#581 Europe's small towns

Thinking about the first seven ports of our fall voyage, we discover that we enjoy getting out of the big cities to explore the small towns and the countryside.

From Saint Petersburg, we travel to Vyborg and walk Monrepos Park.

From Hamburg, we travel to Lubeck and marvel at the Holsten gate.

From Antwerp, we travel to Bruges and admire the canals in The Venice of the North.

From Le Havre, we travel to Honfleur and its beautiful harbor.

From Dublin, we travel to Howth and hike the exhilarating cliff walk.

From Lisbon, we travel to Sintra and walk through fog at Pena National Palace.

From Cadiz, we travel to Ronda right up to the edge of its dramatic cliffs.

 

Yours in this small-town girl loving the small-townness of Vyborg, Lubeck, Bruges, Honfleur, Howth, Sintra, and Ronda,
Mary

#573 Looking Down at the Plantin-Moretus Museum

Many people leave the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, the only museum on the UNESCO World Heritage list, having seen the world's two oldest surviving printing presses, circa 1600. 

Bibliophiles leave raving about the rooms and rooms and rooms full of books, arranged by size, many of the volumes printed in this building.

Mapheads focus on the Geography Room full of early maps and globes printed here for Mercator and Ortelius.

But underfoot is a patina built and burnished by human contact over hundreds of years.

Focused on the historic furnishings, visitors may overlook the materials, colors, and textures underfoot, each functional in its own place and each telling a story. 

Yours in keeping things grounded,
Kelly

#572 Mercator Museum People

We arrive in Sint Niklaas, Belgium, a few kilometers from Antwerp, eager to see maps and globes in the Mercator Museum.   We depart not talking about maps and globes.

Mercator overlooking his museum

Our request for an English-language tour of the city's Mercator Museum results in our meeting of Eddy Maes, the museum's Conservator of Cartography.    

Eddy makes it clear we should call him Eddy.  Eddy's tour makes it clear he has a passion for cartography.

In the presence of Mercator's 1541 terrestrial globe

Upon learning of Mary's librarian tendencies, Eddy arranges a behind-the-scenes tour of the books. 

Eddy, Mary, and the books

Eddy, Mary, and the 1554 Munster Cosmographie

Upon learning of Kelly's Geographic Information Systems tendencies, Eddy arranges an introduction to Professor Philippe De Maeyer, Chair of Geography at the University of Ghent.

Kelly and Professor De Maeyer

We arrive to see Mercator's maps and globes.  We depart talking about the fantastic people.

Yours in appreciating folks drawn to maps and libraries,
Kelly

#571 In Bruges

Bruges, a city of just over 100,000 people, has 14 libraries.  So we knew we'd like it.    

Library #1

Library #2

Predicted rain stayed away and we found beautiful sights as we wandered the city center, a UNESCO world heritage site.

The lace-making industry thrives in Bruges, so they have what may be Earth's only lace city map, scaled 1:1230.

We navigated via paper map, making sure to visit the main sites, repeatedly crossing the canals.

And we ate. Most of our eating was from walk-up waffle shops. ;-)  We had a sit-down outdoor meal at one of the touristy restaurants surrounding the big 'Markt' square at the 'Provinciaal Hof'.

The food is expensive.  The views are priceless.  The Kriek goes down easy.

Yours in the land of frites, chocolate, waffles, mussels, Lambic bier, and maps of lace,
Kelly 

#318 Mercator's maps

Although Gerardus Mercator was not much of a traveler, never roaming far from his birthplace near Antwerp, his unique maps "corrected for the use of navigation" changed travel forever. In the village of Sint-Niklaas just a few kilometers from Antwerp, we visited the Mercator Museum and saw his 1569 world map, the first to use the direction-preserving projection that would later bear his name. It's printed on 18 sheets and covers most of a wall.

Nearby sat two Mercator globes, also from the 16th century, along with a bound volume of maps which Mercator was the first to call an "atlas".

Back in Antwerp we spent a good deal of time in the "Geography Room" at the Plantin-Moretus Museum (the only museum on the UNESCO World Heritage list) where Mercator's maps hang alongside works by his contemporary and Antwerp native Abraham Ortelius.

Yours in appreciating maps as art,
Kelly

#317 Tour of Flanders

When it comes to bicycle races, most Americans know about the Tour de France. But worldwide, Belgium's annual Tour of Flanders race is also among the most prestigious. The hilly cobblestone roads of the Flanders region in the Belgian Ardennes have lured bicycle racers since 1913. So from our port in Antwerp, I joined an enthusiastic group of SAS cyclers for a short bus ride to Oudenaarde where we strapped on our helmets, adjusted our saddles, and hit the streets.

The Tour of Flanders route always passes through Oudenaarde and the Tour of Flanders museum there documents the race history. It's a bicycle-friendly city in a bicycle-crazy country. Our first climb was across the bridge over the River Scheldt where about 50 miles downstream the MV Explorer was docked in Antwerp. It would not be our last climb. Shortly, we were away from town and climbing a hill so steep, a good number of us chose to walk. Past windmills, watermills, and fields of corn, wheat, and potatoes we rode.

We covered more than 18 miles, a good part of it on bone-jarring cobblestones.

In the end, I gained a new respect for those professional cyclists who take the Tour of Flanders challenge.

Yours in appreciating the pleasure of bicycling on smooth asphalt,
Kelly

#316 Belgian specialties

Belgium has a few delectable specialties: Belgian chocolate, Belgian waffles, Kriek beer, and Belgian fries with all kinds of toppings. Yum! While we've been docked in Antwerp, we've enjoyed all these fine local delicacies.

And despite all evidence to the contrary, the Semester at Sea visit with 600 students arriving in Belgium has nothing to do with the fact that the Belgian government collapsed today or that Budweiser, the king of beers, is now a Belgian product.

Yours in enjoying all things Belgian,
Mary