So we’d stayed in Bremen for one main reason, my Dad’s side of the family were living here from at least the 1500′s onwards.  We decided to go through with the drive to the village as it was only 30 mins drive away, but the snowstorm warnings did have us as nervous as hell.  There was more snow on the road and ground than we were used to, so it was a very slow drive to the village with the tyres feeling like we were driving on grease.

After a bit longer than expected, we made it!

Following the directions given to us by my lovely cousin Kathy, we made it to the old family home without getting lost.  We’d been in this house for around 150 years up until the early 1900′s, after which the family migrated to Australia.

We looked around the village a bit more and were making our way to a distant relative when a massive, dirty cloudfront moved in rapidly.  With the thoughts of the snowstorm in our minds we regretfully rushed back to the car to get to the relative safety of Bremen.

We decided to do some more shopping and buy some of the things we’d seen the day before,  but before that it was time for sausage.

After the shopping we found a beer hall and had a good feed, with some beer.  Not a bad way to end our time in Bremen, the next day we were off to Aarhus for two weeks of study at the Aarhus Business School….yay…

One of the things Bremen prides itself on is the tale of the Town Musicians.

So we did the touristy thing and rubbed the shiny donkey’s front hooves for good luck.  We had nothing major planned to look at in the town, so we wandered about for a while doing some window shopping.  It was sometime around this point that we discovered Bremen’s free gymanstics program.

That metal strip is the slipperiest substance in existence and I discovered this by almost doing the splits right in the main street.  Ouch.  Of course, this meant for the rest of the day I was perfectly justified in almost wetting myself laughing when I saw others do the same.

The rest of the day was spent shopping mostly, wandering about checking out what we called “gingerbread houses”.

There were some good things in the stores so various family members scored pretty well out of it

That night there were major warnings about expected snowstorms the next day, not what you want to hear when you plan to go for a drive…

If you’ve watched Band of Brothers then you may remember the time E Company spent in the Ardennes near Foy.  It was something that stood out in our minds, so Kylie and I decided to take a lengthy detour and check out the area.  We left earlyish and although it was a little chilly the sky was clear, it was a nice day to drive.

With the Tomtom the trip to Foy was easy and thanks to some pre-research on the interweb we knew what small road to take to get to the E Company monument built by HBO.

Also, thanks to that research, we learnt that it was possible to get to the area where they fought with only a little tresspassing.

Yesterday’s time at the Menin Gate and Essex Farm Cemetary was a moving one, it was hard to fully comprehend the scale of loss involved.  Today’s experience was a totally different one.  To walk in the same place they did with the snow on the ground, to be able to climb into the foxholes they used and look through the trees; it was all very strange.

I don’t know how they did it, but I guess in part it was because they had to and they were tough enough to make it.  It was a very different experience to the more sterile and removed visits to memorials, yet it still made me feel much the same thing.

After we made it back to the car it was time to get to Bremen, so we made our way to the nearest autobahn.  Apart from the frequent roadworks and snow the trip was uneventful and we made it to the hotel by nightfall.   It was minus 6 degrees by this time, and the wind made it even colder, so what was the most obvious thing to do?  Wander the streets with no map and no idea of what to do of course.

After the wandering and some ok pizza we turned in for the night, ready for another day of sightseeing tomorrow.

Kylie slept quite well considering the circumstances, I think I’d gotten a few hours sleep whilst making sure she was alright throughout the night.  I woke feeling a bit dodgy but put it down to a lack of sleep.  We both wanted to see the area around Ypres, also known as Flanders Fields, so we hopped into the car and made our way there.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

- Lt.-Col. John McCrae (1872 – 1918)

This poem, In Flanders Fields  was definitely on my mind as we made our way to Ypres.  I’ve been lucky to have a life very different from that experienced by many men a century ago, and still some men today.

The Menin Gate was our first stop and it’s a mind-boggling experience.  The gate is massive and is inscribed with the names of almost 35,000 soldiers who fought in the Ypres region and whose bodies were never found.

That’s a staggering number, and it only includes most of the soldiers whose bodies weren’t found.  The battles around Ypres during World War 1 resulted in over half a million dead.  Truly unthinkable.

After some time at the Menin Gate we drove to the Essex Farm Cemetery to see the memorial to the “In Flanders Fields” poem and the preserved bunkers.

We had hoped to continue touring areas around Ypres but by this point I was feeling decidedly unwell.  I’m guessing the mussels I’d consumed the day before were slowly doing their job on me.  We made our way back to the house and we watched In Bruges.  A funny enough movie and it was fun to be able to point and say “been there”, “seen that”.

