Matt and Jim taking in the baroque splendor of the Grande Place
Matt has long been a friend, a coworker, a fellow political prognosticator, and (for Jim) a fellow Minnesotan. He’s always wanted to live abroad, so six months ago he started a job in London. Now he is enjoying frequent easy visits to various parts of Europe on weekends. So a couple months back he checked in with us — any weekends free in Europe this summer? We had this little weekend stop in Brussels, transitioning between other plans, so Matt bought train tickets and hopped over.
So we bounced around the usual baroque squares, towering gothic cathedrals, and shady parks that make up this glorious city. But when Matt suggested a trip down to the battlefields of Waterloo, we got a little more adventurous than we might have otherwise been on such a brief stop. And it was well worth it. It takes just 30 minutes on the train to get from central Brussels to the little town of Braine l’Alleud, then another 25 minutes of walking to get to the innocuous looking farms where world history took such a dramatic turn.
We are not the types who love lots of details about battles and flanks and cavalry and infantry. But the museum here did an outstanding job of describing the excitement and turmoil of post-revolutionary France, the void that brought Napoleon to power, the build up of his empire, and the desperation of the rest of Europe to take him down. After that, it also provided an absolutely mind-numbing amount of detail about the battles themselves, the people and equipment involved, etc., etc. Yes, I’ll admit I skimmed through that pretty fast. But all in all, this was a great stop.
This guy’s image towers over the museum at Waterloo
Matt climbs his way to the memorial that overlooks the fields of the battle of Waterloo
Mark and Jim making their way to the memorial
The impossibly elegant buildings that line the Grande Place
Classic Belgian fare nicely done, in this case a pork knuckle
After the visit to Waterloo we walked back to little Braine l’Alleud to look for lunch. It was Sunday, so most things were closed. The exception was a place called Le Pavot, where the food was stunningly cutting-edge. Here is chicory-wrapped veal with exotic accompaniments.
The kind of view you seem to get from every corner in Brussels
I am in Luxembourg today and Liechtenstein from tomorrow till Tue. I know the probability of meeting up is very low but considering that we seem to be travelling really close to each other, I thought I would check if we may happen to be in the same place at the same time… 🙂