Thursday, September 21st, 2000 Road trip to see the sights....
Up about 9 am, Jim had already walked to the bakery for rolls and made coffee for me from the instant in the cupboard of the kitchen. On the road by 9:30 we were on our way to Ypres or Ipre in Belgium. The weather is clear and wonderful. The news had predicted rain for today!! Ypres is a town that was destroyed in WW I by the fighting between Germans and the English/French/Belgium/USA…brick by brick the citizens rebuilt all of the important historic building in the town. There are many cemeteries in the town. We visited two of them after viewing the downtown area. Couldn’t stay too long, as we didn’t have the correct change to buy the parking ticket. Back on the road, a side road due to the blockades by the farmers and their tractors on the major roads in and out of Ypres. Saw them on the TV news this evening after we arrived home. Also heard about it on the radio…we could hear the tractors in the background so we knew what they were talking about!!
Back on the road we arrived in Waterloo where Wellington defeated Napoleon about 3:00 pm. Paid the full fee and enjoyed everything. First we visited the panoramic viewing building. Wonderful job. Then on to the climb up the Lion Hill that was build to honor Wellington and also provide a wonderful place to view the battlefield. There are still buildings standing that were there in 1815 during the battle. Then back to the museum and then two fifteen minute films. The first is a film with a model with lights flashing to show the positions during the battle. In the second film there were children who were pretending to fight and then two of them seeing the actual soldiers…like they were clairvoyant. Both were very well done. Back on the road in the evening traffic. We decided to go around Brussels, which took some doing, and head home for Brugge.
Arrived back about 6 pm, found some dinner and brought it home to eat at the apartment. Jim took the extra towels back to the landlady and asked for more toilet paper! We leave tomorrow morning for Holland. Have too much Belgium money and need to buy things at the store before we leave!
Washed my hair tonight and was delighted to finally learn how to adjust the water so that I could get a steady stream of warm water. It has a strange system of heating the water instantly. Much like our instant hot water faucet at home. Unfortunately, up till now I was only able to get a minute of very hot and then instant ice cold. Turn it off and start over again. By the time I’d finished washing my hair, I had it figured out! Hated to stop!
No comments:
Post a Comment