Hello from Paris

Travelers at one of the windmills in Bruges

Typical Bruges buildings

Dinner at the Grand Plaza surrounded by beautiful buildings in Brussels

Some of the Buildings in the Grand Plaza

Hotel Deville in the Grand Plaza

Hello from Paris France

Tuesday Evening; August 12, 2008 (second travelogue of this trip)

I am starting this travelogue on the high speed train between Brussels and Paris. This train travels at 186 MPH!

Sunday we went to Bruges, Belgium. This is another historic city that used to be an ocean port. It has mostly been restored and is quite a tourist attraction for European, as well as world travelers. There are lots of canals and several windmills. We got to to tour two of the windmills. They were used for grinding various grain products. They have to be mechanically turned to face the wind.

I have included a couple of photos of Bruges. It is impossible to really show the great architecture. One beautiful church “Church of our Lady” (started in 1220 and took over 200 years to build) had a Michelangelo sculpture “Madonna and Child” (1504). It was the only one of his works to leave Italy.

In Bruges we had lunch at the local brewery. It was a great lunch and the beer was even better. Jos said that there are 854 brands of Belgium beer registered with the government. We were only able to try 5 or 6 brands, but they were all great.

Sunday evening we went to a very special dinner. We had gone there before, and Pat really enjoyed it. The last time there were perhaps 10-12 courses with wine or sorbet in between each course. The place is actually a house where the couple prepares and serves the meals. This time there were not as many courses, and some of the courses were a bit “different”. For those of you who know Pat and Jeanne, they both had raw salmon! Even though the dinner experience was not as good as it was previously, we had a great time.

Monday we toured Gent some more. We went back to the beautiful cathedral (St. Baafskathedraal) where they have an unbelievable painting from 1432, by Van Eyck. The colors are still magnificent, and the painters of that period had some sort of technique that makes the painting look three dimensional. We also went a neat castle (“Castle of the Counts”) that was close to the hotel

Monday afternoon we went by train to one of our favorite places in Europe – the Grand Plaza in Brussels. We did some walking around and had dinner in a sidewalk cafe surrounded by the magnificent buildings in the Grand Plaza (dating back to the 1400s. I have included a couple of pictures.

Today we traveled to Paris. So far, I am having fun in Paris if you can believe that!

More in a few days.