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Location: Blogs Simon and Melody's Blog |
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| Posted by: supersi |
Friday, February 16, 2007 |
I love castles because they bring me back to a totally different era. Not only can you admire the architecture, but you can walk through the different rooms and learn about the lives of the people who lived there centuries ago. It’s always interesting how much of a contrast life was back then to life in the present day.
The only example of a fortified medieval castle local to Brussels is 13 miles south in the small town of Beersel. I bought a ticket for a train with one connection from Bruxelles Gare Centrale. Changing trains is a big deal in a foreign country. You have to pay attention to each stop to make sure you get off at the right one, then you have to find the right platform for your connection and make sure you get on the right train at the right time to complete the journey. Not easy when everything is in another language, and any small mistake could land you in the middle of nowhere!
Thankfully I arrived at Beersel station with no difficulties. The “station” was really nothing more than a platform, with open fields on one side and a few houses on the other. The three story, 13th century castle is set in a wooded area and surrounded by a moat, which you cross via a drawbridge. The only problem was, that even though the drawbridge was down (and the moat dry), the front door was shut with a sign that read, “Closed for the season”. Closed?? What kind of fortification was this? Upon further reading, I found out that Henry II of Witthem and his wife, Jacqueline de Glimes, have not lived here since the early 1400s. Well duh! Of course it’s closed! Hopefully the French don’t get wind of this, or no doubt an invasion would be imminent, and lovely Belgium would be no more. That’s a sad thought. Who would provide our chocolate truffles, or more importantly, the lace doilies for our coffee tables?
I went back to the platform and stood there by myself for 20 minutes, looking nervously at the horizon for any signs of the French cavalry, when finally a train appeared. It turned out to be the same train I had taken on the way there, and I expected the ticket checker lady to say, “Zat was a short visite, non monsieur?”, or, “No one ‘as habiter zer pour 600 ans. Hopefully ze French don’t find out!”
When I got back to Brussels I took the metro to the north end of the city to visit the Atominium. The Atominium is a giant cluster of spheres representing the atomic structure of an iron molecule enlarged 165 billion times. It was rather “last century” and was built for the 1958 World Fair, but still pretty cool nonetheless. I had also wanted to visit Mini-Europe, but that was likewise “closed for the season”. It was a beautiful sunny day though, so I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the Grand Place and adjacent streets in central Brussels, and enjoyed some mussels at a sidewalk café.
Soon it’s on the Eurostar back to lovely England, where thankfully all the castles are still open. |
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Re: The Drawbridge is Down but Nobody’s Home |
By kathleen on
Wednesday, February 21, 2007 |
| Loved your castle descriptions and your pictures--all those beautiful old buildings. Our children are Tintin fans (as in reading and memorizing every one they can lay hands on), so they were interested to see your Tintin photos. |
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Re: The Drawbridge is Down but Nobody’s Home |
By supersi on
Wednesday, February 21, 2007 |
| I just *loved* Tintin when I was a kid. Did you know that the Smurfs is also a Belgin creation? |
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Re: The Drawbridge is Down but Nobody’s Home |
By supersi on
Wednesday, February 28, 2007 |
| Note: photos are here. |
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