Skipping ahead: Vaux-le-Vicomte

A post about Italy will come at some point... what an adventure! Six days, three cities, a conference presentation, countless trains, a handful of boats... and tons of pictures. And this time it's thanks to Momma Wendy for coming along :)

In the meantime, yesterday I took a half-day trip out to Vaux-le-Vicomte, a lovely 17th-century chateau and garden built by Nicholas Fouquet, a financial minister for Louis XIV. Or at least he was until Louis threw him in jail for embezzling millions whiiiiich... he didn't do.

In the stables they had an impressive collection of mostly nineteenth-century carriages of all kinds, French and English.

Including this chaise, meant to be carried along by two mules. I mean, really. (And why mules? I have no idea.)

 Never know when horse anatomy in French might come in handy! ;) 

There were a dozen or so rooms in the chateau that were fully furnished (not with much of anything original since Louis XIV stole most of it... but it was of the same time period), including several really beautiful cabinets. 

The dome was open (for an extra €3) so I had to climb up, of course. I only climbed the last flight or two of this staircase as I was starting from the second floor, but I'm guessing it's the servants' stairs. 

Last flights up to the top:

 Main entrance (to the right) and outbuildings (possibly where the family of the current owner lives?). 

View of the gardens from the dome. A golden statue of Hercules is on the distant horizon.

The gardens were designed by André Le Nôtre--one of his first big successes that led to other commissions like his most famous project: Versailles. The restoration of the gardens--well, part restoration and part full realization of Le Nôtre's plans since Fouquet was arrested before everything was completed--is an ongoing project. The estate fell into disrepair in the nineteenth century; cattle wandered through the fields and drank from abandoned fountains. Sugar magnate Alfred Sommier bought it at auction in 1875 and his family opened it to the public about a century later. 

 This room on the ground floor was meant to be Fouquet's bedroom but it wasn't finished, so on the night of a grand soirée in honor of the king in August 1661 (Louis had Fouquet arrested a few weeks later), a play by Molière was performed on the platform. Apparently it combined theater and ballet and music by Lully. 

 There is an impressive library containing over 3000 volumes--I was a little jealous of the women that were working on the collection that day. And that gorgeous tile floor. And the shelves and shelves... 

 As was customary at the time, mansions always included a suite of rooms for the king so he had a place to stay while traveling. This was Fouquet's bedroom for King Louis... not good enough, I guess! 

 The ceiling of this room included intricate plasterwork that Louis replicated at Versailles. 

 An eighteenth-century bathroom. People didn't use water for washing all that often because they were afraid of spreading communicable diseases like syphilis...... not quite, y'all. Apparently even in 1978 one in four French residences didn't have a bathroom. You can bet I'm grateful our apartment has both shower and toilet, even if they're across the apartment from each other (better than one upstairs and one downstairs like our apartment last time, though!).

Unfinished plasterwork in what would have been Fouquet's office.  

 Sumptuous dining room. 

 This wine cellar... yes, please! 

Enormous basement kitchens. 

After touring the chateau I headed out to the gardens, somehow resisting a €54 hat to try to stay out of the hot sun. (I later remembered I had my umbrella! #travelwin) This was my view at lunch: 

Then I meandered through the gardens, slowly getting further away from the mansion, checking out the different levels that are part of Le Nôtre's genius:

 I couldn't figure out quite what was going on with the grotto. Were these 17th-century statues that had worn away? Were they only supposed to look like that? Why was the water so disgusting? 

 One end of the grotto had this cool statue. 

And more lions at the foot of the stairs because lions! 

 It was a little on the warm side but still such a beautiful day! From this distance and angle it looks like the outbuildings are wings of the chateau--exactly what Le Nôtre intended. 

 Hercules at the far end of the garden. I think I read that this statue is a copy of an ancient statue and was only recently added to the gardens--it was a part of Le Nôtre's plans that wasn't finished in the 1660s. 

 On my way back to the château I found a lovely wooded path beside the main gardens. 

As I've been working on this whole trip, some time to rest is not only allowed but probably a good idea, especially in the shade with another lovely view! 

I would definitely recommend Vaux-le-Vicomte, especially if you're curious about Versailles but not into crowds. It was not at all crowded, much cheaper, a similar train ride... of course it's less impressive than Versailles, but you still get the idea. 

