Belgium - Brussels

This is the last entry for our vacation. We had a great time. Both the Netherlands and Belgium had a lot to see and do. Everything from sightseeing to great food and beer. I highly recommend a trip. We actually would really like to go back. I think next time we would spend more time in Belgium though.

Here are some pictures of Brussels. The first is of the guild buildings. these are very similar to Antwerp. Next is the pissing boy. Our tour guide recommending seeing this. Pretty funny. This statue has been here peeing for 300 years. If you want to know more about it go to this link:http://www.worldtravelguide.net/attraction/442/attraction_guide/Europe/Statue-of-the-Pissing-Boy-Manneken-Pis.html. The next picture is of our dinner. We just picked a place at random because we were running out of time. It was awesome. The place we picked was right out of a medieval movie set. The dinners pictured are Salmon with lentils and Flemish beef stew. The stew was made with Belgium dark beer. Outstanding.

Guild Buildings


Pissing Boy


Dinner

Belgium - Antwerp (Guilds and beer)

Antwerp is a pretty cool city. There are a lot of seafood restaurants specializing in mussels. We didn't really spend enough time to actually have some though. We did get another chance to have waffles again. The of course were great. The pictures below are of the guild buildings in Antwerp and a store front that sells Belgium beer. There's a lot of great beer in Belgium. I tried a few and they were all good.

Guild Buildings



Beer Store

Netherlands - Cheese, Wood Shoes, and Windmills

All these topics in a single day trip! We started this day by going to the cheese market at Alkmaar. The cheese here is terrific. We tried goat, sheep, and cow (of coarse) cheese. Historically, I don't like goat cheese. Until today I had never tried sheep cheese. I tried all of theese and liked them all! My wife didn't care much for the goat or sheep cheeses, but we did end up buying 3 different types of local cheese.

This picture is where we actually bought some of the cheese.

This is the main market, buyers select the cheese from a supplier then the cheese is brought into the building in the background and weighed. This view gives you a good idea of the size of the cheese wheels.

This is a better view of the building where the cheese is weighed.

I don't recall the name of the next town we visited but it was all about windmills and what they are used for. The windmills in Holland were used to power all sorts of industry. some of these include: making cheese, pressing oil from nuts, making wooden shoes, and even emptying lakes.

Below is a demonstration of shoe making.

This is the first view as we got off the bus. The photo doesn't do justice to the size of these things.

A closer view of a windmill.

Netherlands - Haarlem and Keukenhof

Haarlem sounds a little familiar right but it might not be what you think of when you think of the Netherlands or Holland. The fact is that Holland founded the New Your city area. Originally New York was New Amsterdam. So the names around the New York City area like Brooklyn, Manhatten, Harlem, etc are all Dutch. The British renamed New Amsterdam to New York when they took it over. Anyway, here are some pictures of Haalem.

During this day trip we also went to Keukenhof. This is the tulip growing region. The area was not in full bloom but it was still really something. Here are some of the pictures.