BELGIUM 2016: Two Basilicas

By now you know that Astrid and I LOVE church architecture here in Europe and make a point of grabbing it whenever/wherever we can.

It didn't take long to find out from our B&B hostess near Leuven that there were TWO basilicas in the area we might want to check out.  And we did!

First of all, as a protestant, I didn't grow up with cathedrals or basilicas...just churches.  My dad was a Baptist preacher.

So, this helps me:

CHURCH:  "A building for public Christian worship."

CATHEDRAL:  "A Christian church building in which a bishop has his official seat (cathedra is Latin for "chair").  A cathedral is usually large and imposing, and many cathedrals are important in the history of architecture."

BASILICA:  "A large and important Roman Catholic church that has been given special ceremonial rights by the Pope." More than 1,580 churches worldwide have been honored as basilicas, 69 of which are in the USA.

Okay then!  These are the two vastly different basilicas we visited while on our wee Belgium trip a couple weeks ago:

1:  Basilica of Our Lady of Scherpenheuvel, in Scherpenheuvel-Zichem, Belgium.

We had first seen it from afar one day and asked our hostess about it,

not knowing it was a basilica.

The next day we made sure we visited it!

It was consecrated in 1627 and raised to the status of a minor basilica in 1922.

As basilicas go (or any churches, for that matter), this is relatively small.

(I know small is a relative word, but take my word for it.)

Basically, you walk into a circular room with the high altar in front of you.
(I'm standing at the entrance in the top-middle image.)

Up above is the dome; down below is the "center point."

"As in heaven above, so on earth below" ran through my mind.

Off to one side was the pulpit....

and in the back/front, above the entrance, was the organ.

But outside that inner, cozy worship sanctum, was a concentric circle of 6 chapels.

You can actually walk from one chapel to the other and look out from each into the sanctuary.

In fact, sometimes I had to stand inside the chapel to get the best images of the sanctuary.

That's how small this space is.

Inside and outside the chapels, you already know what grabbed my attention.

Definitely worth visiting on a gorgeous, sunny day!

2.  Basilica of the Sacred Heart, in Brussels, Belgium (municipality Koekelberg).

The next day was our trip to Brussels for the Christmas market, using the Metro from the Atomium.  Our hostess, knowing how much we liked the first basilica, told us about a quick stop outside of Brussels to visit quite a larger basilica...and so very different from the first.

OMG!  From the Metro we walked through a park with the basilica ever in front of us.

After crossing the busy street in front, we saw it up close and personal,

little knowing until then that the architecture was ART DECO,

inspired by the Sacré-Coeur Basilica in Paris.

The first stone was laid in 1905, after which construction was then halted by the two world wars.

It was consecrated as a basilica in 1935 and was completed in 1970.

It is the largest building in Art Deco style in the world, 292 ft high and 540 ft. long.

I can't begin to describe this religious space.

Huge.  Open.  Light.  Whimsical.  Fun.  Free.  

And just when I thought I had already seen the nave, there was another one.

It's like the worship space never ended...becoming several spaces/places.

See what I mean?

The church can accommodate 3,500 people.

And not just one dome, mind you.

To be honest, I can't imagine anyone sleeping on the job while there!

But stranger things can happen, as we all know.

And so it was that in such a short span of time, we got to see two of Belgium's most unforgettable basilicas.  There are 8 more in Belgium...ready for our next visit, perhaps?

But, wait!  There are 8 in the Netherlands, 2 of which we have seen, so maybe we need to start at home first?

BELGIUM 2016: The Christmas Markets

As you may know, or not, Astrid and I have an on-going tradition now of taking a few days off following America's Thanksgiving weekend at the end of November.  It helps me get through that one holiday of the year that I miss the most.

This year we decided to make home base as close to Leuven in Belgium as possible, planning on making the Brussels Christmas market our highlight for one day, 30 km away.

So, off we drove to the Atomium outside of Brussels to park for the day,

a no-brainer at €6, plus purchasing an all-day Metro ticket.

But when we got to the Grand Place, or Grote Markt, we had a shock.

No Christmas market there because they were setting up for a concert that night.

