Europe – Page 5 – ToadMama.com

December 28, 2014December 28, 2014

Walking Tour of Zaffelare, Belgium

I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas. It was a bit of a bust around here. Just a bit, though. We thoroughly enjoyed a visit from Shannon, who was here December 17 – 27. We got to spend time with my Dad and Mike’s Mom, too (they were here December 23 – 27). We were supposed to have a post-Christmas party on December 26 — our son and his wife, and my brother, sis-in-law, and nephew were going to come — but then Mike and I both got walloped with colds halfway through Christmas day. So, sadly, we had to cancel the after-party. It was during that party-that-never-happened that I’d been planning on taking pictures of everyone, so I have very few pics of the people who were here. Sigh…

Instead of a Christmas post, I’ll just get back to the vacation re-cap.

We made it back to Annelies and Yves’ house in Belgium on Wednesday evening, just in time for dinner. By Thursday, Mike and I were both ready for a down day, so we just relaxed around the house while Annelies worked.

At one point, I decided to go for a stroll around town. I wanted a closer look at the brick work I’d been admiring. As the below excerpt from a book I found on-line explains, Belgians are artists with brick.

Annelies and Yves currently live in the town of Zaffelare, which is part of the municipality of Lochristi, located in the Belgian province of East Flanders. Here’s a Google Maps link if you’re curious.

Neither of them think their town is particularly remarkable, but I find it quite charming. Especially when you look at the architectural detail, which I think they probably just take for granted.

It appears very well-maintained, too. There were lovely flowers everywhere, and the streets were very clean.

I found it a charming mix of old and new. There were a number of older, brick buildings being renovated and some new buildings being erected near the town’s center.

There’s even a small castle! (Kasteel van Zaffelare)

I thoroughly enjoyed my walking tour, and I collected quite a few images to share with you. Some of those images are included below. If you like, you can view all of the images I captured during my walk by following this link to my Zaffelare album on Flickr.

First is one of my favorite buildings. I love how the builder used different colored bricks to add detail. Up close, I was delighted to discover some of the bricks featured a ceramic glaze.

Zaffelare 003 — Green and White Glazed Accent Bricks

Zaffelare 004 — If I remember correctly, this is still being used as a school.

Zaffelare 006 — Church (even the steeple is brick)

Zaffelare 013 — Older building undergoing renovation.

Zaffelare 014 — The Castle (Kasteel van Zaffelare)

Zaffelare 036 — Steeple Fashioned from Black Bricks

I was also impressed by the Belgian builders’ use of different varieties of brick and stone. The following picture is a good example of this variety.

Zaffelare 043 — Look at that variety of brick.

I also noticed a lot of stained-glass windows, as seen in the image below (second storey window). I find the bump-out in that building interesting, too. Also, check out the window shades, which are sort of like little garage doors over the windows. These shades are very common on homes, and often have electronic open/close mechanisms (like on garage doors).

Zaffelare 049 — Leaded Stained-glass Window Detail

Another shot of my favorite green-glazed bricks, but this time with a bonus reflection.

Zaffelare 056 — I just love those green-glazed bricks.

Zaffelare 059 — Interesting variety of brick and stone.

Zaffelare 061 — Unique structural support.

Zaffelare 063 — Mix of old and new. Note the closed window shades on the left.

Zaffelare 067 — Cute, newer, modern cottage.

As I made my way back to the house, I was treated with this nice view of the sky while walking down Annelies and Yves’ street.

Zaffelare 085 — Annelies and Yves’ Street

Shortly after I reached the house, Mike and I went to the store for lunch provisions and more beer to take along on our upcoming road trip.

As soon as Yves returned from work, we’d all be piling into the car and heading south through France and into Switzerland for our planned rendezvous at Tammi and Martin’s house. I’ll save that for the next post.

Did you find the masonry as intriguing as I did?

December 23, 2014

UK Wrap-up

I am woefully behind on posting about our European vacation. Heck, I’m behind on blogging, period. It’s been hectic around here, and I just haven’t been motivated to post.

But here goes…

From Gloucester, I’d thought we could wend our way through the countryside, see a couple more cathedrals, and finish the day off in Brighton, a seaside resort town. But since we’d lingered longer than anticipated in Stow-on-the-Wold AND Gloucester, and still had a three-plus-hour drive ahead of us, time was getting tight. And by then, we were both kind of cathedraled out. One can only see so many of those absolutely amazing places in one short span of time before they start blending together. So I told Hubby to just let the GPS plot the fastest route to Brighton and off we went.

Fast routes are rarely scenic, and they’re not always fast either. The GPS took us down past London — on the southwest side — and then south on the M23 past Gatwick Airport. It was nearing rush hour, so traffic was rather heavy.

