I received my ashes at a UNESCO World Heritage Site....how 'bout them apples???

I have one more blog update from my February holidays before I can blog about my recent travels.  After spending a few days in Dunkerque Emily and I headed off to the famous Mont St. Michel. Mont St. Michel is a rocky tidal island that has been around since probably the 6th century.  This island has held many fortifications and is also home to the Saint Michel monastery, plus 41 other inhabitants.  Today it attracts around 3 million visitors a year, and this year Emily and I contributed to that number. 

It's important to understand that this place is a rocky tidal island because that is what is so fascinating about it.  There is a strip of 2 lane road that connects the island to the country, and when it is high tide everything that surrounds the island except for the road is swallowed up by water.  This is how it looks at low tide:

And this is what happens at high tide: 

Translation in case you can't read the English: "The sea will  take up this parking area.  Please leave  before 6:00"

This place is fascinating because of what happens at high tide.  It's just incredible to be standing in a spot that you know will be covered in water in just a few hours time. Anyway, once you make it out to the island you have the ability to go in and walk around.  Most people go to Mont St. Michel because of it's unique status as a rocky tidal island and UNESCO World Heritage site.  Inside it's mostly just a bunch of tourist shops and restaurants that have incredible views. However, there is an abbey and museum that you can visit.  We had just made it into the abbey and had taken our pictures when we noticed that the priests and nuns seemed to be getting ready for something. They were posting no picture taking signs and setting out piles of paper.  Emily had just come up to me to say we got here just in time, as they had literally posted the no picture taking signs after we snapped our last shot, when something clicked in my brain.  It was Ash Wednesday and they were getting ready for Mass!! After my suspicions were confirmed by speaking with a nun, I decided to stay and receive my Ashes for the start of Lent. I obviously didn't whip out my camera in the middle of Mass, but I did snap a shot of inside the abbey before church started:

Definitely not the prettiest abbey/church I've been to, and certainly not the warmest either, but still a pretty cool experience to receive my ashes in such a historic & sacred place.

Brugges and Dunkerque

Ok, so this is going to be a picture blog post about Brugges and Dunkerque.

Buildings in the city center

Everyone's out and about on a Saturday

Really cool looking door I noticed while we were walking around.  The carvings were the cool part of the door.

Brugges is supposed to be the Venice of Belgium.

Neat part of a building we saw

This could be a postcard picture.

Hope you enjoyed Brugges! Onto Dunkerque!

Dunkerque is going to require a little explanation.  We arrived there just in time for the Carnaval celebrations.  It's basically a Mardi Gras celebration except using a different name. Now I've never been to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but something tells me the celebrations here outdo what goes on in New Orleans.  Just see for yourself....

We did just that as well.  I'm pretty sure whoever created the definition of  "chaos" and "mad house" definitely had this in mind. It was CRAZY!

Everyone dresses up for Carnaval...

Men dress like women and vice versa, and then there are just some really ridiculous looking costumes.

So there is a parade for Carnaval, and after the parade all the spectators link arms and follow behind the parade....

There

are

NO

words 

to 

describe what we saw during Carnaval! 

No costumes? No problem! Throw some face paint on and you fit right in!

Did you know Belgium has 3 national languages?

Our 24 hours in Brussels was up, and it was time to move on to the city of Antwerp, which is about an hour north of Brussels.  For those of you who do not know, the country of Belgium is split into 3 parts; you have the capital (Brussels), the Flemish part, and the Wallonian part.  The country also has 3 national languages: French, German and Flemish.  In Brussels we were able to get by because French is spoken (hallelujah!). In Antwerp and Brugges, however, we ran into some difficulties because that part of the country is Flemish speaking.  Can you imagine having a country that has 3 national languages??? And can you imagine traveling throughout a country and in one place seeing Flemish, and then in another place see French? It's quite a change, and makes you feel almost as if you were in a completely different country.  Emily and I were happy to be out of Prague for one reason: we were back in a land where we could communicate and not stick out like tourists.  Well, someone had the last laugh at us as we entered the Flemish part of Belgium.  Thank goodness we were crashing at a friend of Emily's; with her help we didn't stick out too badly.

