Brussels. My first impression of the station was an explosion of smells. Chocolates and croissants, room fresheners and perfumes, I could smell so, so much here.
Chinese lanterns, zodiac symbols on the floor, figurines of unknown important looking leaders and the opulent entrance of Le Meridian, the Central Station had it all. Except maps, that is.
Venturing into this pleasantly cold city without our customary map, walking about the streets, we came across a little morning market, set up under tents and selling curios. A Notre Dame look alike in the distant and the towering spire of Hotel de Ville, this city seemed extremely likeable almost immediately. Each European city I've visited so far has had so much to offer, cities so different from one another - in the kind of people I’ve met, in the transport systems, the sheer variety of trains, the attractions they have had to offer, the architecture, the girls, the food, the smells in the air (and can I mention the costs?). So far, in spite of what I’ve heard, Brussels had not disappointed at all.
The Notre Dame look-alike was a massive Cathedral, with beautiful stained glass windows. PritS, ever the observant chap, pointed out the depiction of depth in the windows using deeper colours, with the foreground depicting Biblical scenes and those from the days of the royalty. Brussels, probably the whole of Belgium, also seemed to love their Monarchy, with photographs of the royalty at several places all over the city. Impressive for a city that has been revolutionary in its ideas (the centre of the European bank and the entire Art Nouveau culture here explains much). This Cathedral also had ornate sculptures of Bishops all along the walls, each pointing in a specific direction, sometimes to each other. If I were Langdon, I’d probably figure why.
Everywhere we walked in Brussels, we could see new age abstract artwork and sculptures placed in gardens, whether it was a shimmering crumpled up blob of metal, or an almost two dimensional wooden cow that encouraged lovers of freedom to doodle on it, Brussels seems to be in the middle of an art revolution.
One particular pseudo street, the Galeries Saint Hubert, particularly caught our attention. it was apparently the first true shopping arcade in Europe, and even today, it was simply splendid. A huge frosty glass ceiling above, Art Nouveau sculptures below and the famous Belgian chocolate stores below (some dating as far back as 150 years), this place was fascinating.
Today also seemed to be school kids’-day-out, because we could see several hundreds of kids running about, wearing radium green jackets, enjoying their day out.
We next visited Grand Place- which was the city center and the town hall, a gothic spire towering over the clear sky; this building was small but beautiful. Apparently, it was the only building that missed getting bombed in Brussels during the war, which is weird considering it was the target in every attack.
Catching up on what I felt was the most delicious Sub yet, we walked around further, navigating around our new found map. An interesting, again Art Nouveau building fascinated us, the Old English Building, which had music notes on its exterior wall. Apparently, this was the biggest museum dedicated to musical instruments in the world, and it was pure genius.
This is one of the museums I have enjoyed the most as of yet. Sporting musical instruments from hundreds of countries, this museum housed a most esoteric and brilliant collection of musical instruments. To top it all, the audio guide was infrared activated, meaning all we had to be in proximity to a musical instrument to hear specifically created compositions play on it.
Beginning from traditional Belgian instruments, this museum had instruments from India, China, Italy, France, Japan and a huge collection from Africa – truly an astonishing collection. It almost seemed the aim of the museum was completeness with respect to the instruments they possessed, and they seemed to have done a fine job.
The collection had some fascinating instruments - from Dulcimers that had strings that need to be hit with hammers, to the Hurdy Gurdy - played in ancient times by beggars and the blind; quirky single and double barrelled Accordions; at least a 100 different kind of flutes (so many shapes, so many sizes!), amazing bagpipes from the shepherds and dancers and even Jews’ harps - key like instruments that need to be clicked together to produce a rickety noise that was music to the ears.
This museum was astonishing, with the ability to listen to nearly every type of sound produced, and a handsome guide book telling the story behind the instruments, I loved every bit of it. Amongst the more exotic instruments, I saw ancient Arab violins, which was accompanied by guttural singing, the forerunner to western stringed instruments, super Balalaika and lutes, complicated Tekeros, really long wind pipes called the Midwinterhoorn from Holland and Swiss Alphornspeiers, these instruments, then just modes of entertainment, today, it was almost a science.