Our hotel was actually in Hove, a town to the west of Brighton. It appeared to me that the two sort of blended together. As it turns out, Brighton and Hove were merged in 1997 to form the borough of Brighton and Hove. Then, in 2000, the conjoined towns were officially granted city status. So I guess you could say we stayed on the Hove side.

We were both a bit loopy from hunger and fatigue, so after we checked into our hotel, we set out to find a pub.

There were two reasons I wanted to go to Brighton. One, to see an English seaside town, which I pictured as looking much like Wildwood, New Jersey or Ocean City, Maryland. You know, with a boardwalk, souvenir shops, tiny restaurants galore, small hotels and motels, etc. The second reason was to get real, authentic fish and chips.

It took a while, but we finally found Hove Place. And, as you can see in the image above, we secured some fish and chips. They’re commonly served with mushy peas, which I loved, too. Hubby, not so much.

The fish-and chips were seriously the best we’d ever eaten. As is to be expected when dining in a seaside, UK town, right?

Hove Place Collage CLICK HERE for bigger view — Hove Place Collage (click for bigger image)

After that lovely, delicious dinner and two very large glasses of beer, we crashed back at the hotel.

The next morning, we looked around Brighton a bit before heading east to Dover, where we were scheduled to get a 2:00-ish ferry back to France.

Brighton was not at all what I expected. It’s not a cute, quaint seaside town, it’s a bustling city — with tall buildings and everything — that sits beside the water. And we had to cross mountains to get there. The city itself is quite hilly.

It was still cool to see. We explored Brighton a bit the next morning. After finding a car park — aka parking lot — we headed for the water, which was a bit more challenging than anticipated since we were in the middle of a city. But we did it.

We were hoping there’d be restaurants or cafes on the boardwalk, but since there wasn’t a boardwalk, we had to head back into the city.

Look what we spotted in a little alley…

Since I’d never had a genuine English scone, we HAD to go inside.

I’m so glad we did. It was super-cute.

I snapped pictures while we waited for our breakfast to be served.

We both ordered scones and coffee. They were DELICIOUS, and were served on transferware to boot.

After that lovely English breakfast, we strolled around a bit more. Here are some of the fun images I captured.

beachwalk — Hubby waiting while I walked on the beach.

heart rock — Look what I just happened to see on the stony shore.

Finally, a bit of the seaside tackiness I love.

I thought that might have some sort of maritime significance, like a thing ships tied off to, but it’s just art, known as the Doughnut Groyne.

I had to laugh when I saw that, which immediately reminded me of the song, Shiny Disco Balls.

Here’s a collage of images for you…

It wasn’t long before we had to set off for Dover, which was a couple hours away. The drive was interesting, but mostly unremarkable except for some sheep.

Before too long, we were at the ferry terminal.

dover1 — Waiting to pay our ferry toll in Dover.

I used to think the Washington State ferries were big, but they got nothing on these English Channel behemoths!

If you like to see the full collection of pictures from that day, CLICK HERE to get to my Flickr album.

Next up… a walking photo tour of Annelies and Yves’ charming village in Belgium.

November 2, 2014

Delicious Dinner and Fun Social Event

I’m a bit behind on my posts about the Europe trip. While this one is sort of about the trip, it’s more about a delicious dinner idea you simply must try. Our Swiss friends, Tammi and Martin, fed it to us for dinner one night during our recent trip while we were visiting their home.

I knew immediately that I HAD to try it here at home. The only question was, would we be able to find the right cheese, or a suitable replacement.

Here’s a group pic from our visit…

BE_to_CH 098 copy — L-R, Martin, Tammi,Annelies, Me, Mike (aka Hubby), Yves, Timo, and Heather

I have the coolest friends. Really. I love these folks.

Anyway, back to dinner. It was called Raclette. It’s pronounced like rock-let. Essentially it’s melted cheese and stuff served over boiled potatoes. Not just any cheese, Raclette cheese. It’s actually a type of cheese, suitable for melting. Martin and Tammi thought maybe Gruyere might be a good substitute. Or any similar cheese that melts well.

Everyone figured it was probably available on-line. It is. It’s actually available through Amazon. But when I was searching, I found The Swiss Bakery, which sells on-line, but also happens to be sorta close to here.

Anyone who likes and buys good cheese knows, cheese ain’t cheap. Gruyere, which I tried first, is $20-$25 per pound at our local supermarket. The Raclette sold by The Swiss Bakery is “only” $17 per pound. And two people can easily eat half a pound of the stuff.

There are different tools you can use to melt the cheese. I’ve been planning to get a table-top raclette grill, AFTER I was sure I could get the cheese.

Since I had no plans for yesterday, and it was too cold and windy for a motorcycle ride (in my opinion), I drove my car to The Swiss Bakery for cheese.