And then, after meeting Steve and Ramiro back at Schola Cantorum for Roy Howat's lecture on Debussy's first book of preludes (among other things), we stopped by the grocery store to get some dinner, when I found: 

I had no idea there was a generic version of my favorite cheese! Was it ever delicious with a fresh baguette and a bottle of wine. The smuggling plans begin... ;) 

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Four Days in Belgium: Ghent & Brussels

And I've gotten even farther behind, but here's a try at remembering what we did on the last day and a half of our trip!

We collected our bags from the hotel and caught the bus to the train station. I don't know if I've mentioned it before but the Flemish are SO HELPFUL. There are people at every train station in blue polos there to help you figure out where you're going. They come up to you and ask you if you need help. Since I've gotten a lot better at asking for help while traveling, they were an utter delight. Makes things so easy when you're not sure which train you should take even once you have a ticket in-hand.

We caught a train to Ghent and once there, put our bags in a locker to explore the city a little. Ghent is a little more of a living city than Bruges; the tram into the center was crowded and there was more real life hustle and bustle. Naturally, Rick's City Walk was our itinerary...

St. Nicholas Church (mostly 13th century) from St. Michael's Bridge 

Inside St. Nicholas. Some people (like my husband) say if you've seen one European church you've seen them all, but they're all so different! I loved this one with its stout columns that made the ceiling seem especially high. And let's not forget, people spent their entire lives working on a project they'd never see finished. Without any modern machinery. Crazy. 

Next up was the Belfort (another one, yay!!). It's mostly 14th century with the top section added for the 1913 World's Fair. Emma Kay and I enjoyed another climb! 

There were several stops on the different floors on the way up the tower that gave interesting history of the city:

If I remember correctly, this dragon--created in the 1300s, I think--used to be on top of the Belfort and became the symbol of Ghent. I called him Henry (who knows) and he was so cool!! There is a replica up there now. 

I was also crazy about the beautiful tile floors in that first floor room: 

The second floor room was about the carillon(!). I wish I could remember more details, but alas, they're gone. 

Views from the top: 

 St. Nicholas

St. Bavo's Cathedral, our next stop!

St. Bavo's is a tick younger than St. Nicholas, built in the 14th-16th centuries. St. Bavo was a rich aristocrat who gave up all his wealth for an impoverished life in the church. The building itself is pretty cool, but the most famous thing about it is the Ghent Altarpiece by Jan van Eyck! No pictures allowed, but it was pretty amazing to see in person. It's 15'x11' and the first-ever masterpiece in oil paint. Plus it was stolen by the Nazis and recovered from a salt mine by the Monuments Men. My favorite section by far was the choir in the upper left: 

Those expressions! 

After some ice cream and a failed attempt to climb the ramparts at the Castle of the Counts (last entry 45 minutes before closing, womp womp), we headed off to Brussels and checked into our hotel. 

Brussels is even more of a busy city than Ghent, and honestly wasn't our favorite stop of the trip. But we did feel like it got us ready for our return to Paris. 

The main attraction of historic Brussels is the Grand Place, literally the Big Square. It's a photogenic place like the square in Bruges, but there was a sort of temporary amphitheater set up in the middle, and I didn't get any good shots. We walked around and had Thai food for something different for dinner, and tried chocolates at some different shops (as you do in Brussels). 

The next morning we went to the Musical Instrument Museum, which was overwhelming and great. I have a zillion pictures... it's too overwhelming to go through them right now and I have got to get this post up. Suffice it to say that they had a wide-ranging collection of Western instruments and an incredible collection of instruments from the rest of the world, too. And the audioguide consisted of samples of many, many of them. Easy way to lose three or four hours, for sure! #nerdalert 

We poked around the rest of "Upper Town," checking out the Old Masters' Collection at the Royal Museums of Art: 

Then it was time for one last waffle before leaving Belgium behind. We tried the Waffle Factory, which had a kind of waffle stuffed with chocolate or nutella or speculoos... I went for the speculoos for something different (Trader Joe's cookie butter is basically speculoos) since I usually get nutella anything and everything, and it was tasty! 

I would definitely like to revisit Belgium someday, especially Flanders, and especially with a car and some more time to explore the country side and the coast before crossing into the Netherlands, too. There are always more places to visit! And special thanks to Emma Kay for joining me on this adventure and being such a gamer :) 

Four Days in Belgium: Bruges

As I continue to attempt to catch up... this may load slowly as there have gotten to be a ton of pictures! #sorrynotsorry

The previous post includes some of the pictures from Emma Kay's and my morning adventures, but here are some more. We spent an hour or two in the Belfort, which was incredibly fun! Carillons are so freaking cool.

