Ieper and Brugge A long weekend in Ieper and Brugge because a) they're both awesome and b) we were popping in to the Cloth Hall in Ieper to see an exhibition of photographs being staged by one of Judith's chums.
Eurotunnel Friday - Here we are on the Eurotunnel on the way out. We came close to missing our train after a smash on the M25 left us stuck in traffic for an hour. Good job we set of early.
Novotel A short while later we were comfortably parked in the spacious car park under the Novotel in Ieper.
Beer It was late afternoon and our late arrival in Folkestone meant we'd not had the opportunity to have any lunch, so we decided to pop in to In 't Klein Stadhuis in the Grote Markt (main town square) for a bite to eat. And a beer obviously.
Cloth Hall As the Cloth Hall was open until 6pm we thought we'd nip in and see if the Belfry Tower, which you can see in the photo, was open.
Belfry Tower It was, so we set off up the narrow, spiral staircase. Fortunately there's one for going up and another for coming down again.
Bell Room About half way up the tower is the room they keep the bells in. I can testify to the fact that this is not a good place to be at a quarter past the hour. Or presumably half past, quarter to or on the hour.
Belfry View There's a great view from the top.
Cathedral There's also a lovely view of the cathedral next door.
Kasteelgracht After descending back to earth we went for a short walk around the Kasteelgracht, which offered excellent views of the Ramparts
Kasteelgracht
Menin Gate After a short while we arrived at the Menin Gate, the famous World War One monument.
Menin Gate I couldn't decide whether I liked this view of the Menin Gate or the previous one best so I've included them both.
Lion This lion statue (and a matching one on the other side of the road) were gifted to Australia after World War One to thank them for their efforts during the liberation of Belgium. For the centenary of the war the Australians have lent them back.
Tom's Bar After walking about a bit more we stumbled across an excellent bar called Tom's Bar, which, for some inexplicable reason, was completely deserted at 8pm on a Saturday evening! And I mean completely. We were the only people in there. The barman conceded that it was unusually quiet, but said they usually got most people in between ten and midnight.
Beer So we stayed for a couple of lovely beers. Tom's Bar has a menu of over three hundred Belgian beers and is definitely worth a visit, particularly as it's only a couple of minutes walk from the Grote Markt.
Toy Car A rather impressive looking child's pedal car in a shop window.
Supra A rather impressive looking blast from the 1980s, this Toyota Supra was looking in excellent condition considering it must be around thirty years old.
Hotel Beer There was just time for our complimentary beer back in the Novotel before we turned in. Unfortunately, having not eaten for several hours by this point, we got the munchies and had to head out in search of some food, finally ending up having a hamburger and chips in Frituur 't Kattekwaad in the Grote Markt at midnight!
Market Day Saturday - It was market day in the Grote Markt. The Cloth Hall and cathedral were looking their usual magnificent in the morning sunshine.
Les Halles Due to our unexpectedly late night, we'd got a bit of a slow start and didn't make it to Les Halles until around 11am, by which time they'd stopped serving breakfast (if indeed they actually served breakfast at all). So Judith decided to jump straight in with a beer, which is what everyone else in there seemed to be doing anyway, regardless of the early hour.I can confirm that Flemish Stew goes down quite nicely for late breakfast.
Exhibition After "breakfast" we went to the Cloth Hall to see Judith's pal's exhibition. He's just visible here on the right with a crowd of German students who have asked him to sign copies of his book they've just bought from the Cloth Hall's bookshop.His exhibition documents the work of the bomb disposal teams that still disarm a couple of hundred tonnes of WWI munitions every year that are dug up by farmers and on building sites across Belgium. There is more information about the exhibition here.
Kazematten Brewery After leaving the exhibition we headed to the neaby Kazematten Brewery, which is a) situated in the location that the famous WWI newspaper The Wipers Times was published, and b) only open to the public on Saturdays.Unexpectedly, not only is it only open to the public on Saturdays, it's only open between 3pm and 5pm so we were about an hour early. Doh!
"Lunch" So we retired to a nearby watering hole for a light liquid lunch.Having returned to the brewery when they were open, we were told that their English speaking guide was stuck on a train and could we come back in an hour. So we went for a walk around the pretty Majoorgracht.
Ramparts Cemetery This is the cross in the Ramparts Cemetery.
Majoorgracht I did say it was pretty.
Majoorgracht
Kazmatten Brewery Back at the brewery, we finally got to do the tour. Here's the room they make the beer in. At the moment they only make three types - the Wipers Times 14 (a blonde beer where the 14 fortunately refers to the gravity or some such and not the alcohol content), the Wipers Times 16 (a spicy amber beer) and the Grotten Sante, which they brew under licence from some famous local brewery that no longer exists.
Wipers Times 14 Here's the poster for the Wipers Times 14, which can be regularly spotted around town if you keep your eyes peeled.
Samples Needless to say, the tour ended with a tasting session. This is the Wipers Times 16.
