France- Sacre Couer, Nice

 We travelled to France on Saturday 13th August.  We stayed at CBC's brother's flat the night before as there was a train strike so it would have been impossible to get there from home. As it was, luckily, the DLR, Elizabeth line and Circle lines were running so we were able to get there from his. We met CBC's mum at St Pancras for breakfast.  The queues to get into the Eurostar terminal were massive but well-organised and moved quickly.   It left on time, at around 10.20am and the journey went quickly.

We arrived at Gare du Nord in Paris and quickly joined the taxi queue to take us to Paris Gare de Lyon where we were to join our TGV train. Luckily the queue moved quickly and we were soon in a taxi. It cost around 14 Euros.  We didn't get the Metro as CBC's mum struggles to walk far, particularly with luggage. I was also glad as my soft bag on wheel had already got a slight rip at the seams and some small holes in the base which I would prefer not to stress too much. This meant I am rather over protective of anyone else picking it up as if it is picked up not evenly, the rips would get worse.

As it happened,the taxi man picked it up before I could stop him...and caused another rip in another place!AR HGHGHGHGA!!! CBC and his mum kept mocking me and making fun for being so overprotective of my bag but it wasn't them that had to cope with it!

At Gare De Lyon, we went to a Pret to get something to eat (they did. I just got a drink).

When the platform showed for our Nice train, we had to get moving. We had 10 minutes to go and of course, it was the most far away platform and our carriage was right at the end of a really, really, long Double-decker train!!! It was SUCH a walk and we only had about 2 minutes before our train left.

The train was due to take 5 hours but the journey seemed to go really quickly. We all had a bit of a sleep and we read books and ate snacks. I had bought cucumber, carrot sticks and tomatoes plus some fruit, crisps, chocolate and some M&S sandwiches.

The view from the train is brilliant once you reach the coast- it really is picturesque so I recommend it.

The journey was mainly pleasant and relaxed except for 2 incidents...one, where we happened to be staring out the window and saw some children by the rail tracks who threw rocks at the train!! The massive bang when they hit was really scary.  There was also a massive argument between two men...one who we think was really rude to his children!

We arrived to Nice at around 9.30pm at night and despite our hotel being only 800m away, CBC's mum insisted on getting a taxi...it cost 20 euros for 800m essentially! RIP OFF!

The hotel was very pleasant but we had to cart the luggage up a winding staircase.

We were too tired to go out for dinner so we went to sleep after a cup of tea with CBC's mum in our room.

The next morning, after a very pleasant breakfast in the hotel, we headed out to look around Nice. It was scorching hot but luckily, there were regular benches with white canvas canopies so you could sit and enjoy the sun without getting burnt.

I briefly paddled in the sea.

We headed to a lovely restaurant in Nice La Femme du Boulanger where we had a very pleasant 2 course menu with actual vegetables!!

We continued wandering  and came across the church,Sacre Couer.

It was a beautiful,modern church which had some lovely art works and windows of various kinds.

I took some photos to share some of them.

The outside.

The fotn was flanked by a beautiful mosaic.

Here there were coloured ribbons tied for prayers.

Various pulpits had mosaics too.

The main window, which had a banner saying, Dieu est Amour (God is love) was really striking.

The area behind the altar had more mosaics.

The altar was carved stone and there were more traditional stained glass windows.

As with many French catholic churches, there are various altars around the sides. Perhaps stations of the cross?

Here are some close ups of the main stained glass window.

After a while, it was time to meet CBC's brother, sister and her husband who had come to France by plane (we were the eco-friendly contingent!)

They picked us up in the hire car (sadly necessary for the location of our house for the week) and we headed off to La Motte, near Draguinan, an hour or so away from Nice where we met the host of our house but more of the house another day.

xx

Antwerp Day 3- Chocolate, churches and charity shops!

It's been a while since my last post on our Antwerp holiday!  I finally managed to get some photos copied across.

On our Monday in Antwerp, we woke up fairly late and after a lazy breakfast, had to hotfoot it across town on the Velo hire bikes to near the railway station. We had booked to go to Antwerp's Chocolate Museum. Having been to, and loved the Bruges Chocolate museum in 2019, I was excited for this one.

We arrived and put our bags in lockers.  They told us that the whole exhibit was Covid safe with nothing we needed to touch and was timed with all doors to sections so that people in groups didn't have to have any contact with other people. It was very clever.

The whole museum was really interesting with a detailed history of chocolate from bean to processing, to wrapping to all the different types and important Chocolatiers. It was hugely informative and fun to see.

