Lille Flea Market

On the first weekend in September, Europe's largest flea market is held in Lille France.  Lille is just about an hour's drive from our house, so Kyle and I decided to check it out.

There are vendors all throughout the streets of Lille and they do sell everything.  As one would expect, there are lots of antiques - furniture, china, toys, linens, books and more.  You can even find plenty of mounted antlers if you are so inclined.

In addition to the antiques there are vendors selling cheap cosmetics, shoes, candy and other dollar store type items.

The big food item at the Lille market is mussels.  Restaurants hold a competition to see who can create the largest pile of mussel shells.  They have big bins to contain the shells and then let them pile up through the weekend.  Imagine millions of people, hot sun and unwashed seafood shells and you will know why Kyle and I opted to attend early on Saturday rather than late on Sunday.

I did buy a few things.  Those things will just have to remain identified as things, as they were all gifts.  And the recipients read this blog.

All in all a fun day and an opportunity to experience another part of Europe.

Battle of Somme

Our recent excursion to Normandy included a good amount of history.  We saw the Bayeux tapestry which tells the story of William the Conqueror becoming king of England, we visited sites along Omaha Beach and we drove through some of the contested territory of the Battle of Somme.

Canada maintains a site that includes the trenches of the French and English allies, no man's land and German trenches as well as several Commonwealth cemeteries.  The site is staffed by Canadian college students and visitors can receive free private tours.  We walked amongst the trenches, across no man's land and stopped at three cemeteries on the property.

Over the years parts of the trenches have caved in, so they are neither as wide nor as deep as they were when they were in use.  Visitors can still get a sense of how many there were, how they zig zag and how far they were from one another.

At this point along the front, no man's land was quite wide.  The allies had alot of territory to cover when they decided to go on the offensive against the Germans and there was no place in which to take cover.

On the site is a memorial to honor the Newfoundlanders who died in horrendously huge numbers.  At the time Newfoundland was not a part of Canada but was a separate dominion of England.

Also at this time was a practice of creating battalions and regiments of friends and neighbors.  This was great for inspiring loyalty and camaraderie amongst the troops.  The downside was that when that unit suffered mass casualties entire communities were devastated.  Our guide told us that it took the Newfoundland communities that sent troops decades to recover from the loss of their young men.

The caribou monument honors all the Newfoundland men who fought and died in the Battle of Somme. It sits on a man-made hill and is landscaped with plants native to Newfoundland.   The hope of those who created it was that this bit of home in the midst of a French battlefield would be a comfort to the men who lost their lives, their friends and their families.

Musee des Beaux Arts

On our recent trip to Normandy, we stopped for a few hours in the city of Rouen.  Rouen is where Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake and it is home of the cathedral which Monet painted in several colors and in shifting light.

Much to Allen and Kyra's dismay (probably Kyle's too) I wanted to spend at least a little time in Rouen's Musee des Beaux Art (art museum).  According to our guide book it displayed works by several artists that are favorites of mine (Caravaggio in particular).

The last art museum I was in was the Louvre.  Its collection is of course spectacular, but so are the crowds.  Kyra and I spent much of our time there shuffling along trying to get close to the Venus de Milo and Mona Lisa.  It was difficult to move and certainly difficult to stop and appreciate the art.

The art museum in Rouen was a different story.  Here are a few photos of the crowds we battled to see the art work.  I think there were more guards in the gallery than visitors.  Our family of four was about 50% of the crowd for the time we were there.

Without crowds to fight it was easy to appreciate the art up close and from across the room.  We could move easily from one room to the next and linger or not as we chose.

On my own I would have stayed longer, but because it was so empty I could quickly move from piece to piece and see what I wanted to see thus making the visit only slightly painful for the kids.

I found the time spent in this museum far more enjoyable than the time I spent in the Louvre and would certainly recommend the museum to others.

Monet up close

Renoir

Our European Vacation

Disclaimer - It is my intent to share information, my thoughts and in general let you know about my life here in Belgium.  I wish to share not brag.

Over the next few days, I'll be blogging about our recent family vacation.  In many ways it was similar to vacations we have taken in the US, except this time what is close to us is Europe.  So - if this is coming off as bragging, I kindly request that you don't read this blog for a few days.  In case you think life is glamorous here, I'll remind you I do not have a garbage disposal, the toilet lid falls down on me every time I sit, it is cloudy most days and because my washing machine is small, I'll be doing laundry continuously for three days to recover from this vacation.

And now on with the show..

All Saints' Day is observed in most of Europe as a holiday.  In the kids' case, as a week break from school.  So with a week off of school, our choice was to travel.

Allen's cross country season finished with the European championships held in Heidelburg Germany on Saturday, October 30th.  He traveled there on the team bus and Kyle, Kyra and I followed in the car Friday evening.

Allen competed Saturday afternoon (separate blog).  We then started our drive to Barcelona which was our cruise port.

We did a week long Mediterranean cruise which stopped in Naples, Rome (sort of), Pisa (sort of) and two small towns in France.

The picture is of our cruise ship taken through a window of a fortification in southern France.

We docked again on Sunday morning and then drove for over 13 hours to get home in time for the kids to return to school on Monday.

We had a great time and made some wonderful memories.  The most remarkable things weren't so much what we saw but what we did together.

Travel

The opportunity to travel was one of the reasons Kyle and I were excited about coming to Belgium.  Within a couple of hours we can be in several different countries, just like many of you in the US can be in several different states within a couple of hours.

What makes travel even easier for us is that SHAPE has a couple of organizations that do all the organizing for you.  There is SHAPE Trips and Tours which runs trips on Saturdays and longer ones during school vacations and there is SHAPE Travel Group which runs week day trips.

Trips and Tours offers Saturday day trips  to England, the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Luxembourg.  Typically these trips leave early in the morning and involve a bus ride of 2-4 hours, some structured tour time and some free time to do as one wishes.  During school breaks they organize longer trips - for the Christmas break they are offering a trip to Egypt and during spring break they are offering a trip to a resort near Barcelona.

SHAPE Travel Group is more of a wives' group.  Yes men are allowed but it is typically the women who are free to travel in the middle of the week.  When I went to Versailles I went with this group.  Their upcoming trips are to a spa in Belgium and for shopping in England and in Germany.

It is easy to travel when someone else does most of the work - picking the place, the activity and arranging transportation and driving.  We just pay the money and get on the bus.

While we dreamed of frequent travel, we aren't getting out as much as we'd like for the same reasons many of you don't bop around your neighboring states - you and your kids are busy.  Even so, we are trying to push ourselves to find the time and make the effort - after all Flat Stanley is begging to have his picture taken in front of more landmarks.