For more pictures of our time in Bruges, click here.

Bruges put on a chilly morning for us as we hunted around for a cup of coffee.  Soon after we’d finished breakfast the snow started falling thick and fast compared to what we experienced in Paris and it was a real novelty for us.   Kylie was mesmerised by the shapes they made, she could have stood there for hours studying the damn things.

It was definitely a lot colder here in Bruges compared to Paris, the river was fully frozen over.

This made Kylie especially happy as she managed to “skip her first stone” by throwing it across ice.  Sports-star she ain’t

A little bit of a wander later we found, according to Kylie, “Our Lady of the Headless Baby Jesus”.  I’m sure I’m going to hell just by standing within 6 feet of her uttering these blasphemous gems.

The wandering made us hungry so we decided it was lunchtime.  One of the common dishes of the area are mussels so we went to a mussel cave to have a plate.  Oh, and some beer.

These are two very local brews, the brewery is in Bruge itself although is only open to the public on the weekends so we couldn’t tour it

The mussels were delicious.  Kylie ordered them and had the lion’s share, I only had a couple.  Very sweet and tender, with a more subtle mussel flavour than what I’m used to from Australian mussels,  they were probably the best we’ve ever had.  I ordered eel in a very strong cream sauce, powerful stuff.

We then wandered a little more and found ourselves at the base of the belfry that I’d photographed the night before.  We decided to climb it, a decision I almost regretted later…who the hell climbs a 366-step belfry with a belly full of beer and eels in cream sauce?  Me of course.  It almost resulted in Bruges suffering from another snowstorm of sorts…

Partway up we saw the tower’s carillon, a giant music box.

Then at the top, the view.  Quite nice and very much worth it.

The tower in the middle of the picture is The Church of Our Lady, the second-highest brick tower in the world.  Unforunately whilst we were there it was under renovation so we didn’t go and have a closer look.

After that it was time for the climb down, and I failed to mention for the most part the climb up is quite narrow.  Cosy when an attractive female is travelling in the opposite direction, uncomfortable when a fat American is…

We made our way back to the house for a bit of a rest in preparation for the evening’s meal.  We were hoping it was going to be a special one as it was our first try at a restaurant that had beer-matching for courses.  More beer!

We arrived at Den Dyver full of anticipation, although Kylie had been feeling a little unwell so she was unsure if she was going to be able to undertake one of our gustatory adventures.  By the time the entrees had arrived she was feeling quite unwell.  By the time the mains arrived she was “acutely unwell” in the restaurant’s bathroom and we had to cut the meal short.

Those @##$$# mussels were dodgy.

The Parisian roads are quiet early on the weekends so we headed off as soon as we could to make good time to Belgium.   Although it was chilly, after a short distance we had sunny, clear skies above.  Where was the horrible weather we kept being told about by our families back in Australia?

The trip was uneventful so it was around lunchtime that we arrived in the beautiful medieval city of Bruges.  After a few weeks in France and arriving in Belgium, what was our first thought?

Beer!

Although it was tricky to find because pointy buildings kept getting in the way, we finally found Staminee De Garre and sat down for some good Belgian beer and what I thought was going to be a light lunch.

First the beers, with free cheese which had a certain person clapping.

Then my “pate sandwich” arrived, with me thinking it was going to be a nice light thing…what a mistake that was.  It was goddamn enormous with the bread slices about twice the size of our standard ones.  I think 12 cows died to make the pate.

It was very tasty at least.  Such a large sandwich required further liquidationary refreshment so…more beer!

We were due to check into our apartment, so at this point we stood up and realised that maybe we should have stuck to the one beer each.  Our host Francis had some very happy tenants checking in.  The three-storey house, called Lady Lace, was great so once we got ourselves in order we relaxed (sobered up) a little and headed off into Bruges to check out more of the sights.

The Belfry tower in the center square is one of the first things you see when entering the medieval section of Bruge and at night is very nicely lit up.

We wandered around a little more, it’s a very pretty little city with plenty of streets full of shopping.  Dinner time arrived so…more beer!

We went to ‘t Brugs Beertje as they seemed to have a good selection of beers…around 300.  We managed to stick to just choosing one each this time, both were very interesting but the one on the right, Malheur 12, was damn nice.

After that we wandered a little more before bed, the canals going through the town made for some nice sights with the right lighting.