I think at this point in our travels I was quite tired of walking around and sightseeing, because I don't recall anything super fascinating or interesting to say about Antwerp.  The most interesting part about Antwerp is the pedestrian tunnel that connects the main city to the suburban part; but I unfortunately left the tunnel taking pictures to my friend Emily, so I'll have to post those at a later date. As I look back on my pictures from my travels, I've decided that I really liked the architecture within Belgium.  It just had a different sort of flair to it, and it was something that caught my eye.

I believe this is Antwerp's town hall

This just looks so European to me.

I really fell in love with the Antwerp train station (an odd building to fall in love with, but there you have it).  We made our way towards it as night was beginning to fall, and it was just so incredible looking.  We got picked up by Emily's friend in her car, so this as our first look at the station.

I thought I had taken a better picture, but guess not. 

This leads to the main platforms. 

Inside the station

Welcome to Antwerp

Brussels: The Manneken Pis, Waffles and a Pub Quiz

After our return from Prague Emily and I boarded a train at Paris Nord (train station) and headed off to Brussels.  It was to be our first stop in our Belgium tour, and we would spend a day there before heading off to Antwerp.  We happened to be staying with a friend there, and she actually works for the EU Parliament, which is headquartered (at least the political part) in Brussels.  So our meetup point was the Parliament building so that we could drop our stuff off before heading to do our sightseeing.  I wish we could have gone inside and taken a tour, but we weren't able to (sad day).  I at least know what the building looks like:

Front of the building

Right side

Left side

After lunch we made our way around Belgium, taking in all the sights it has to offer. Our first stop was the the Palais Royale, home of the Beglium royal family.

Our next stop was to see the famous Manneken Pis statue that is a major landmark in Belgium.  It's popularity within the country rivals the Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen. 

This much bigger replica of the statue was right around the corner next to a waffle place:

Waffles (or "gaufres" in French) are Beglium's "it" food, along with their at least twice fried French fries (aka Chips).  I don't think I can ever go back to eating an Eggo waffle after having a Belgian one.  It was the most delicious waffle I've ever tasted.  The following pictures will show all the different kinds of toppings that you can get on a waffle, but a plain one is just as tasty.  All I had on mine was some whip cream, and I probably could have even left that off. 

We were told that the Musical Instrument museum would have a pretty decent view of the city.  There is a cafe at the very top of the museum, and so that is where Emily and I headed once our legs and feet started to become tired. 

The Musical Instrument Museum.  I probably would have really liked the  actual museum part, but we decided not to visit it. Just gives me another reason to go back to Brussels!

View from our table

Zoomed in view from our table. 

After our afternoon of sightseeing we met back up with our friend to head to a bar to do what the Brits call a "pub quiz" (aka trivia).  It was a good time, up until we got to one of the rounds that was entitled "History of Ireland", and that's when all the Brits at the table used their famous "bloody hell" and "bullocks" expression.  The pub quiz seemed to go down hill from there, as all the Brits were irate that they were being quizzed on Irish history. LOL. 

Next stop on the Belgium map, Antwerp!

Kutna Hora and the Bone Chapel

Kutna Hora, a town that lies an hour outside of Prague, is a town that is not just home to a bone chapel but it is also home to a great part of Czech history.  This town used to be the economic power house of the then called Bohemia Kingdom.  It was the sight of sliver mining, and because it became so prosperous, the town was able to attract the attention of many Bohemian kings.  If the silver mining industry had not died out, Kutna Hora may have very well been the capital of the Czech Republic instead of Prague.

town of Kutna Hora on a clear (cold) day

Now that you've had your Czech history lesson, it's time to move on to the bone chapel.  There are approximately 40,000 bones and skulls that lie within in this chapel.  Interestingly enough, I believe (if memory serves me correctly) there are bone chapels in Portugal and Rome that hold many more bones and skulls than this one does.  One of those chapels has at least 80,000 bones and skulls in it.  Anyway, these bones and skulls aren't just simply laying all over  the floor in piles.  They have been put together to decorate the basement of the chapel.  There's a chandelier, a family crest, a bone monstrance (that's for all my Catholic friends and family) among many other things.  It's not as creepy as it sounds; it really is more fascinating and intriguing.  Have a look:

Chandelier

Family Crest

Monstrance

If this is what 40,000 bones can do, can you imagine what 80,000 must look like?

