So, the big test. I am in Paris, city of all sorts of nouns. I'm staying on the floor of Lisa's apartment, which I comprehended was small... but in it's entirety it is actually smaller than my bedroom! So very little space to move with a house guest... So I feel entirely indebted to Lisa- you are fabulous, Lise!!!!
So far, I like Paris. This experience is based on arriving in Paris at 5pm Sunday, a walk around Lisa's area (which includes viewing Pont Neuf and Pont Des Arts, bits of Notre Dame, and Fontaine St Michel. Oh and no criticism of any French I use is allowed. Only encouragement, I am a fragile French attempter. Any nastiness may send me back into my shell entirely) and then dinner. So not much, today I will strike out on my own while Lisa does things one must do having been out of town for a week. I am going to see Notre Dame, I think. And... stuff. Lisa keeps asking what I want to do or see, but apart from a few things (churches, Louvre, Musee D'Orsay), I really don't know. Stuff.
Belgium has definitely got a good rap from me. Bruges was beautiful, whether it's fake or not it is just gorgeous. We have surmised that perhaps Lonely Planet warns people off it because it is very tourist driven, there are tourists all over the place. But hey, I'm a tourist, so I can't complain. Went to a chocolate museum while Lisa took a canal tour- with the amount of inevitable 'being lost' one does in Bruges (wind-y medieval streets are not conducive to well directed strolling), we didn't manage to each do both of these activities, but we each liked our choice.
Yesterday we split up and strolled around Belgium. I ended up taking photos of street art for Lisa!!! And trying to order things in French, which mostly went well. Then I drank beer. Both Lisa and I found that, even if you consider drinking something else, the fact that you're in Belgium and the great beer is so cheap compels you to just drink beer. Here are the beers I drank in Belgium:
Kreik (Cherry)
Duvel
Palm
Westmalle Tripel
Forbidden Fruit
Jupiler
Triple Karmeliet
Bruges Blonde
Grimbergen Dubel
Not bad for three days of beer drinking! (And of course sometimes I had more than one beer... Jupiler was incredibly cheap, at one hostel it was only 1 euro!)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Ooh an impressive selection of beers. What did you think of the Kreik cherry beer? I find these sweet fruity beers interesting. They do some in America too - I had a raspberry beer and a Halloween pumpkin beer, which wasn't as scary as it sounds. But the Belgian monks are the masters! : ) Is the Belgian beer in Belgium better than the Belgian beer here?
ReplyDeleteThank you, I was rather proud of it! Um, I don't know if the beer is better in Belgium. Certainly the ones on tap seem to be- those are the abbey beers (a la Grimbergen) and other commercial beers (a la Kronburgen)- but my favourites are the Trappiste beers (Westmalle, Duvel etc) are secret recipes still made by the monks, and only come bottled, so the quality is the same. Thanks to my nerdy turn at the brewer's museum, I know that it is essential these are bottled and opened at time of consumption, as yeast is left in the beer to produce a second fermentation, leading to the particularly creamy head a begian Trappist beer has. Yes, smile and nod...
ReplyDeleteActually, the cherry beer was interesting, and better in Begium. I'd tried one in Melbourne and it was too beery. The one I tried in Belgium had a heavier cherry flavour and was sweeter. It was nice once you adjusted to the taste, kind of like a liqeur.