Chocolate, Iron atoms and Tutankhamen, all via Eurostar.

While we were in UK, recently, Andy & I went to Brussels for a few days.  It's a fascinating place, full of history - distant and recent, easy to get around and compact enough to enjoy on foot, for the most part.

We travelled on Eurostar - our first trip in the Channel Tunnel. It took less than two hours from Kings Cross in London to Brussels, stopping once at Lille, in France. We had originally booked our tickets, over 18 months ago, for a pre-Christmas family holiday in 2009. But due to freak weather conditions, the trains broke down in the tunnel, stranding people for hours.  We were already in the queue when this was happening, glad to not be stuck in the tunnel, although disappointed to lose our holiday. So now was our first opportunity to make use of our tickets, before they expired.

The car journey down, and the train journey, both in England and France, passed next to fields awash with bright yellow rape seed flowers - a spectacular sight to see, even through the drizzle:

As well as being the European Capital, Begium is famous for chocolate...

 ...lace...

Belgium waffles, and mussels & chips, which we had on our last night, when the battery on my camera was flat!

Our son had been in Belgium a few days before we arrived and had issued a challenge for us to find Mussels & Chips with a beer for under Euro10.  We think we did even better; for Euro12.50 we also had a belgium waffle and cream for dessert!

(Actually I didn't have the mussels, as I'm not a shellfish fan, chosing a fillet of hake instead. I also didn't have the beer; our waiter brought me a glass of sparkling wine instead, and my meal was the same price.)

So what did we do with our two-and-a-half days in Brussells?

This illustrated map is of the old part of Brussells, which is centred around a huge square, known as Grand Place. We stayed within ten minutes walk of Grand Place, so we walked across it several times during our stay, amused by the endless stream of tour groups, each with a tour guide hoisting a little flag or umbrella to lead their party to the next point of interest.

The square has many (expensive) restaurants, so we didn't eat there, but did stop for a hot chocolate in the sunshine. Here is Andy standing in the square, during the only rain shower we had.

Grand Place is surrounded by very grand historical buildings. Here are a few...

This last one is the Town Hall, where the information centre is based.  On the last morning we saw a wedding party assembled for the photographs, after they had left the Registry Office, in the Town Hall.
Just off Grand Place is the glass-roofed Victorian Arcade, full of boutique shops and cafes;

Then in another drection, just off Grand Place, is the Chocolate Museum:

Housed over four floors in this narrow building, we started with an excellent demonstration by a Chocolatier, followed by several tasting samples:

 The museum part is upstairs, with a floor devoted to the history of chocolate, and cocoa bean distrubution around the world.

This fermented pod shows the white pithy beans, before they are harvested, dried and then roasted.

 The darkest chocolate is around 80% cocoa, 20% cocoa butter/sugar and the lightest is white 'chocolate' which doesn't contain any cocoa at all. We could sample several different cocoa strengths.

 One room was devoted to the history of the chocolate houses which spung up in a similar way to coffee shops. Glass cabinets displayed ornate crockery and serving jugs, designed specifically for drinking chocolate, and various devices and kettles for heating the chocolate:

 Another floor displayed chocolate art, for instance chocolate sculpture and chocolate clothes...

The Chocolate Museum was well worth the Euro 5 entrance fee and very interesting.

Brussells is full of great museums so with only a couple of days to visit we chose the Museum of the Comic Strip for our next stop. Belgium leads the way in this literary genre, with famous cartoon characters like The Smurfs and Tintin...

 Advertising has played a huge role in the history of cartoon characters.  One area of the museum charted the way different products had both promoted and been promoted by various characters in the Tintin stories.

Another area showed the development of the strip cartoon literary genre explaining the unique combination of author and illustrator. 

The whole museum was housed in a fascinating Victorian building, adding to the experience:

On our second day we took the sightseeing tour bus, which travels around the city stopping in key places for you to get off and then catch a later bus to contiue to tour.  This is very good value and takes you almost everywhere else in the city.

We visited St Michael's Cathedral....

 ...which had a surprisingly modern front...

 The huge carved wooden pulpit had been moved to halfway down the church on the right - what a monstrosity!

 ...and the new organ was situated high up on the left side|:

When we rejoined the bus, we then travelled to the business part of the city, which is a total contrast architecturally.