It's impossible to capture how the whole system works, but here you can see some of the bells being struck by the carillonneur, seen (sort of) playing below: 

The part of the carillon you play is like an organ, but you play with fists rather than fingers. And your feet are working, too. 

The views were quite beautiful--we really lucked out with the weather!

270 km. from my sweetheart 😔😉

When the carillonneur isn't playing--which is most of the time--the quarter hours are played by this big rotating drum (estimated at nine tons!!) that has different pins on it that trigger the bells. The music is changed every two years... understandable that they wait that long because it must be an incredible amount of work. Again, so big and in such a small space that it was hard to capture, but we got to watch one in action in the Ghent Belfort, so stay tuned! #nerdalert

When I could finally drag myself out of the Belfort, we continued around town:

We went into the Groeninge Museum which features early Flemish art, or the Flemish primitives. Jan van Eyck (1390-1441) was an early adapter of oil paint, and a couple of his works caught my eye, like this one of his wife:

It is important as a portrait of a regular person, rather than Jesus, Mary, or some duke or king--the advent of humanism.

After lunch we meandered into the Church of Our Lady to see the Michelangelo. Check out the hiiiiiigh brick ceiling!

These are the tombs of Mary of Burgundy and her father, Charles the Bold, who were the last local rulers of Bruges in the late fifteenth century, before it got swallowed up in the Hapsburg empire.

I don't recall seeing tomb paintings like these before--we saw them in several churches in Belgium. An angel swings an incense burner to bless the dead person inside. Fourteenth-century, I think.

Took us a hot minute, but we found Michelangelo's Madonna. He worked on it in 1504 while taking a break from working on the David. 

We continued our sight-seeing blitz at St. John's Hospital, built in the 12th century and where pilgrims to Bruges were cared for in their last days. There were displays about medieval medicine, but... no thanks. St. John's also houses some important works by Hans Memling (1430-1494). He made a bundle doing portraits of wealthy businessmen and other visitors to bustling Bruges.

I thought this diptych was pretty neat: Memling uses 3-D techniques borrowed from the Italians to put Martin van Nieuwenhove and Mary and Jesus in the same room. You can't tell from the photo, but there's a mirror over Mary's shoulder that proves they're sitting together. Pretty cool! 

Next up was a break for a canal tour! 

I didn't get many good pictures but it was fun to be on the water--a really nice change of pace. After that it was finally time to have a Belgian waffle! Rick recommended the huge waffle's at Lizzie's and boy was he right. 

Oh my god. And I had a masala chai that complimented it so well. I'm drooling just thinking about it. Emma Kay got chocolate sauce and some ice cream and oh holy moly. Best dinner ever. 

That evening we took another of Rick's guided walks because we planned to bike it the next day and were just intimidated enough by the combination of cobblestones, other bikers, tourists, and cars that we figured walking it first wouldn't hurt. 

I took a series of door pictures that I might put on instagram one of these days (@sara.e.mcclure), and we saw a couple of other neat things. One was this whale sculpture made entirely out of plastic found in the Pacific Ocean: 

It was beautiful and really sad--an important reminder about the incredible amount of different types of plastic that we use and use and use and use... 

The goal of the end of our walk was a windmill! I didn't tell Emma Kay about it because I knew how much she was looking forward to seeing a windmill... the best part of playing tour guide is being able to surprise someone with something I know they'll enjoy. :) 

St. Janshuys Windmill (1770)

 And there was even another in the distance 😍

When walking to the second windmill we noticed a drawbridge going up to make way for a looooong barge going through the system of locks at this canal. When down, the drawbridge lets cars pass through the medieval Kruis Gate to Bruges. So fun!

Completely worn out by this point, we made our way back to the hotel where I proceeded to have a nearly sleepless night, womp womp. But we soldiered on! 

We got our bikes without incident and made our way back out to St. Janshuys windmill. It was open so we climbed up and went inside for a look at all the gears that ground grain for bakers in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Bruges. 

It was a steep climb! And yet another gorgeous day--we really lucked out! As we pedaled on along the moat, we saw more windmills: 

Eventually we crossed the moat (after having to wait about fifteen minutes for a barge that crossed under the drawbridge and then had to wait for the lock to fill so it could move on) and headed north toward Damme. It was such a delightful ride--almost completely flat, about half of it in total shade, and between farmers' fields and the canal. 

 PONIES! 😭😍

We decided not to take the time to go into Damme but it looked inviting!

Ugh Belgium, you're just so cute. And with a couple more cute views of adorable Bruges, we returned our bikes, bought some beer for my brother, and made our way to the train station and to Ghent...