Tuesday 10 April 2012

Easter Trip Day 1: Travel & Brussels

I am back from a 4 day trip to Brussels, Amsterdam and Bruges which I took with BUNAC/a tour group over Easter weekend. I have given it a little bit of thought as to how I'd portray this trip, and I eventually just decided that chronologically is best for me. So please do enjoy the massive upcoming picture posts! 


The beautiful white cliffs of Dover were technically our first stop as we had to go through French Immigration.



We got through pretty quickly and made our way onto the ferry boat, before rushing to the back to take a bunch of pictures of the cliffs.




This is me with two other BUNACers and fellow Canadian friends, Heather and Meagan. 




This is the first picture I took of Calais, France, from the window of the ferry.



Driving through Northern France on the way to Brussels... It was such a sunny and beautiful day that it was hard to resist taking pictures!



We finally arrived in the beautiful city of Brussels mid-afternoon. The city was incredible and very impressive, with its old buildings and grandeur. A lot of the buildings are so impressive because the city was founded as a Catholic city.






Of course I had to take a picture of this famous little guy, Mannekin Pis. 



These were delicious and economical, as you can see. I am not sure I could handle that much sugar on a regular basis, however!



Lace and embroidery is a big part of Flemish art and culture. There were a lot of little shops filled with lace and I managed to sneak a picture before the stern looking shop-owner saw me. I think in general my experience with the Belgians was pretty cold, but I don't really blame them considering the amount of tourists they have to deal with.





This statue is known as the "Grand Place Good Luck Tradition." You rub the statue for good luck, and apparently all the women who rub it have a baby in 9 months. Ha, we'll see about that one.









Even though the shops were full of Easter chocolate, I resisted temptation purely because I knew getting chocolate at the start of the weekend would mean I would probably eat too much of it over the course of the weekend! I couldn't resist snapping a few pictures of some Easter bunnies, though. 



1 comment:

  1. any of your Castor Valley education coming back to you? Joyeux Paques and les lapins blah blah

    It's funny cause here in Toronto when I go to my OISE classes (FSL pedagogy) all they talk about is French culture=France/Europe .... so weird to me!!!

    It's like Torontonians forget that there are French speaking communities in ONTARIO!!!!!! Weird.

    Also weird, French (core level) starts in grade 4 here........WTH? How much can you learn between gr4 and grade 9 ? NOTHING

    Anywho

    COME BACK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    ReplyDelete