We’d read and been told about Les Puces de Saint-Ouen, the world’s largest flea and antique market, and with thoughts of buying presents for our families we made our way there early in the morning by taxi.  An espresso and some trashy boulangerie food fueled us for what we hoped was going to be a productive morning of shopping.

Even though the market officially opens at 8am we knew that getting there before 9am was a waste of time as most vendors hadn’t set up by then.  Well, that must be a Summer rule, because it was still quite quiet well after 9.  So we had another coffee

After another 30 mins or so it started waking up so we wandered the various stalls and sheds checking out what was on offer.  We discovered that the market pretty much sold two classes of products.

1) Mass-market junk and clothing for under 30 Euro that you could buy anywhere.

2) Genuine antiques that didn’t sell for under 300 Euro.

So it was pretty much a bust unfortunately.  Realising we were almost late for our lunch booking, we frantically looked for a taxi and once we found one we raced on to….our first 3-Michelin star restaurant!  Three start restaurants are the pinnacle of gastronomy; perfection in service, wine and food are required to achieve the coveted award and Le Bristol (site has sound) had recently done so.  Of course, with such perfection comes a hefty price tag, so we were hoping it was worth it.

My one word to sum up the service and food of the Winter Tasting Menu at Le Bristol?

!@%$#TW$#%#$%#$%T#$%!

and I don’t mean that in a good way.

I didn’t take pictures of the first two courses because frankly, I was too intimidated to take the camera out until I saw that some others were unashamedly doing so.  One Japanese-American lady had a digital SLR the size of her head pointed at her soup like she was paparazzi and it was Lady Di reincarnated.

Anyway, the amuse bouche was very promising, a tiny egg cup of foie gras mousse that resembled egg in some ways and made us think that we were in for a very imaginative meal.  The service started out quite promising and our sommelier was very pleasant and selected some great wines for us.  The savoury dishes were all very well executed and some were even delicious, but that was about as far as it went.  No real imagination, no surprises and none of it left us wondering how on earth it was possible to produce such an amazing dish.

The desserts were even less successful, to save time and effort they might as well have just heaped refined cane sugar on the plate, added some food colouring and said it was done.   The main dessert had a glace chestnut on the side, glace chestnut spaghetti and chunks of glace chestnut inside a meringue.  A glace chestnut was also provided with the petit-four type dish at the same time.  Anyone who has had a glace chestnut knows they are rich, powerful and cloying, and looking around the tables all guests thought the same thing.  The glace chestnut with the petit fours was untouched on all tables and the one on the side was half-eaten on some.

Apparently the chef doesn’t eat his own food, nor does he look at the plates as they are returned.

Once desserts had been served around all of the tables in the room the wait staff pulled the same trick that we saw at Stephane Debord and disappeared.  We went from around eight staff monitoring tables down to three and even those couldn’t be bothered to do their jobs well.  I had to pour my own water after a deliberate ten minute wait to see what would happen, one of the waiters even did his usual water-check lap three times without pouring.  It may not sound like much but when you’re paying what we paid for a single meal you expect perfection and it wasn’t delivered in the slightest.   The delivery of the bill took forever for the four remaining tables, including ours.  Again our neighbours may have gotten the hint across, they gave a 20 Euro tip for a 600 Euro meal…quite a hint that, and one we gave as well.

Disappointed, we made our way to the Louvre but we were too late as they were no longer selling tickets to the standard exhibitions and the only exhibition open until 8pm already had a two hour queue until 7pm.   Not happy Jan.

We walked the meal off on the way home , rested for a few hours and for a late dinner we went to a small gallette, crepe and cider restaurant around the corner for a light meal.  It hit the spot.

For more pictures of our time in Paris, click here.

Our feet hurt.

We walked over 23 km the previous day, stood around cooking, stood in line for the Tower, stood around waiting for the New Year to roll over.

Our feet really hurt.

We needed some breakfast so we tried to find a boulangerie.  We wandered the streets for far too long trying to find one, it was New Years Day and almost everything was closed.  We finally found one and bought some supplies then headed back to the apartment…and found another on a side street just 100m from the apartment, a side street we had passed on our search.  Grrrr.

Well-stocked for breakfast and lunch, we also remembered that we’d used some foresight and bought some lamb, potatoes and mushrooms to cook for dinner.  Seriously, everything was closed, even the landmarks we were hoping to visit like the Louvre.   So for New Years Day we spent most of our time in the apartment relaxing and cooking which was a nice change from the previous month’s daily rushing about.