Wanna guess what we had for dinner? LOL. It was darn good, too.

Here are some pics from that first dinner Martin and Tammi served.

BE_to_CH 106 — Martin & Tammi’s Raclette Set-up

There were eight of us, so they actually had two grills.

It was fabulous, really.

Raclette is traditionally served with cornichons (fancy, itty-bitty dill pickles) and cocktail onions, and accompanied by white wine. Apparently — according to Martin who is a chef and knows these things — the cornichons, onions, and wine all work together to help digest the cheese.

And that’s important. Simply put, picture eating a plateful of hot, melted cheese followed by a cold glass of water. The water would turn that cheese into a giant lump of goo in your gullet.

You start with boiled potatoes. You chop them up on your plate as your cheese melts, adding butter or not, depending on what you feel like. Raclette is also served with toppings, a lot like pizza toppings, that you can add to your cheese as it is melting. Diced bacon, dried beef, sliced grape tomatoes, olives, chopped leeks, diced onions, pepperoni, etc. Once the cheese is melted, you scrape it off of the little melting-tray onto your potatoes and voila, a nice little plate of deliciousness, prepared by you exactly to your liking.

For yesterday’s Raclette test here at home, I just put a cast iron frying pan under the broiler. Once it was hot, I removed it from the oven, laid the cheese, in 1/4″ slices, into the pan, added some diced green onions and dried beef, and then put it back under the broiler. By the time I’d put the boiled potatoes onto our plates, cut them up, and added butter, the cheese was ready. It melts well, so that part goes really fast.

Of course, I basically had a giant pan of melted cheese to portion out evenly between two plates, which is harder than having your own little Raclette tray, but I managed.

Here’s what my improvised Raclette looked like…

10734057_10204276547106932_6438601356785269706_n — Improvised Raclette

I served it in a pie plate to make it easier to eat in front of the TV. A regular plate would have been fine had we been dining at the table.

I wanted to get some air-dried Swiss beef — bundnerfleisch — but that’s hard to find locally, so I settled for Bresaola, which I found at Wegman’s. You could also use American dried beef, but the American version is much saltier. And drier. Prosciutto would work, too. So would pepperoni.

I’d really like to find some Speck (an Italian bacon from the South Tyrol region of Italy, which is rubbed with a mix of salt, pepper, juniper berries, other garden herbs, then dry cured, lightly cold smoked over beechwood chips, then stacked in aging cellars, where it is slow dried). Speck is similar to Prosciutto, but I think it’s better.

You can read a bit more about Raclette here, if you like.

Guess what I did before writing this post?

I ordered that Raclette grill I’ve been wanting. LOL.

You should try Raclette for yourself. But remember, the cheese is important. While the experiment with Gruyere was tasty, it wasn’t nearly as good. The Raclette is just a bit more-flavorful. Although boiled potatoes covered with melted Gruyere was far from the worst thing I’ve ever eaten, and I would eat it again in a pinch. But, if you REALLY like cheese and want to enjoy a more-authentic Raclete experience, buy some Raclette cheese. It’s worth it.

October 17, 2014

UK Continued: Gloucester

Early Americans may have been courageous travelers, but they were sure unimaginative when it came to naming places. I’ve been to Gloucester, Massachusetts and Gloucester, Vurginia. Now I can say I’ve been to Gloucester in South West England, too. It’s near the River Severn — when we lived in Maryland, we were close to the Severn River — and has a really big cathedral.

How big?

I couldn’t fit the whole thing into a frame.

Building of the cathedral began in 1089, but “Gloucester has been a place of Christian worship continuously for over 1300 years, since Osric, an Anglo-Saxon prince, founded a religious house here in 678-9 AD.” (If you’d like to learn more of the history, visit the cathedral’s Web site.)

It was VERY cool.

Here are some pics of the exterior, which itself is impressive.

BotW_to_Hove 109 — Statues/sculptures over door.

BotW_to_Hove 111 — Interesting support structure.

BotW_to_Hove 130 — Cloister Garth (courtyard surrounded by cloisters)

BotW_to_Hove 149 — Looking up at the tower from the courtyard.

BotW_to_Hove 153 — Interesting sculpted accent.

BotW_to_Hove 218 — Supports sculpted as if riveted.

garth_spires — LOVE the detail. (click on pic)

As grand as the place is on the outside, it’s even more amazing inside.

BotW_to_Hove 118 — Stunning, intricate cloister ceiling.

BotW_to_Hove 142 — Lovely stained glass.

BotW_to_Hove 123 — More lovely stained glass.

Harry Potter movies were filmed partly at Gloucester.