Just chilling (literally) with the skulls

After visiting a few other sites in the city, we finished up with lunch. This is Wild Boar Goulash  with "dumplings". Pretty tasty!

Prague: It's like little America, except they don't speak English

I am fresh off of 12 days of nonstop traveling throughout Europe. My 12 day European tour consisted of the following places: Prague, Brussels, Antwerp, Brugges, Dunkerque, Dinard and Mont St. Michel.  Not to worry, I will be blogging about each one of these places, which means that you all will have some excellent blog posts to read in the upcoming week!

Let's start with Prague, which was definitely a trip highlight.  My friend Emily and I landed in Prague on Saturday morning (the 12th), where we promptly figured out the metro and bus so that we could get to the place where we were staying. We started out our trip by taking a free tour of the city with the Sandman's New Europe company (they are a pretty awesome company, I'd definitely recommend them!) The tour we took gave us a good feel for the city, plus some history, and allowed us to figure out just exactly what we needed/wanted to see during our trip. There was one downfall to the tour, however: IT WAS FREEZING!!! I think that day in Praha as the locals say, it was -17 degrees Celsius, and the mountains had hit -42 degrees Celsius that night. Emily and I learned to layer our clothes very well so that we wouldn't freeze to death. A typical outfit for a Prague day consisted of the following:
-Tights
-Leggings
-2 pairs of socks
-Jeans
-leg warmers
-Ugg boots
-shirt
-long, thick sweater that goes all the way to my knees
-Fleece jacket
-Trench coat on top of all that
-hat
-gloves
-scarf (which I left in Montlucon- sad day)

If you look at some of my pictures and wonder why I look like a puffed up marshmallow, now you know just how much I was wearing.

Ok, enough about the cold....I bet you are eagerly awaiting some pictures of the city.  I promise that I will not disappoint you!

Here is the Astronomical Clock that is located in the Old Town Square of the city:

The explanation of the clock is pretty cool, but you're going to have to go to Prague to hear about it! :)

The Municipal House is quite a gorgeous building that served as the seat of the kings of Prague (aka Bohemia) from the beginning of the 14th century till about 1483.

During the day

At night...I prefer the nighttime picture

The National Gallery during the day:

 And at night

Prague Castle 

in front of Prague Castle

If I was writing a book, I'd need to devote a whole chapter to my 5 days in Prague; that is just how much we saw and did in our short time there. One of the trip highlights was the Beer Tour that we did on our last night, which happened to be Valentine's Day (best VDay to date, as a matter of fact).  The Czech's pride themselves on their beer, and they are equally as proud that they consume the most beer per capita in the entire WORLD.  That's right folks, the most beer drank per capita happens in the Czech Republic.  On our beer tour we learned about Czech beer, and we even got to taste a little bit of it as well:

Stop 1: We got to sample different flavors of beer. This place has over 30 different flavors!

Stop 2: Drinking the REAL Budweiser 

Budweiser is Czech in origin.  The American Budweiser was started by a Czech beer maker and has evolved into the American brand we know today.  The true Czech budweiser is different in taste.

Our trip was a lot of fun, and I definitely learned a lot of historical information that I did not know before.  Everyone believes that because Prague is in Eastern Europe there is a fascinating, drastically different culture that exists there.  I found that it was not the culture that was vastly different.  Indeed, the language was pretty intimidating and overwhelming, but you'd be surprised at just how modern Prague really is.  I mean, we found a TGIFriday's there for goodness sake! What is vastly different however, is their history and how they came to be the Czech Republic. If anyone has been thinking about visiting Prague, I'd say do it.  You will find an incredibly enchanting city, rich with history that has shaped it's national identity to this very day.  One piece of advice I will leave you with about Prague: plan your trip during the warmer months; you will be much happier walking around in shorts and t-shirts than 15 different layers.