23 minutes in Brussels
Jul. 12th, 2013 08:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
millionreasonsTurns out that not many people want to aller à Bruxelles at 8.04 on a Tuesday morning: my carriage is quieter than the quiet coach to Malvern. In the absence of a summer vacation week away, Ik gaar naar Brussel to see Charlotte, Did and their not so tiny offspring, Henry. I spent the money my mother gave me to buy a posh birthday dress on a train ticket. I wonder if it's just me - and I suspect it can't be - who has a slight worry that on returning from the train toilet or buffet car that one's possessions will be gone, seat occupied, and a denial that you (or your travelling companion) were ever there. Either it's a general anxiety (perhaps caused by becoming separated from one's parents as a child) or we've watched too many films. Or we're in the wrong carriage.
Eurostar trains (fast, reliable, air-conned) make British trains look awful (the journey time to Brussels is less than to Malvern), but on the other hand, European trains, or rather Northern European trains (no-one likes Trenitalia) with their futurist feel and spacious seating make Eurostar look rubbish. The first time I took the €*, in 1999, I was astonished by the fact you could go into a tunnel and emerge into a different country. Now it seems a little dull, the flat plains of the Northern France countryside - the water-towers, red-roofed farms, polytunnels, monstrous pylons - seen too many times before, like Dover port as a child on numerous French camping trips. Sometimes, I think the purpose of life is merely to see new things - temporarily, then a return to the familiar. I don't want to backpack. People who take 3-6 months off to go travelling are kidding themselves. If travelling becomes the norm, then staying still, stationary, in the same place becomes the holiday.
Then: a spire, a solitary windmill, a hothouse flashing uniquely, the surprise of Lille, an avenue of coppiced trees, a motorway with foreign trucks, a crumbly farm roof done out in photovoltaics, lavender fields, les vaches qui s'assoient.
Arrive into a city gleaming with heat and walk around for a few hours, taking in fountains, giant plant pots, lunch in a Flemish cafe (I still can't help but feel that Dutch is just English in a silly accent - perhaps this is how Steve MacLaren got confused) in St Catherine, the view of the city from the Sablon area, and a air-conditioned tram out to Charlotte's flat, which is next door to the Bois de la cambre. I am roped into reading Henry's dinosaur book to him, which brings up many questions: What is the difference between a diplodocus and a brachiasaurus? Why is a frog's face like that? Also: Were you smaller last time you were here? A child's eye view of the world, there.
Whereas once we'd be out trying every single beer in a Brussels Central bar, nowadays it's one Leffe, half a Kriek and I'm ready for bed.
*
Charl's appartment block has both a swimming pool and a sauna, so it'd be rude not to try them out. Afterwards, we go for a stroll in the bois, around the lake, over on the cheerily-manned ferry to goose island (which cost €1 to get there, but is free to come back. Chris de Burgh's refusal to pay the ferryman would mean that he wouldn't get a free sweetie) to have lunch sur la terrasse of the Chalet Robinson, a bistro in a Swiss type building. Pasta and salad en plein soleil. It's highly pleasant.
The restaurant is full but the park is empty; I suppose the bois is the equivalent of Hyde Park or Hampstead Heath, but with a fraction of the visitors. I'm not the first to say that London would be twice as good with half the people.
I have no hayfever here, as if someone has waved an anti-itch wand. It can't be that Brussels is less polluted than London as there are cars everywhere, and it can't be just the lack of London plane trees; I was sneezing all over Great Malvern and Worcester last weekend. It's enough to make me want to move here.
On the train home, I am seated behind a woman with 5 (five) kids under 5 years old, all of whom grizzle, shriek, scream, cry, moan, whine, wail and screech all the way back to London. You can imagine my joy.
Eurostar trains (fast, reliable, air-conned) make British trains look awful (the journey time to Brussels is less than to Malvern), but on the other hand, European trains, or rather Northern European trains (no-one likes Trenitalia) with their futurist feel and spacious seating make Eurostar look rubbish. The first time I took the €*, in 1999, I was astonished by the fact you could go into a tunnel and emerge into a different country. Now it seems a little dull, the flat plains of the Northern France countryside - the water-towers, red-roofed farms, polytunnels, monstrous pylons - seen too many times before, like Dover port as a child on numerous French camping trips. Sometimes, I think the purpose of life is merely to see new things - temporarily, then a return to the familiar. I don't want to backpack. People who take 3-6 months off to go travelling are kidding themselves. If travelling becomes the norm, then staying still, stationary, in the same place becomes the holiday.
Then: a spire, a solitary windmill, a hothouse flashing uniquely, the surprise of Lille, an avenue of coppiced trees, a motorway with foreign trucks, a crumbly farm roof done out in photovoltaics, lavender fields, les vaches qui s'assoient.
Arrive into a city gleaming with heat and walk around for a few hours, taking in fountains, giant plant pots, lunch in a Flemish cafe (I still can't help but feel that Dutch is just English in a silly accent - perhaps this is how Steve MacLaren got confused) in St Catherine, the view of the city from the Sablon area, and a air-conditioned tram out to Charlotte's flat, which is next door to the Bois de la cambre. I am roped into reading Henry's dinosaur book to him, which brings up many questions: What is the difference between a diplodocus and a brachiasaurus? Why is a frog's face like that? Also: Were you smaller last time you were here? A child's eye view of the world, there.
Whereas once we'd be out trying every single beer in a Brussels Central bar, nowadays it's one Leffe, half a Kriek and I'm ready for bed.
*
Charl's appartment block has both a swimming pool and a sauna, so it'd be rude not to try them out. Afterwards, we go for a stroll in the bois, around the lake, over on the cheerily-manned ferry to goose island (which cost €1 to get there, but is free to come back. Chris de Burgh's refusal to pay the ferryman would mean that he wouldn't get a free sweetie) to have lunch sur la terrasse of the Chalet Robinson, a bistro in a Swiss type building. Pasta and salad en plein soleil. It's highly pleasant.
The restaurant is full but the park is empty; I suppose the bois is the equivalent of Hyde Park or Hampstead Heath, but with a fraction of the visitors. I'm not the first to say that London would be twice as good with half the people.
I have no hayfever here, as if someone has waved an anti-itch wand. It can't be that Brussels is less polluted than London as there are cars everywhere, and it can't be just the lack of London plane trees; I was sneezing all over Great Malvern and Worcester last weekend. It's enough to make me want to move here.
On the train home, I am seated behind a woman with 5 (five) kids under 5 years old, all of whom grizzle, shriek, scream, cry, moan, whine, wail and screech all the way back to London. You can imagine my joy.