Stained Glass Collage (click on pic for bigger image)

BotW_to_Hove 166 — Closer look at sculpture below window.

BotW_to_Hove 177 — That’s what I call architectural detail.

BotW_to_Hove 192 — Painted ceiling (the whole room was painted like that).

BotW_to_Hove 197 — Hubby admiring some of the monuments/tombs/memorials.

BotW_to_Hove 201 — Very interesting arches.

shrines — Collage of memorials. (click on pic for larger view)

shrines2 — More memorials. (click on pic for larger view)

I am no historian. Sorry. You can take a virtual tour if you like.

And that was our visit to Gloucester Cathedral.

We roamed around, admiring its splendour for hours. I saw this road sign after leaving the cathedral grounds. It was near where we’d parked.

You can see all of my Gloucester pics on Flickr.

Can you understand how seeing a bunch of these amazing buildings in the span of a few days can get sort of overwhelming? And give one a sore neck?

September 25, 2014September 25, 2014

Home Again

We are back home after our fabulous European vacation.

It’s funny how a trip that really was to be an uneventful, laid-back visit with friends can result in 3,500+ pictures. It will take a while to go through those, that’s for sure.

As I write this, Hubby is in Baltimore, retrieving our doggie-girls from my mother-in-law’s house. She was kind enough to watch over our babies while we were away.

Eric and Kelsey are coming by for lunch later today. It’s a farewell-for-now lunch as they are leaving for Spain on Monday. Their plan is to live there, assuming they can find jobs to secure the work visas they will need. I’m happy for them, really, but sad knowing two of our kids will be living on a whole ‘nother continent. I do foresee a trip to Spain in the near future, however.

Since I go back to work today, I won’t have time for picture sorting. But I’ll get to it soon.

For now, here are a couple of pics from our last lunch with Annelies and Yves in Trier, Germany.

It’s good to be home, but it is always hard leaving our friends behind. Hubby and I are lucky to have these dear folks in our lives.

Here’s to more amazing adventures together.

July 18, 2014July 18, 2014

High Road to Harris Teeter

What do you when it’s lunch-time on a sunny, low-humidity, 80-degree day and you need something to cook for dinner? You go to the grocery story (aka “supermarket”). The long way, of course.

I’ve been busy at work again this week, which doesn’t leave much chance for escape. So today I decided to make the most of my lunch break.

Harris Teeter is 1.6 miles from my house. Point D on the map is roughly where my ride started and ended. Point C is the grocery store.

Roughly forty miles later, I’m back at the office.

Point B is the Northern Fauquier Community Park. It was a good break spot.

10513320_10203526442714791_2229683360565726309_n — Good place for a break.

10325339_10203526443114801_8963509476541846073_n — “What’s up, ducks?”

We’ve had fabulous weather over the last few days.

A mutual friend, who Hubby and I met during our first motorcycle vacation in Europe, rode from his home in Quebec, Quebec, to the RoadRUNNER Touring Weekend event that’s happening in Snowshoe this weekend. He detoured a little on Wednesday so he could stop for a visit.

It was a lovely visit. Alain is one of those guys we could sit and chat with for hours. He’s just an all-around nice guy who just happens to enjoy motorcycles, takes great pictures, is a very entertaining storyteller, and travels on his bike A LOT.

Here are a few more pics of Alain from our Austria-Germany-Italy-Switzerland tour…

At the Timmelsjoch (Passo Rombo) High Alpine Road, clear for the moment.

Fuzzy, I thought of you when I saw these pics, which were taken by our tour guide.

Alain is the guy wearing the red coat astride the second bike.

Timmelsjoch a few moments later. Fog can be a problem there.

The next pic is actually one of Alain’s own images, as in taken with his camera. But I’m pretty sure I was the photographer doing the clicking.

Alain Labadie, high above Innsbruck, Austria.

I really would have loved to have been able to escort him out of town on Thursday morning, but I had to work and deadlines were looming… Dang it. I’ve been kicking myself ever since, which is one of the reasons I was so happy to get out for a bit today, even if it was only for a short trip to the grocery store. LOL.

I did manage to stop at this one spot about 4 miles outside of town to snap some pics.

A too-close shot of this pretty little barn.

The barn and the gorgeous house look relatively new. It’s a fabulous spot. I’ll have to pop in for a visit one day to meet the lucky folks who live there. And maybe meet their cows, too.

Here’re a few more pics taken from about a quarter mile from their driveway.

DSCN3251 — I was pressed for time, so the lid stayed on.

DSCN3252 — Horse (and cow) country mere minutes from our home.

DSCN3249 — Blackwell Road heading south toward Warrenton.

DSCN3253 — It really is a lovely place to ride.

If only all shopping trips were that picturesque, eh?

I hope y’all have a fabulous weekend!