Spending at least 3 hours there, Tards had to leave and the rest of us proceeded to the Atomium. But not before visiting the "SuSu boy", icon of Brussels, the Mannekan Pis. We visited many souvenir shops too, including one completely dedicated to horror.
Realizing the Atomium was far too far to walk, we bought tickets. On first sight, the Atomium was, well not too big. But from up front and close, this thing was enormous, and starkly beautiful. I'd go so far to say that I liked it more than the Eiffel, which is a mighty difficult task for any building. The huge globes, joined together with shafts of metal depicting a giant molecule had some kind of celestial beauty to it, and it was difficult not to far in love with it.
Sitting under it for several minutes and having a supper of bread and ketchup, I just sat there quiet, admiring the structure, with the thoughts that someday, I need to be here again.
Waiting until 7 pm there when it got even more beautiful, with the flashing lights on, catching a fleeting glimpse at the Atomium before we left, we boarded a metro and then an international intercity to Amsterdam. Amsterdam! Woo-Hoo-Ness-All-Over-Again!
As things were meant to be, we are finally on our first leg of Eurotrip. Yeah, say it with me, “Yippee”. Feels good, doesn’t it?
Paying some 35 Euros for the super fast (300 km/hr) Thalys from Paris to Cologne (in Germany), it was a smooth journey, with little to report from the countryside except for towering church spires, many flat bladed wind turbines and endless meadows (especially on the German side). A brief stopover at Brussels later, we reach Cologne, site of my “favourite-st” building on Planet Earth. Being the bit of the brat that I am, I refused to get inside the Cathedral in the one hour transit period that we had, and instead, all we did was admire the imposing Gothic facade. Beautiful, but I’d describe it on a later date because this is not what this trip was intended to be about.
Boarding another train, the Regio DB from Cologne to Hamburg, we were surprised when an ancient carriage lugged into the station, with almost no markings signifying which coach is which. Armed with reserved tickets (that cost us 3 Euros each), we were determined to get our seats. Shocked, and to our dismay, we found out that the train was infact completely unreserved. We were ripped off our 12 Euros. Sigh.
Some clever thinking later, we all got seats in different corners of the same coach, comfortable coaches, but now few things compare to the Thalys. When the ticket checker finally did come around, I convinced her to cancel our reservations (instead of demanding seats) and got ourselves a refund of the money we paid! Cologne to Hamburg, for free!
Drowsy and rather bored, I drifted off to sleep soon. I woke up to the sound of a few kids quarrelling about, and the seat opposite me was now occupied by a Mom and her 3 kids. A pair of twins with clear blue eyes, and a cute elder sister, they were playing about, talking in German, occasionally casting curious glances at the non-German me, and passing off shy smiles. By the end, one kid and I started to make faces at each other. Try imagine me doing that for a moment with a six year old kid and you’ll understand why the mom burst out laughing loudly!
Switching trains at Hamburg, we got into the ICE 2112 (InterCity Express). Seldom does one travel on trains that are more sophisticated than airplanes, but this one was, complete with an audio entertainment system, revolving bedroom sized washrooms and automatic doors. Little did we realize that this would become the norm soon. The journey, comfortably paced at around 5 hours, was scheduled to reach Copenhagen at around 10 p.m.
A 3 hour ride later, while I was on a call, the train lugged into what looked like a station that was completely walled. I saw a hurried rush of passengers getting out of the train, including PritS and Tards. Confused, I followed out, expecting it to be safety drill.
Imagine my surprise when I climbed what appeared to be a station to find myself on the deck of a ship! My train was in the belly of a ship, whole and complete!
Take a deep breath and read that again. The possibility of an entire train fitting into a ship, and suddenly setting sail on a luxurious cruise liner was unbelievable. This short journey from Mainland to Denmark was on a ship, and our train journey was to continue from there on. And all this for just a 3 Euro ticket. I loved it. Absolutely.