One part of the exhibition showed you a vintage Belgium chocolatier and you got to hear from the woman who ran it (a reenaction)

One part showed some of the most iconic individual chocolates and their shapes in massive form

and introduced you to the great innovators in chocolate.  Here above is the Guylian shell.  Apparently, the most recent innovation was a truly new type of chocolate- Ruby Chocolate!

There were a few sections where you could see chocolatiers decorating and making chocolates.  There are opportunities to join demonstrations but sadly there were none when we were there which was sad as I ADORED this part of the Bruge chocolate museum!

This section here was where they introduced us to the ethical side of chocolate making and how the Chocolate Line is trying to support the communities who harvest and grow cocoa for them.

There were many 'instagram photo' type locations for you to take your picture.

As we progressed through, I became more and more disappointed at the lack of opportunities to TRY any chocolate.  At the Bruges one, there were chocolate button dispensers in various places.

 

It was only in the last room (before the shop), that we FINALLY got to try some chocolate. We were met by a lady who handed us a spoon each and showed us how to operate these melted chocolate machines.  They would dispense a sample of melted chocolate of all the different blends and combinations onto your spoon.  We started with those blends with a really large cocoa content and progressed to lots of different ones including the aforementioned ruby chocolate.

The warm liquid chocolate was delicious!!  We even managed a couple of samples of a few of them as the lady just left you to it!

We went into the shop where CBC chose some presents and some treats.

We then made a hasty stampede towards St Charles Borromeo church where I would be meeting one of my favourite Belgium blogger, the wonderful Ann!

We were pretty hungry and went into a nearby cafe where we ordered some food, hoping it would arrive quickly (which it didn't!).  Luckily, Ann was lovely enough to come and join us whilst we ate out lunch!

It was SOOOOO exciting to see Ann in real life after seeing her in beautiful pictures for so long! She is just as beautiful and stylish  in real life as she is in her photos!  She's also so incredibly kind and friendly! I've often been incredulous over Ann's writing- there is no way I could write in a language other than my native one in such an idiomatic way than Ann does and she is JUST the perfect person to chat to! It's so nice to be able to be able to natter and talk about those things you can't when typing.

Once we'd eaten our lunch, we headed to St Charles Borromeo- a well known Baroque church. It was built in the 1600's.  Sadly, the original 39 ceiling paintings by Rubens and lots of other works were destroyed, around about 100 years after it was built, in a fire.

It looks fairly undecorative from the outside, but the inside is WONDERFUL!

There is a wonderful Rubens altar painting.

The church is crammed full of things to look at- marblework, wood carvings, paintings and decorative floors. The organ is pretty exciting too!

There were confession booths here- so intricate!

After this, We headed off to......yes.....THINK TWICE!  For anyone who does not read Ann's blog, Think Twice is the most incredible Secondhand clothing chain in Belgium who have a very vast array of vintage clothes at reasonable prices.  They then have sale days where items get progressively cheaper until the final day where EVERYTHING is 1Euro! Ann is the Think Twice queen!

I was fortunate enough to be there with Ann on the penultimate 2 Euro day!  Because of Covid measures, we had to queue outside. At which point, CBC took himself off to go and seek a loo, which gave Ann and I an opportunity to have a proper chat which wouldn't bore him through not knowing all the things we were talking about!  Her we are in the T2 queue! You can see the T2 poster advertising the sale on the window!

We finally made it into the shop!   We walked around and realised we were very compatible shopping partners, showing each other things we though the other would like and giggling about things!  The selection was really good! 

We both ended up making purchases- Ann one skirt and me, a couple of items to add to my previous purchases from an alternative T2 I'd visited the previous day (there are FOUR in Antwerp!)

I was really sad when we had to leave so I walked with Ann to meet Jos, her husband, who was coming to pick her up in the car.  It was really lovely to meet him too!

We'd had SUCH  a jolly, easy time and I felt SO privileged to be able to meet someone who has become a good friend via blogland over the past few years! The nice thing was that we ended up texting each other all through my visit (and beyond) and it made my holiday that bit extra special that I had a friend who I could share my adventures with, who knew exactly what and where I was talking about! Ann had already given me lots of brilliant suggestions for places to visit!

That evening, CBC and I headed out to dinner to a bistro near Volkstraat which served some traditional Belgian dishes and I took the opportunity to choose the dish Ann had mentioned to be earlier when we asked about traditional Belgian dishes. I THINK it was called Endives au Jambon. Apparently endives or chicory was dicovered by a Belgian farmer in 1830.

CBC and I are HUGE Chicory fans so I was gleeful to try it.

As you can see, I was served the most ENORMOUS portion- that's my hand right next to it! It was IMMENSE.