The so-called Christmas market was in the side streets.

But first, we wanted to see if Manneken Pis was dressed up for the occasion.

He was, but not for Christmas!  Instead, he was wearing a Scottish outfit

 in honor of St. Andrew's Day, celebrated on November 30, that day.

We're huge fans of Scottish Andy Murray, #1 in men's tennis right now, so this was fun to see.

[Note to self:  one day go visit the City Museum to view Pis' hundreds of outfits.]

We then walked back to the Grand Place for lunch where Astrid got her mussels in Brussels.

She can have them, I always say, while I tried a wonderful chicken and mushroom stew.

While we were there, we spent a few minutes looking at the market square that we love.

Since we were last there, it all seemed spruced up with lots of extra gold touches.

This time I paid more attention to some of the architectural details.

Who thinks these up?!

And because that's what we were there for, we did start checking out the Christmas market,
up and down a few of the side streets.

Can you tell how disappointed we were????

It wasn't anything like what we're used to, by German standards.

So we ended up leaving, thankful for Manneken Pis and the mussels, and promising to check out

if by chance there was another Christmas market in the area for the next day.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

YAY for Astrid's magic Googling fingers that evening because she did indeed find another Christmas market, only 56 km east of Leuven in Hasselt (still in Belgium).

THIS time we were thrilled beyond words, making up for everything we had "lost" the day before in Brussels.

We arrived late afternoon before the crowds descended, which we prefer.

It's nice to walk around without bumping into people, you know!

And true to high standards, this Christmas market had everything,

including an ice castle with sculptures and an indoor ice-skating rink.

To be honest, some attractions remind me of being at an American county fair!

And if you have a Christmas list, you surely have plenty of places to buy 

something special for that special someone.

Me?  I bought a Stuart minion ornament for Astrid.  :)

But to be honest, our eyes were on the Glühwein and....

the braadworsts.

OMG.  We both died and went to heaven!  

(As you know, it doesn't take much.)

By that time, the early evening magic starting lighting up the place.

Isn't it wonderful how Christmas is the Season of Light!

Well, and also of Santa...or Sinterklaas, for the Dutch.

There were enough Santas there to sink a ship.

But this one was set apart, a reminder of the Dutch Sinterklaasdag on 5 December.

That's the day 7 years ago when I arrived in the Netherlands from America

to begin my new life with Astrid.  We were married 2 months later.

You know I'm gonna say it again:

YES, Virginia.  There is a Santa Claus!

Grandson Nicholas in the Netherlands: Week Two

As I write this, Nicholas has been gone less than 24 hours.  How is that possible?  Tears in my eyes this time but with so many happy memories from the second week of his 2-week visit to see G'ma here in the Netherlands.

Day 8, Friday, 24 July:  War Bunker and the Lindeborg Happy Hour

It so happens that every Friday afternoon I play Rummikub in our senior-center's recreation hall.  We all decided that I'd still do it this particular Friday so that Nicholas could experience our Happy Hour afterwards.

So, while I played Rummikub, Astrid took Nicholas to this WWII Bunker 599 from 1940.

We had seen it before in September 2013 when Chris and Chad were visiting from England.

It's been split in half so you can see what it was like inside.

When they came back, it was time to join me for our Borreltje (Happy Hour) after Rummikub.

Nicholas had the chance to sample the hapjes...bite-sized, deep-fried goodies.

The lady at bottom-left just turned 100, so the photo-op was a must.

100, 70, 15:  That's about the size of it.

Day 9, Saturday, 25 July:  Rotterdam

Unbenownst to us at the time, this day ended up having the most severe storm weather in Dutch recorded history for July since 1901. 

So guess what we did?!  

We took the Waterbus from Papendrecht to Rotterdam on the Nieuwe Maas river, a 45 min. ride.

Besides visiting the Maritime Museum, we walked around the area to see the crazy architecture.

Nicholas and I giggled all day because it was so blustery.

Day 10, Sunday, 26 July:  Scheveningen Pier and Den Haag

Grabbing good weather, we drove to the North Sea after all that stormy craziness,

to walk the Scheveningen Pier and beach.

