Benelux April 2013 -- Busy Bruges Streets

Bruges is a great walking town.  It's pretty flat and the cobblestones are well maintained for us tourists.  We did a lot of walking.  These pictures are some of what we saw along the way.

This is a city band.  I think they had just played for awhile in the square and we caught them as they were marching away.

People were waiting to see them go by.

They must have been freezing because it was very cold and windy that day.

We did some more exploring and were lucky that most of the tourist sites were not full of people.  This is the interior courtyard behind the city hall.

You may remember these buildings with the 1608 and 1614 dates from the canal boat trip posting.

People were paused here in their walk across the bridge to listen to these two young boys play.

People do have cars in Bruges, but you must have special stickers to park in some places, just like in any inner city.  Trees like this are common in Europe.  They are heavily pruned so as to provide maximum light in winter and shade in summer and so that they don't get too big for the area.

 Little markets like this one were set up in some places.

These pruned trees are espaliered.

This picture is really about the scooter.

Here we are heading for the Begijnhof.  More about that in another posting.

I took lots of pictures of this pair of swans before I got what I was hoping for.

Perfect!

For us these days it's hard to imagine the work that went into some of these buildings.  It's also doubtful that many people have these kinds of skills or that anyone would pay for them if they did.

Bruges has a line of windmills around part of the perimeter.  This was the best one, but not open when we were there.

The windmills are on a built up dike with a paved path up and a nice view.

 As we were walking around the windmill, a bunch of teenagers hit the area after school let out.

There was no lack of construction in the city.

We turned down a street and were in the midst of a bunch of other kids, mostly headed in the opposite direction from the windmills.  They were moving fast.

They needed to get to the bus stop to get home.  Note that these kids are all in uniform, unlike the ones near the windmill.

We probably should have gone to this old restaurant.

I mentioned earlier that it was very windy.  While we were having lunch, I tried to get a good picture of that.  This is a central transportation area and there are some indications of the wind.

This guy's hair had too much product to blow around much.

 This is the best picture I got to illustrate the windy conditions.

We were glad we were inside, cozy and warm, at least for the moment.

Benelux April 2013 -- Molen De Valk

I'm devoting this entire post to an 18th century windmill in Leiden, the Molen De Valk.   There are other windmills in the Netherlands that you can visit, but this one has 7 floors that are open to the public.  It's about a block from the main square in Leiden.

 

The lower attached area to the left is part of the living quarters.

 

 Below are the living room and kitchen. 

 

The De Valk (Falcon) dates from 1743.

Peeking out a window on the way up. 

 

 

 Views on and from the sail deck. 

 

I loved this shot so much that I made this picture my wallpaper for the year.  It's so Dutch.

 

This family was from Texas, I think.  The little girl was fearless.

 

So were these folks. 

 

Trout not so much.  Here he is close to one of the sail controls.  It is still done by hand.

 

 I think this was my favorite view from the sail deck.  You think that's enough bikes at the university?

 

This deck does have a modern treatment.  It's Trex or something similar.  You do not want to be walking up here in heels of any kind.  The separations and holes are totally open to the ground below.

 

Now we're back inside.  If you click on the link at the beginning,  it will take you to  a schematic that you can click on to find out what all the levels are and what was done on them.

 

Trout liked these big gears and every other mechanical thing on these levels.

These things were not glued down.  People could pick them up, but there was a camera to make sure you didn't take them with you.

 

More good mechanical stuff.  

 

Let's get a closer look at that.

 

The stairs up and down were narrow and steep, often more like ladders than stairs.  

 

This is how they got the grain up and the flour down, not to mention the grindstones  -- through trap doors like this one.  They are often right at the tops or bottoms of the stairs.

 

 

This little hand-done sign tells you how to go up and down the stairs in 4 languages.

 

I don't think we were allowed to go up these at all.

 

 

This is the last set of stairs down to the ground.

 



 

Now we're back on the ground at the door where the horse wagons came in to supply the mill with grain and take the flour away.  There are some grindstones and a couple of other relics of times past.

 

 

 

Back outside, this is one of the horse-drawn mills.

 

This visit to the Molen De Valk was one of my favorite things about the trip.  I love seeing the technologies people used to do the work needed to live during their times.