A thick layer of bechamel cheese sauce with ham rolls and lots of endives plus mashed potato.

I discovered, after wadingt through one half, that all the MASHED potato was on the side I left till last and I'd eaten all the endives and ham on the left so my meal ended up being rather heavy-going on the mash at the end but it was a GREAT choice.  CBC had the beef stew. Yes, he forgo his veggie ways to try it. When in Belgium....

It had been a rather wonderful day and I wondered what would be next?

Oh...you want to see my T2 purchases????

Well, as well as the two skirts I showed in previous posts (the red daisy one and the blue/purple stripy glittery one, plus a woven leather belt), I bought the above.

Most useful were the navy camisole and the corduroy rose skirt which I wore whilst there. I've now worn everything except the rainbow dress and the teal top!

Oh...and here's an unheard of photo of me trying CBC's cherry beer. I think it was a La Chouffe beer.

I LOATHE and DETEST beer.  Watch me drink it and see what true horror and abject disgust looks like (apparently it's hilarious) but CBC insisted I try this and it was pleasant! I even took an extra sip when he went to the loo!

Hope you are having a lovely day!

xx

Amazing Antwerp Day 2

 Well, when we woke up on Sunday morning, both CBC and I were very pleased to realise that we had slept deeply.  The bed in the Sud D'Anvers corner flat was incredibly comfortable! Both of us were very reluctant to get up!

We made breakfast- granola, tea and juice for me then toast.  CBC had Coffee instead of tea. There were wonderful church bells ringing as we ate breakfast and sad musician that I am, discovered that my three china receptacles (I had two cups of tea there...shhh) created harmony with it so I had 10 minutes of amusedly joining in with the bells. Our apartment had birdfeeders attached to it and we delighted in the blue tits who came really close to our window landing in the tree. They didn't seem to notice us!

Once we were ready, we started walking up the main street from our apartment until we reached Nationalestraat.  We passed a T2 shop that sadly didn't open for another hour or so.  We headed through town, marvelling at the sunshine.  Our first destination was the MAS museum. Museum aan de Strom.  You can visit the terrace on the 9.5th storey for free to gain a wonderful 360 degree view of the city and port.

The building is really intriguing itself with vast curved, rippled glass panels and imported Indian red sandstone with medallions representing those who built it (I think!) . 

The museum's exhibits and galleries are mainly about Antwerp and its connection to the world but there are temporary exhibitions too. We didn't go into visit it as we wanted to get out and about though I was intrigued by the exhibition about people and a picture that represents their heritage and who they are. People of all ages were photographed with something representing their heritage. People were pictured with sports equipment,instruments, tools and all sorts.

Once we had climbed all the escalators, admiring the view from the boulevard on each floor, we reached the rooftop where we saw views all around.

Once we had climbed back down the escalators, we decided to go and seek the Naval Port Authority building which had been added to by the renowned architect Zaha Haddid in 2016.  We decided that we'd like to use the Velo hire bike scheme which, for those of you in London, is a bit like the Santander/Boris bike scheme.

I recommend this as a great way to get around Antwerp quickly  Yes,the bikes are pretty heavy and not the best bikes but they are really reasonable. You can either register by App or by internet.  

It costs 5 Euros a day, 11 euros for a week and I believe 55 Euros for a year.  How it works is, once you have paid for your time period, you type your passcode into the screen at the end of each Dock for bikes. It then tells you which number bike to take and it releases it to you. You can then use that bike for 30minutes maximum but you must return it to another dock by then.   You always enter your passcode to check it has registered your return. You must then wait 5 minutes before you can get another bike. 

This works brilliantly for short trips and really helps you to get around. You can get quite far by the bikes.

We registered and then headed out to the Naval building.  Here it is:

Once we'd taken photos, we decided to dock our bikes and then after 5 minutes, picked up a new one to return to the main part of town.

Our next destination was the Vleehuis, recommended by Ann- the history of music and musical instruments in Antwerp.  It's only open Thursday-Sunday, so this was really our only day (Sunday) that we could see it.   It cost 8Euros to enter

The museum is housed in the former Guildhall, Vlee Huis means "Meat house".  In around 1899, after another building was built to house the Meat House, the building was sold to become the place for storing the Municipal archives. It was renovated and in 1913, opened as the Museum of antiquities housing some 80,000 objects included musical instruments, ceramics, metals, architecture and iconography.  By the 1970's, the museum became more focused on musical instruments as more and more keyboard instruments were being restored and eventually, in 2006, reopened with the main focus being music, dance and sound in general with particular regard to the history of Antwerp.

