Seine. This involved seeing so many wonderful and historic buildings from the Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower. It was a cool cloudy down with the occasional rain but nobody cared, we were in Paris France.

To get around Paris the cheapest and best way is the Paris Metro with trains coming every 5 minutes. I have slowly gotten use to this and will have to go back to Belgium when I have got the system under my belt!!

I saw one young couple on the cruise, he a keen photographer and i swear she was in every photo. You see lots of tourist boats travelling up and down the Seine.

I am going to do another ride in the evening since the pictures I took of the Eiffel Tower turned out very dark thanks to the weather. I rolled back at my hotel to a freshly made bed, new towels and thought for a two star hotel I am enjoying my little slice of heaven in Paris.

The batteries in my camera keep going flat much to my frustration so have taken many pictures on my camera but am unable to download to my computer as the program is on the external hard drive back in Australia!!

Paris Day Two - Eiffel Tower

I took a river cruise down the Seine. This involved seeing so many wonderful and historic buildings from the Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower. It was a cool cloudy down with the occasional rain but nobody cared, we were in Paris France.

To get around Paris the cheapest and best way is the Paris Metro with trains coming every 5 minutes. I have slowly gotten use to this and will have to go back to Belgium when I have got the system under my belt!! I saw one young couple on the cruise, he a keen photographer and i swear she was in every photo. You see lots of tourist boats travelling up and down the Seine. I am going to do another ride in the evening since the pictures I took of the Eiffel Tower turned out very dark thanks to the weather. I rolled back at my hotel to a freshly made bed, new towels and thought for a two star hotel I am enjoying my little slice of heaven in Paris.

The batteries in my camera keep going flat much to my frustration so have taken many pictures on my camera but am unable to download to my computer as the program is on the external hard drive back in Australia!!

Paris - France (Day One)

After a relaxing Sunday and the thought of having to spend the rest of the week with my ex-husband, I decided to run-away to Paris. So that afternoon I booked a train ticket to travel with Amelia and did a Google search for a Hotel in Paris. Thank god for Google!!

So on Monday all packed Vincent and Vanessa, drove us to the station in Gent. We got there a good half hour before but by the time I got my ticket there was only 3 minutes left and we had to run and what was worse it was at the far end of the station. Couldn't have been any further. As I stumbled up the escalator trying to catch my breath, I was thinking I will never make the train that was, by this time at the platform. Vanessa yelling at me to hurry up, I managed with the last ounce of my energy to stumble onto the train as Amelia refused to let the door close while Vincent argued with the station master. Great way to bring on an asthma attack and I had no ventolin. After drinking half of Amelia's water my breathing settled down and we were able to relax on the first half hour of our journey. We changed at Brussels with a good 25 mins to spare between change and settled in for the hour and a half it takes to get to Paris.

Only 90 minutes to Paris!! Lord to get to the central coast from Sydney is the same distance. I am so glad I took Vanessa's advice and come to Paris since it is so close.

We got to Paris and Amelia and I parted. I walked to my Hotel called Hotel Modern'Est. Only two stars but clean and close to the metro and the main stations. After showering and resting for a bit, I went for a walk and despite having a map managed to get myself lost and found the Bastille monument shown in the pictures above. The other picture is the boulevard facing away from the monument. I got back to the Hotel with sore feet and was extremely tired.

The Day After

Many woke with hangovers, some so bad they couldn't move. We got home at like 4.00 am, and I finally killed the light at around 5.00 am. I woke around 1.00 pm with no hang over as I didn't drink much, unlike many others.

Vincent's Dad came and picked us up at around 2.00 pm and we set off for another round of touring in Gent.

The first place we visited was Saint Bavo's Cathedral in Ghent (Belgium). The imposing building we see now is the result of a labour of love which took centuries to complete.

The church can be dated back to the chapel of Saint John the Baptist, consecrated by Transmarus bishop of Tournai and Noyon in 942. Traces from a later Romanesque church can still be seen today in the richly decorated crypt of the cathedralyon, in 942.

This was followed by a trip to the Belfry built originally in the 14th century, where a permanent surveillance was held over the city.

Belfry - The clock mechanism

The mechanism of the copper chiming drum can be compared to that of a music box. It is connected with the main clock and is activated every fifteen minutes. The arias we hear every quarter of the hour are parts of existing carillon music, adaptations of classical or contemporary works of music or new compositions of the town carillonneur. The pins are changed every two years. This still happens in the medieval fashion.

The present clock mechanism dates from 1912. The tower clocks need to be wound up daily. This is the task of the clock winders. By means of a crank they lift the three heavy weights of the pendulum clock.

We saw a special alley way where the graffiti artists can express themselves, hence you see very little graffiti around Gent.

Afterwards we were taken out into the countryside and had drinks at Ouwe Hoeve known in english as D'Old Farm originally built nearly 300 years ago, as a parsonage, later became the town hall and inn, and later became the school. This building since 1826 is the local inn. The location of D'Old Farm is in the picturesque village of Deurle (Belgium).

We then visited another village and saw the graves of Vincent's Grand parents and Great Grand parents. Vincent's mother called to invite us back to their place for dinner, where we were served pancakes and coffee and saw Elena.

This river goes to Gent

We finally got home at around 11.00 pm, tired and content. Link to the rest of the days photo's. The day after the wedding.

In the garden at Vincent's parents place

The Wedding

Introducing my beautiful daughter Vanessa, and my new son-in-law Vincent

Stadhuis (City Hall)

This is where Vanessa and Vincent were married. Every Friday the weddings happen here in Gent, where most either sign the paperwork and go to a church and get married or you can get married in the Town Hall itself.

