Day 8 - Brussels

Alethios

New Zealand2765 Posts

January 18 2010 22:21 GMT

Hey guys… sorry this took longer longer than promised. Lost the cord for my camera, couldn’t upload the photos from the day. Turns out Nathan (Genevieve and Peter’s son) had put the cord away, but its my fault for not looking after it. I imagine he assumed it was just another cord.

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Thursday, was to be a relatively light day in the end. My only plan for the day was to head along to The Musée royal in the Cinquantenaire park and spend the day looking at the exibits in the three musuems there.

I headed off a little before midday. I stopped at a shop for lunch and grabbed another one of those delicious heartbreak sandwiches (my third of the week, oh dear!). I've had to clean up my act since then, realising that I should probably eat a tad healthier.

After sealing my fate with the machine gun, I headed off to the first of the museums of the day, “Autoworld”. I didn’t really know what it was exactly, but I thought I’d go along to see it anyway.

Autoworld ended up costing about 5 euro, with another 2.50 required to take photographs. Paid that, then headed into the museum. Turns out it’s a vintage car warehouse. I like old cars well enough, and some of them were pretty cool. Thing for me though, was that after I’d seen four or five cars, the rest were really lost on me. A museum really only for vintage car aficionados I must say.

Don’t ask me the make or model

Next I headed across the car park to the military museum. It was completely free, which was a nice surprise.

The museum was full of great exhibits, and was essentially split into three main sections. One section was filled with a lot of Napoleonic memorabilia, and then a section covering each of the world wars, with a smattering of other things thrown in for good measure.

I started with the Napoleonic section, which was interesting enough. Lots of old muskets, uniforms and maps.

Packed to the rafters!

Next I headed to the section on world war one. It was great, really. They’d clearly put a lot of work into it. There were recreations of certain scenes which they had on film, such as dead twisted horses and men buried in the mud and strings of rats which the soldiers often ate. It went a long way towards trying to capture the horror of trench warfare.

Next I visited the extensive world war two section. It was filled to the rafters with personal testimonies, recreations of tanks, trenches, gun emplacements and much much more. One particular room was dedicated to the concentration camps, with recovered prisoners uniforms and a great map, showing all the camps in Europe. I had no idea there were that many, mainland Europe was simply covered in dots. I lack the words to describe what I felt then, but I was very moved. A nearby display of SS uniforms was also very interesting. People had worn them, not too long ago.

I guess it’s easy to think sometimes that the entire saga was just the work of a few evil men. Seeing those uniforms though, reminded me that there was an entire section of people devoted to nefarious works. Were there just particularly evil people in those times? What about the entire German army? Is there all that much difference between them and us now? Undoubtedly the culture of the time had some part to play, but it seems naive to think that there isn’t the capability in some or all of us. Reminded me a lot of the Milgram experiments.

On a lighter note (why is it a lighter note?) I also got to check out some awesome tanks and airplanes up close. Sweet!

Useless WWI piece of junk!

Last port of call that day was the museum of art and history. Great place, full of interesting stuff to see. Unfortunately no amazing art works, but certainly well worth a look.

After finishing my tour of the museums, I headed back home, ending what was a pretty light day.

+ Show Spoiler [lots of day 8 images] +

All the melting snow

Vapor trails

Camera didn't capture it, but the haunted expression on this guys face really moved me

View inside the WWI tank, damned cramped i'll tell you

A mig17 from the war in vietnam

[i]And an F4 phantom, the 'mig hunter'/i]

The remains of a centaur

Puportedly the Tower of Babel

The snow is beginning to melt

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Click here for day[9]!

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So there it is, today day 8. Tomorrow, brugge!

andiCR

Costa Rica2273 Posts

January 18 2010 22:43 GMT

ohgod.. incredible pictures there

is that an enzo ferrari???

Boblion

France8043 Posts

January 18 2010 22:47 GMT

Sabre /
Jaguar /
F-16 /
Orion ( ? )
Hurricane /
M41 + M24 + M47 + M26 (? ) + Jagdpanzer /
~~Scorpion~~ Scimitar /
Hind
Nice pics :p

asel

Germany1601 Posts

January 18 2010 22:47 GMT

wow incredlible report
just saw this one and read all the ones before - really good

Will you stay in belgium or will you go somewhere else too ?

Alethios

New Zealand2765 Posts

January 18 2010 23:08 GMT

Thanks very much for the kind words guys. Helps keep me motivated to keep writing.

Planning on travelling to a number of other countries in Europe, but I'm tied here until my Mastercard/Visa arrives from New Zealand... but thats another story altogether. I'll talk about it in my next installment if you'd like.