As for the lamb?  Apologies to our Mums but it was the best lamb we’d ever had…

The day started with an early-ish rise and walk to L’atelier des Chefs for the an opportunity to spend some time on the other side of the kitchen…the inside instead of the outside As we walked through the foggy streets we got our first glimpse of a particularly famous pointy building.

Back to the cheffing…we’d signed up for two cooking lessons; one to cook scallops and pears, the other to cook sea bass.  Guess who went a little overboard on their chocolate sauce?

It was a good chance to do something a little different on the holiday and enabled us to sit around and talk with some of the locals over two meals (little did we realised by making two lunches we also got to eat them…damn).  Until then 99% of our interaction with the French has been in a transactionary capacity; they’ve been shopkeepers, waiters and the like.   We talked about a lot of things, mostly cultural and language differences, experiences with travel and our jobs.  Good times.

After the lessons we decided to give the tower a try so we wandered through the streets of Paris zig-zagging our way there.  The line was long, but not as long as what we expected, it only took us around an hour to get our tickets to the lift.  We decided to only go to the second stage instead of the top as it was completely obscured in fog.

Also, the wait from stage two to three was 45 minutes, it was below zero on stage two and it was near closing time.  No thanks.

For those who haven’t gone up in the tower, you catch a lift that runs up the inside of the legs diagonally to the center, the lift then pauses and you rise vertically.  The lifts are funky double-story things…

The views were pretty good, although we couldn’t see that far thanks to the mist in the air.

After that it was time to line up for the lift down, the view I had made the trip feel like something out of Star Wars.

As we were leaving the Sun had pretty much set and the lights came on, which made for a pretty nice view.

It was a long walk back so we stopped off for some street vendor food…crepes and hotdogs and they were goddamn awesome.  I wish Melbourne offered something similar.   We passed a number of famous buildings (there’s one of every corner) but Kylie particularly liked St Jacques Tower.

We got back to the apartment and rested our weary feet in preparation for going out later that night.  We also ate some bland Chinese…

Anyway, New Years celebrations called and we heard that the Champs Elysees was a pretty good place to go so we slogged our way back along the Rue de Rivoli to where the party was meant to be.

This was about as close as we could get to the Arc de Triomphe, there was a massive crowd in front and behind.  Unfortunately when the magic moment happened it was a bit of a let down.  One great thing that happened was a wave of sound from the Arc towards us as the hour struck, but after that people just seemed to stand around and congratulate their small groups quietly and left it at that.  I think it might have been a language thing, Paris’ population is so diverse and so full of tourists that you can have no idea of what your neighbours understand.

So we stood around waiting for the massive fireworks, expecting something Sydney-style to pop out from the Arc but apart from a few a spurts every now and then there was nothing.  Even the riot cops surrounding us looked bored.

We decided to head back and ended up having a bit of a laugh as another Aussie walk past us talk to a friend saying “jeez, the French don’t know how to do fireworks at all, not like Australia”.  Once again, once we got back to the apartment crawling under the covers was a very welcome thing…

Happy New Years all!

We rose early, tired as hell but needing to get on the road to Paris as soon as possible.   Breakfast was the same as the day before, breads, jams, cheese, honey and nuts in front of a log fire…mmm toasty with toast.

As we drove towards Paris, we noticed that the sky was doing some unusual Ghostbuster thing…

We had hoped to be able to see Versailles on the way to Paris but unfortunately time wasn’t on our side as we wanted to avoid Paris peak hour.  The drive into Paris was a little chaotic but not nearly as bad as Marseilles so once we parked the car we decided we had enough time to make it to the Catacombs that day.

Q. How do you know you’re in Paris?

A. The buildings don’t fit into your photo either lengthwise (Hotel de Ville)…

or heightwise (Notre Dame de Paris)…

The buildings in Paris are huge…

We made it to the Catacombs, stood in a line that went around the block for 90 minutes and made it in before closing by 10 minutes, feeling sorry for those just a few places behind us.

The Catacombs are dark.

The first section is just tunnels, nothing too dramatic or exciting; then you reach this door.

One of our first sights…

The sheer number of bones down there is staggering, it goes on for what seems like hundreds of meters of twisting corridors.  Walls are completely made up of femurs, skulls and the like and when they were placed down below the workman often made patterns out of the bones like lovehearts

and skull & crossbones.

Apologies for the darkness of the photos, the lights are exceptionally low and no flashes are allowed so that the bones are preserved as best as possible.

After checking into our apartment we made our way to Chez Robert et Louise which we first learnt about watching Tony Bourdaine’s No Reservations series.

They do a pretty good steak