Look what Astrid found.  A wee little star fish (zee ster).

And yes, that's Nicholas' voice saying "they regenerate."

Just as we left the beach, it started to rain,
but we still drove to the Peace Palace in nearby Den Haag (The Hague).
We told Nicholas that if Hitler were still alive when the United Nations was founded in 1946,
he would have been one of the war criminals tried here.

Day 11, Monday, 27 July:  All Day at HOME

About this time into the second week, we all started needing HOME time and made the decision to do nothing.   In fact, about every other day Nicholas was able to sleep in till noon, which gave us all some "me" time.

Astrid decided to make her home-made macaroni specialty for Nicholas for supper.

Yum Yum Yum Yum.  I think he had 3 helpings?!

During the afternoon he finished his 1,000 dot-to-dot drawing of Amsterdam.

In fact, we both did since I had made a copy for him from the Cityscapes book I had just purchased.

(Thank you, Anne, for the great idea!)

Amsterdam was the first of 20 cities in the book, which made a good souvenir from our trip on Day 6.

Day 12, Tuesday, 28 July:  Brussels, Belgium

Okay, so this isn't the Netherlands, but because we can drive to Belgium within 30 minutes and to Brussels within 1.5 hours (80 miles), it made sense to make an extra-special trip to Brussels, the seat of the European Union, just to say we did it...and to give Nicholas another country-notch in his belt.

 We first drove to Mini-Europe on the north side of the city where we parked for the day.

On-n-off rain did not hamper us at all.

We told Nicholas he saw all of Europe in 1.5 hours.  HA!

From that point we all got Metro day passes and took the train to the European Parliament.

I told Nicholas this was like going to the Capitol in Washington, D.C., where he visited with G'pa Bill.

It was Astrid's and my first time to see it, too, so a real sight for sore eyes.

Then it was back on the train to the Grand Place in city center.

Mussels in Brussels was a must for Astrid and Nicholas,

followed by a real Belgian waffle and hand-picked chocolates by Nicholas.

BTW, at the start of the day Nicholas wondered if anyone would recognize his shirt's logo.
I told him that I bet at least one person would!  And indeed, one guy said "GO DUCKS."
Nicholas wants to go to Oregon once he graduates from high school!

Day 13, Wednesday, 29 July:  All Day at HOME (again)

It was laundry day and Nicholas got to sleep in again.

This is how we do it...in our main living area where some clothes hang to dry,

and the rest goes to the community commercial-sized dryer.

See Nicholas' bed for the 2 weeks?  Yup.  The couch.

And once he was up, he had the entire afternoon to "game" on his laptop.

Day 14, Thursday 30 July:  Zuiderzee Museum in Enkhuizen

Our last full day together was perfect weather-wise, NE of Amsterdam.

I don't think we could have had a better last day together!

There was enough interactive Dutch experience to last a lifetime.

And because Nicholas bought a family plaque with his "Grannan" name there (now on order,

 see the handshake?), he said it was a "clutch gift" right at the end of his trip.

We'll take it to him when we visit Atlanta in October.

Day 15, Friday, 31 July:  Back to Schiphol Airport for the Trip Home

The last meal we had before taking Nicholas back to the Amsterdam airport was erwtensoep,

which reminded me to show the Dutch food experiences he had while here.

As I said on Facebook, he tried everything Dutch we offered him:

 uitsmijter (fried eggs on cheese, ham and toast), erwtensoep (split pea soup), hapjes (bite-sized goodies), appeltaart (Astrid's specialty), patat friet (fried potatoes in a cone), pannenkoeken (pancakes), zoethout (licorice root), beenham (hot baked ham) sandwich, gerookte haring (smoked herring), suikerbrood (sugar bread from Friesland)...
and many ijsjes (ice creams). 

He was such a good sport!

 After lunch, as we left for the airport, I already had a sob in my throat.

In fact, as I've written this post today, the sob has returned.

The only good news about that is it'll be 2.5 fast months before we'll see him again,

on our annual trip to Atlanta.

I guess the other good news is that we fell in love with him all over again.

Though it's always good to get back to "normalcy," we both miss him like the dickens.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, G'ma.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Nicholas.