HazMat

United States17077 Posts

January 18 2010 23:10 GMT

+ Show Spoiler +

Thought this was about 24

Really cool pictures, are you planning on going to Prague?

meeple

Canada10211 Posts

January 18 2010 23:32 GMT

I love the old military pictures, really beautiful stuff and I'm really impressive at how well organized this blog is.

Alethios

New Zealand2765 Posts

January 18 2010 23:34 GMT

Just finished editing and adding tags. Funny how many things I always forget when I throw these things up. As always, feel free to make requests for me to further tag the images.

Prague wasn't orginally on my list of places to go, but i've heard so much about the place since I got here. Its certainly on the list now. More on that tomorrow.

aqui

Germany1023 Posts

January 18 2010 23:38 GMT

On January 19 2010 08:10 HazMat wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +

Thought this was about 24

Really cool pictures, are you planning on going to Prague?

you should!
+ Show Spoiler +

asel

Germany1601 Posts

January 18 2010 23:42 GMT

#10

to be fair, Germany has some nice places too

Alethios

New Zealand2765 Posts

January 18 2010 23:56 GMT

#11

Wow, those are some sweet pictures aqui.

Germany is on my list too, some friends have offered to put me up near the black forest.

So far i'm looking at:

Prague
Germany
Italy
England

and hopefully another day or two in Paris before I leave (since i fly out CDG 1st march)

aqui

Germany1023 Posts

January 19 2010 00:13 GMT

#12

On January 19 2010 08:42 asel wrote:
to be fair, Germany has some nice places too

It does? depends what you want to see i guess. I would think a NZlander would like to sample as many different cultures as possible.
I mean its kinda all old stuff and cobble stones in europe^^.
If i would have to make a list of 10 cities to go to i would definitly include istanbul, something like barcelona for the mediterranian flair, def. lisbon for civilized med. flair^^,one "eastern" european city like pargue, a northern european city with some water like stockholm or hamburg for the renaissance merchant feeling. Im not sure about the other southern european "must see"- cities. An american friend of mine liked italy best, but i think its the only southern europ. country he has been to:p .
Since you are an engineer you could visit humans most sophisticated structure , the LHC!
Or visit the ITER construction site, yeah^^.

Alethios

New Zealand2765 Posts

January 19 2010 00:17 GMT

#13

I'll almost certainly return at some point (perhaps after I graduate), so I'm not looking for a whirlwind tour of everything. Pretty happy with my list actually, starting to flesh out a few details. More on that later, i'm off to bed.

ghermination

United States2851 Posts

January 19 2010 00:32 GMT

#14

On January 19 2010 09:13 aqui wrote:

Show nested quote +

A must see city should be Hvar in croatia. So beautiful with the castle and the islands.

zatic

Zurich15358 Posts

January 19 2010 09:14 GMT

#15

On January 19 2010 08:56 Alethios wrote:
Wow, those are some sweet pictures aqui.

Germany is on my list too, some friends have offered to put me up near the black forest.

I am from around black forest, currently in Heidelberg. Let me know if you need a tour or just want to meet up if you are in the area.

Catch]22

Sweden2683 Posts

January 19 2010 10:39 GMT

#16

Awesome pics!

I'm actually planning a trip to france and belgium aswell, so your threads have really inspired me

aqui

Germany1023 Posts

January 19 2010 12:00 GMT

#17

Sorry if my suggestions start to annoy you but i reckoned since you plan to go to italy i just wanna throw some places there in the air. If you drive by car (~4hours ride from the black forest region) you should check out the Lago di Garda in the north.
+ Show Spoiler +

Alethios

New Zealand2765 Posts

January 19 2010 12:28 GMT

#18

On January 19 2010 18:14 zatic wrote:

Show nested quote +

I am from around black forest, currently in Heidelberg. Let me know if you need a tour or just want to meet up if you are in the area.

A very kind offer. I'll let you know when I plan to head to Germany once my plans have got that far!

On January 19 2010 19:39 Catch]22 wrote:
Awesome pics!

I'm actually planning a trip to france and belgium aswell, so your threads have really inspired me

You are too kind!

On January 19 2010 21:00 aqui wrote:
Sorry if my suggestions start to annoy you but i reckoned since you plan to go to italy i just wanna throw some places there in the air. If you drive by car (~4hours ride from the black forest region) you should check out the Lago di Garda in the north.
+ Show Spoiler +

Not at all. Can't say i'll be following all of your suggestions (it'd be impossible in the time I have), but they are always much appreciated The place looks fantastic, i'll have to look into spending some time there.

Boblion

France8043 Posts

January 19 2010 16:38 GMT

#19

No tank nerds ?

( i'm not too sure on the M-26 )

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