These two buildings are part of the European Parliment, which makes Belguim very multicultural and provides a lot of employment: 

The bus then travelled north, past many other interesting sites, to Bruparck.

First we visited the Atomium, a giant replica of an iron crystal, magnified 165 billion times. It was a symbol of the development of nuclear power in 1958, and built for Expo 58:

 This explanation, on one of the internal pillars, gives a taster of what it was designed to convey:

First we had to queue for a very long time to enter a small lift in the central support, which took us to the highest sphere. A glass window in the roof of the lift provided this interesting view...

The view from the top was superb, a 360 degree outlook of Brussells. Then we had to queue again to come to a lower level sphere.  From here, where there was a coffee shop, we could go by excalator down other supports to even lower spheres:

 This one was a children's area, which was closed. I think it was for school groups to experience 'life in a bubble':

 This was the view of one of the spheres, through a 'porthole' above the excalator: Not all the spheres were open to the public.

It was an interesting experience,  although a little disappointing, after our long wait for the lift.

Also at Bruparck is Mini Europe, miniture replicas of key sites around Europe. We gave this a miss, deciding to spend our money and time at the Tutankhamun Exhitibition in one of the large halls.

There were so many wonderful exhibits, but perhaps the most spectacular is the death mask, which covered the mummy of the young prince:

 Although I had visited the original exhibition in London, as a teenager, many years ago, It was only viewing it now that I began to grasp the true extent of the find  in terms of extreme wealth and opulence.

Another thing that had escaped me was the fact that there were four gold engraved boxes, which were called 'shrines' inside one another, getting progressively smaller...

 ...with then three more coffins, each inside another, before the mummy, covered with the final death mask, was revealed. 

 The bottom of the third coffin is inside the glass case with the mummy inside it:

 It is a fabulous exhibition and well worth visiting.  We each had a headset and control units which we punched in the relevant display number as we reached it to hear the explanation.  There were also several interactive displays, which brought the events of the find to life.

I suppose a trip to Brussels wouldn't be complete without mentioning the 'Manneken-Pis'. This is a tiny statue of a young boy relieving himself into a fountain, placed here in 1619.  It is situated on a busy corner, not far from the Chocolate Museum. We came across it by accident, wondering what the mass of people gathered at the railing were peering at. 

Initially I refused to take a photo of it, thinking it very crass, but later relented.  So here it is, with apologies:

 Here is the chocolate version:

Since 18th century over 650 costumes have been made for the statue. On our final morning we walked past it again to find it wearing a French Legion uniform. I don't have a photo as my camera battery was now flat...

The whole trip to Brussels was relaxing and refreshing and we would certainly use Eurostar again. 

UK Spring flowers & trees, and 'The Passion of Christ'

April in UK was the warmest and driest for a very long time.  After a harsh winter, the unseasonal spring sunshine encouraged trees to blossom early, and I was impacted by the colour that had burst onto the streets.  Here is a sample...

The paths around a local beauty spot were dry for running, and the early morning sunlight was stunning...

On Jose's birthday, she received so many beautiful flower arrrangements, we ran out of places to display them...

It truly was a feast of colour, beauty and amazing perfume.

A tradition in Walsall town centre is the reenactment of Jesus being crucified on that first Good Friday. I try to go along and this year took these photos of the drama and witness to the multicultural market traders and shoppers.

It is always moving to watch and be part of, as the Christians on the walk, which follows the Way of the Cross, from Jesus' trial to his crucifixion, also form the crowd who would have been there jeering and shouting for Him to be put to death. There are also appropriate hymns and readings at the different 'stations'. 

Afterwards I always find people I haven't seen for a while and quickly catch up with them.

On Easter Sunday, which is also called Resurrection Day, a small group always meet on Barr Beacon, the highest point in Walsall, for a Sunrise Communion service.  On the previous day the sunrise was glorious and so I decided to go to Barr Beacon on the Sunday morning. 

However, the weather was overcast and we didn't see the sun at all - so rather disappointing. Nevertheless, celebrating Jesus rising from the grave with others out in the open was still special.

The following week I read in the local paper that vandals had once again attacked this war memorial on Barr Beacon and stripped off half of the lead roof - what a shame.