Now it's time to make the photo book...full of second blessings as we review them.

A Series of Very Fortunate Events!

Eat, Drink and Be Merry

It's my turn again at Vision and Verb, where I expand on the subject, of course.
Eat, drink and be merry...for tomorrow we die...or diet?

In the spirit of that celebration, I'm dying to show you what just happened recently.

Remember the Koorfestival (Choir Festival) I told you about in my last post? At one of the venues I just happened to see our town photographer for the paper who is often out-n-about at the same times and places we often are, especially when we're home on a Saturday. He, Dries, also just happens to live here at our Lindeborg senior-living complex, along with his wife. He is one of the writers and photographers of our De Lindeborgpost magazine which comes out at the beginning of every month.

What happened is this: When I saw Dries at the one choir venue, I started snapping away, taking pictures of him. I remembered once eons ago, when Bill and I were married, that one of Bill's uncles died but when they tried to find photos of him, there were none/few. He was the photographer of the family and was never in any of the pictures. So I wondered if the same happens to Dries.

When the choir finished, I ran over to Dries and told him I had more fun taking pictures of him than of the choir. HA! And that evening I sent him the ones I had taken, just for his enjoyment. Here's a collage of a few of them:

Well, you know how one thing leads to another! Dries checked out my blogs from my e-mail signature and before anyone could say Jack Sprat, he wrote me asking if I'd be willing for him to interview me for our October De Lindeborgpost magazine. Since flattery gets almost anyone almost everywhere, YES, OF COURSE! The lucky cherry on top was that Astrid was home (because she had a sinus infection, remember?) and was able to fill in all the gaps of our broken English and Dutch.

After 2+ hours and almost nothing written down on his paper, we all got to know each other better...before he was off to another photo assignment. He wrote nothing down because...you guessed it...he learned everything he needed to know from my 3 blogs: this one, Hart & Soul, and Vision & Verb. Wow. The computer of his brain must have been working overtime. And that's when I realized my whole life's story is there on the internet for the world to see. Gulp!

So, on October 1st last week, our new Lindeborgpost hit our mailslots and look what was there, on four separate pages:

Okay, so it's in Dutch (click to enlarge)!
But you get the idea of it and the honor for me to be included this way. Dries was very kind and even included Astrid in it, writing about how we met, our marriage, etc. He was the one who chose which images to use. My only stipulation was that he would include one of the images I took of him! And he did (as you can see).

Speaking of Eat, Drink and Be Merry...this past Saturday we drove a total of 310 km (193 miles) to and from the Zeeland province in SW Netherlands. I'll post more about that starting next week but for now, two fun things.

Zeeland is known for its mussels. Surely you've heard of "mussels in Brussels?!" Since Zeeland borders Belgium (where Brussels is , of course), our guess is it's the Zeeland mussels you get in most of Belgium. So when Astrid said her wish was to have mussels for lunch, I knew I would make it happen for her (lunch/supper out is always my treat on Saturdays, no matter where we are). Sure enough, in Middelburg, the capital of Zeeland, there on the city-hall square, we found a delightful restaurant that served mussels even better than Astrid was expecting. It's her thing, not mine, but I enjoyed it for her as though I, too, were queen for the day:

My dancing queen with her mussels in Middelburg, capital of Zeeland province.

The other thing (reminiscent of my last post and the pictures of the Middle-Eastern boys), as we were walking off lunch through Middelburg, we passed these guys hanging out their window. I said to Astrid, as I often do, "Now that's a picture!" But just then, they started looking at us and I put my camera down before shooting even one picture. Astrid was shooting, though, and they asked her if they'd now be famous?! That started a conversation between her and them, while I took advantage of the moment...and she got their e-mail address (which she's picking up in the image below). These guys are students at the Roosevelt Academy there in Middelburg and were totally respectful and adorable:

Maybe I have a calling: to shoot young men everywhere we go and see if I can make a photographic case study of them. HA!

Eat, drink and be merry! Why not. Tomorrow we either die...or diet! Not bad, considering the alternative! (Don't forget my Vision and Verb post today. Thanks.)