Street Out for a walk after the brewery tour, we passed this miscellaneous street that I thought was so impressively deviod of motor vehicles that it deserved a photo.
Cathedral View A miscellaneous view of the cathedral.
Lego Menin Gate While we were out walking, we popped in to the Ariane Hotel to check out their breakfast menu (which Trip Advisor says is the best in Ieper). In their reception area they had this impressive Lego model of the Menin Gate.
De Trompet So as not to end up in the same sorry state as the previous evening, we thought it would be prudent to get some food in before it got too late so popped in to De Trompet in the Grote Markt. I had a(nother) very nice Flemish Stew (my second of the day!), but Judith was not quite so keen on her chicken skewers.
The Last Post From the restaurant we could hear the Canadian Military Band warming up for their march to the Menin Gate to play the Last Post at 8pm, so we headed off to watch. As usual there was a large crowd, which is particularly impressive considering that they do this every day of the year. I highly recommend attending if you have the opportunity.
The Walker There was just time for one last beer of the day in The Walker before heading back to the hotel.
Cloth Hall There was a lovely view of the illuminated Cloth Hall on our way through the Grote Markt on the way back to the hotel.
Hooge Crater Museum Sunday - Another lovely sunny day. We checked out of the hotel, packed up the car and headed out of town to do some sightseeing.A couple of miles east of Ieper is the Hooge Crater Museum. Although pretty much everywhere was considered to be pretty grim during WWI, the Hooge Crater seems to be considered to have been one of the grmmest of the grim. Which was distinctly at odds with its appearance on this lovely sunny day.
Shells Outside there were piles of old shell casings.
Shells Inside there were even more, along with lots of very interesting exhibits. They've also got quite a nice cafe, which serves light lunches that are ideal for people that are planning to stuff their faces in Ribs 'n' Beer in a few hours time.
Hooge Crater Cemetery Across the road from the museum is the Hooge Crater Cemetery, which, as usual, is beautifully tended. There are 5,916 graves in this cemetery, of which 3,570 are unnamed.
Ijzertoren About ten miles north of Ieper, near Diksmuide, is this very impressive memorial, which is generally referred to as Ijzertoren on maps, but seems to commonly also be referred to as the Yser Tower (which is apparently the English translation of the Flemish Ijzertoren).
Old Monument In the right of this photo you can see the remains of the old monument, which was blown up after WWII by some people who thought that some other people had been too chummy with the Nazis during the hostilities (Wikipedia has a good explanation for anyone that's interested).The new monument was built several years later and, at 276 feet, is the tallest peace monument in Europe.
Ijzertoren Judith walking towards Ijzertoren.
Ijzertoren
Ijzertoren View Ask you might imagine in a country as flat as Belgium, the view from the top of a 276 foot tall tower is quite commanding.
Portrait Mode A photo of Judith on the top of the tower using the blurry-background portrait mode on my phone. I thought it looked rather like she's on a golf course.
Bunker We got the lift back down the tower (it is 23 floors after all) and started to explore the museum. The third and fourth floors of the museum are a quite eerie and disorienting reconstruction of a WWI network of tunnels. However, after a few minutes of getting lost in there we emerged onto the fifth floor...
Atrium ...where there was an impressive view up the inside of the tower, showing that the museum had eleven further floors! Unfortunately we didn't have time to make it all the way to floor sixteen and bailed at floor eight to head to Brugge for a date with dinner.
Novotel For convenience we'd booked into our usual venue, the Novotel, which is a) easy to drive to, b) has a massive underground car park right next to it, and c) is located close to a small Carrefour Express supermarket, which is handy for filling the car with lovely Belgian beer.
Hotel Beer Speaking of which, there was just time for our complimentary beer in the hotel. I'd been gagging for a Zot since we'd arrived in Belgium, but I'd been waiting until we made it to Zot's home city of Brugge to have one.
Snuffel Bar We just barely had time for another swift beer in the Snuffel Bar before hopping two doors down to...
Ribs 'n' Beer ...Ribs 'n' Beer. Yay!
Busy It opened at 6pm. We turned up at 6:15pm and you can see how busy it already was. As usual we saw them turn away loads and loads of people who had turned up without a reservation.
Ribs The ribs were awesome as usual. No idea what has attracted Judith's attention here.
Sunset After leaving Ribs 'n' Beer, we went for a bit of a walk to help it all settle a bit before bed. Back at the hotel we were greeted with this lovely sunset over the rooftops.
Beach Monday - Another lovely day and we had some time to spare so we decided to drive down the coast for a while. We stopped somewhere near De Haan (I think) for a walk on the beach.
Sea Judith gamely had a splash about in the sea, which she assures me was quite cold indeed.
Beach
Train A couple of hours later and we were back on the train home.
Fridge And a couple of hours after that I had transferred the most of the contents of the boot of the car into my beer fridge. That should keep me going for a bit.And so ended another fantastic trip to Belgium.