Here is a bit of history:

The town hall is situated on the site where until 1482 the town representatives and guild's men met in separate houses. Because these houses were judged too small and too unrepresentative for such important people, it was decided that a new and bigger town hall had to be built. The first stone of this new hall was laid in 1482. The building was finished in 1484. Very soon, however, also this new hall was considered too small and from 1518 until 1535 a new and much bigger town hall was constructed in late-gothic style.

In 1540 Ghent suffered reprisals from emperor Charles V because the citizens had dared to refuse to pay more taxes to the emperor. By then, only one third of the planned town hall had been constructed. It was only as from 1572 that Ghent could continue to build its town hall. However, the architectural style had changed and several renaissance-style parts were added to the building until the beginning of the 18th century. In 1750 a construction in Louis XV-style was added as the seat of the 'chamber of the poor'. In the beginning of the 19th century the staircases in front of the hall were changed for a visit from Napoleon.

City Hall - Chapel of the Aldermen of the Keure(This is where Vanessa and Vincent were married)

Although the Chapel of the Aldermen of the Keure was never finished, it has a marvellous fan vault. The walls are covered with fine tracery. The neo-Gothic partition wall with gallery was placed at the recommendation of E. Viollet-le-Duc.

The painting above the gallery represents Mary of Burgund, begging for mercy for her ministers. The scene takes place in front of the Castle of the Counts.

History of Belgium

I have had a lot of questions regarding the beginnings of Belgium so I did some research and came up with this:

History Of Belgium

Beginning in 57 BC, Julius Caesar extended the power of Rome into the region of Europe that is now Belgium. The people he encountered there were the Belgae, one of the various Celtic tribes of early Gaul, and the Romans dubbed their new province Gallia Belgica. In the fourth century AD, with Rome in decline, control of Gaul was ceded to the Franks, a Germanic tribe that the weakened empire employed as mercenaries. As the Franks flourished, they decided to dispense with their Roman employers. By 431, they had established an independent dynasty, the Merovingian, with its capital at Tournai. Soon after, under Clovis I (c.466-511), the Merovingians succeeded in pummeling the last of the Romans in Gaul. They held large parts of present day France and Belgium as well as southwestern Germany.

Clovis also adopted Christianity, thus gaining the support of the Church. After Clovis' death the Merovingian kingdom began to fragment, and the Frankish lands did not come together under single rule again until the reign of Pepin III (the Short) in 751. Pepin deposed the last of the Merovingians and founded the Carolingian dynasty, which is named after his son Charlemagne.

Charlemagne succeeded his father in 768 and ruled for almost a half century, creating during that time an empire that covered nearly all of continental Europe, with the exception of Spain and Scandinavia. In 800, Pope Leo III crowned him Emperor of the West. Although Charlemagne spent much of his reign conquering
and subduing various parts of Europe, he also did much to foster commerce and the arts. The beginnings of organized trade along Belgium's rivers was one result of his reign, as was the preservation of classical learning and the arts.

On Charlemagne's death, his empire was divided, and familial feuding led finally to the Treaty of Verdun in 843. Under the terms of the treaty, three of Charlemagne's grandsons split the empire between them. West Francia, under Charles the Bold, formed the basis of France. The Middle Kingdom was given to Lothair, though it would soon fragment. East Francia, under Louis the German, became the basis of Germany. West Francia included the narrow strip of land north and west of the Scheldt river in today's Belgium. The remainder of present-day Belgium was included first in the Middle Kingdom, under Lothair, but it gradually came under the sway of the German kings.

Exploring Inside the Castle

Today we went back into Gent to explore inside Gravensteen Castle. But not before we had to go find a hankerchief for Vincent to wear in his coat pocket for the wedding. After tramping around Gent for an hour looking for this elusive hankerchief and smelling perfumes, my legs were starting to drag as I am so not use to all this walking and we still hadn't done the castle yet!

Vincent works for the tourist bureau in Gent and they gave him a gift for me and Vanessa a free pass each to visit the places around Gent for free. We saved 8 Euro's alone on the entry fee for the castle. I took a million pics inside the castle and here is the link. Inside Gravensteen Castle.

We finally got home around 3.30 pm after me buying a sim card for Europe and purchasing a 10 day pass for the local bus as well. I adore Gent and Belgium. The city is so pretty itself. I am getting use to not hearing english being spoken all the time and I reckon when I go home I won't be use to being able to read all the signs in english and everyone will be drriving on the wrong side of the road!!

Sore feet!!

Walked around the city of Gent today and found meself a Castle!! I went for my first bus ride into the city with Vincent and Vanessa. They went off doing wedding stuff and I wandered off with camera, Vanessa's mobile phone and map in hand. I took over 40 pictures in just under an hour. In the photos I have posted in my blog are pictures of Gravensteen Castle the Dutch name for 'Castle of the Count'. The Gravensteen, was built by Fillips of Alsasse who was count of Flanders between 1157 and 1191.

When we got home we then went and did a quick shop in a supermarket which was very sterile in its layout and I spent 30 Euros in food.

Here is the link for the rest of the photos I took in Gent today:

City of Gent

Link to Photos

Link to my photos. Just way too many to publish in my blog but will put a small selection in Blog, to make it a bit more interesting. Please let me know if you are unable to view the pictures.

Carolyn Travelling Bangkok/Frankfurt