The museum was quite dark inside, probably to ensure preservation of the instruments but it also makes it atmospheric.  There were some brilliant chronological display boards charting the history of music in Antwerp.

The artefacts include instruments, manuscripts, books, paintings, models, manuscripts.  In terms of what part of music history is covered, there is particular reference to Minstrels, military music, bells ringing, public concerts, dance, opera, music in the home and dance.

Here are a few exhibits I enjoyed:

Here's one of my favourite instruments, the Hurdy-Gurdy.  It is operated by means of a handle/crank on the right hand side.  When you turn it, it turns the wheel which then rubs the strings (like a bow on a violin, but bow on a wheel rather than a straight bow). You press your fingers down on a sort of button keyboard which then presses down the strings to change the pitch- a bit like you would on a violin or guitar but via buttons doing the pressing rather than your fingers touching the string.  It has various strings including the Trumpet strings (which make a rasping voice) as well as more sonorous violin-sounds.  It's a bit like a musical meat mincer! I think they are SUPER cool and I would LOVE to learn to play one but they are reaaaaaaaaally expensive!

Here's a video from Patty Gurdy, telling you about them if you are interested:

Bells are an important part of the history of music in Flanders cities and here's a great carillon featuring various sized bells. You can hear concerts of these in the Summer in Antwerp cathedral. Lots of church towers have Carillons.

You can see that one of the hall is devoted to the history of keyboard instruments.

Here's an example of one of the scores. You can open various drawers to view these closely. It's very neat and compact.

One of my favourite early instruments is the Serpent- which is apparently an early form of the tuba. It's a bass instrument and you play it by buzzing your lips and blowing into the mouthpiece at the top and changing pitch by adding fingers to the holes.

This hilarious picture pictures a Shrove Tuesday special instrument called The Bladder Fiddle. On Shrove Tuesday, the world turned topsy-turvy and normal conduct went out the window and things went a bit crazy.  This mad instrument was extremely noisy:  a rope acted as a string, a pig's bladder as the sound box,  and a serrated wooden stick acted as a bow. Bells and cymbals on top completed the cacaophony! 

Here's a sub-contra bass recorder. Yes, it is that long!

Did you realise how big some church tower bells are?  I often wonder how on earth they raised these so high up considering they are made of bronze?  Tiny towers and stairs? How did they raise them!?

Here's an early salon piano.

What a beautiful string instrument this is!

I wouldn't want to meet this one on a dark night!

Here is a beautifully ornate harp.  Nowadays, even a modest priced concert harp might cost you £20,000 or more. Plus, you need an Estate car to transport it!

CBC and I loved this exhibit piece which shows you how the piano developed in terms of pitch range over the years up until the 88 key concert grand of the Romantic era, as extended by Pleyel.

Here was an example of a military tabor drum used in the army, usually accompanied by the fife.

Here's a set of early clarinets as well as some bassoons and a flute.  Flutes didn't become metal until the  Romantic era, 1847, when Theodore Boehm introduced the metal, keyed flute at the Paris Exhibition.  The clarinet was not introduced to the orchestra until the classical era, the time of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven.  It was invented around c1700.  I only discovered at my concert last weekend, that Haydn didn't include clarinets in any of his symphonies until his 99th symphony (which we performed)- that means he only used it for 5 of his 104 completed symphonies!

Downstairs in the crypt of the hall were several very interesting exhibits.

You can see a really well-explained workshop for the making of brass instruments here.

Another part of the basement included mechanical music devices like music boxes.

The best part for me was a bell foundry which shows you the different stages of creating bells! What an amazing craft. I remember Ang telling me about the sad closing of the Whitechapel bell foundry and I was really glad to see this!

Once we left the Vleehuis, we were hungry so we headed towards the square where  St Charles Borromeo church is and found a cute cafe for some lunch.  I got this delicious Smashed avocado on toast (with beautiful salad) and CBC had a salad.

On the way home, CBC and I took bikes back to the nearest Velo bike dock near the Centre for Tropial diseases and then CBC went back to the apartment and I headed to THINK TWICE on Nationalestraat...but more from that another day! 

We chilled out at the apartment for a while- I read my book and we drank tea.

For dinner, we had booked a table at the hugely popular Thai restaurant opposite our apartment.

As we were due to sit outside in their covered outdoor area, I wore a grey cashmere sweater (bought in Florence when we got engaged in 2012) along with a grey skirt I bought in Think Twice plus my brown brogues.

The Thai restaurant was really delicious- we had a wonderful platter and of course, I had my beloved Thai Green prawn curry then we headed home for a relatively early night!

Day 2 was really fun and interesting!