Armed with a thin tee and a muffler, for in the delirious state that I was in, I had left my winter coat in the train. We climbed on to the deck to face an icy cold wind shooting through our spine. We were on board the Scandiline, a huge, 5 star ferry. Watching the sunset from the starboard, and extremely cute couple from our train coach took a photograph for us. Scandinavians so far have been extremely polite.
It is difficult to explain the scene I was witnessing. Frigid seas, a gigantic ocean liner, shops selling luxurious designer brands in the ship’s promenade, my train in the belly of a ship, a shimmering orange sunset, cold wispy air and very thinly clad for the weather, all I could let out was a fumbled “wow”. It was beautiful, to see those wind turbines on the coast, frothy water on all sides and the feeling of being on a ship – completely unexpected.
We love the half ride completely.
At Copenhagen, we had precious few minutes to decide what we were to do next. Head to Malmo, spend the night at the station here and proceed to Stockholm next morning. Or spend the night in Copenhagen and go to Stockholm next morning. Unable to find the tourist office, we rushed to the DBS train counters to enquire about tickets. It was hilarious, in retrospect :
PritS: Sir, do you speak English?
Gentleman in Grey: (fluently) Yes, I do speak English.
PritS: We wanted to go to Stockholm.
GiG: When?
PritS: Today or Tomorrow.
GiG: Your train leaves in 2 minutes from Station 4.
PritS: (Something about tomorrow morning’s train)
GiG: Your train leaves in a minute and a half from Station 4.
PritS: (Something about Eurail passes)
GiG: (Completely unfazed, almost bored) One minute if you want to go to Stockholm.
The rest of us almost dragged PritS to Station 4, to see the train from Malmo lugging in. Ticketless, for we were refused reservation, we got in with the “Jo hoga, baad main dekha jayega” – Dad’s philosophy.
A superb train again, we were curious if we would be fined and thrown out for being ticketless. An awesomely sweet ticket checker quickly checked our Eurail passes, and deciding that this journey indeed was free, dished out valuable information on our connecting train to Stockholm from Malmo (which would be at a 5 minute gap). Thank her profusely, and blessing the Scandinavians for being so polite and going out of their way to help people, we got out at Malmo.
Here, another dilemma we faced was if we could board a sleeper night train without reservation. When you are new to a country, an entire continent infact, and have done little research, everything worries you.
Dad’s philosophy again, we boarded the train, sitting in the last coach, a chair car. Finding ourselves an unoccupied cabin, and with a what-the-heck attitude, we sat there, dumping our heavy backpacks.
Before I continue, let me retrace a bit to explain that by this time, our throats were burnt dry due to lack of water (too expensive everywhere, and too little time to find public drinking water booth, what with all that running around).
Continuing, once aboard, we sat in this cabin, the only one in the entire coach, drawing curtains, waiting for the train to start moving. Once it did begin, PritS and I decided we needed water, and quick! Finding a ticket checker in the adjacent sleeper coach, we asked him for water and the polite man said, with a thick Nordic accent, “But in Sweden, you must carry your own water!”.
Explaining a little about us having been travelling since morning, traversing several thousands of miles from Paris and switching trains in record time, we said bye bye returning to our cabins.
A few moments later, this chap comes, asks for our tickets, entering in an almost hilarious hop-skip-jump movement, saying “Hungry and thirsty, can I have your tickets please?”.
Approving the passes we were carrying, he walked away, safely drawing curtains and shutting the cabin on his way out. He somehow brought a smile on our tired faces.
Resigned to our thirst, we decided we had no option but to got sleep thirsty and miserable. Patwaji handed out candys (Ravalgaon) to help sooth our thirsts, and we decided the best we could do was to sleep.
Imagine our surprise when the same gentleman returned with four cartons of water for us, offering a broad smile and leaving without saying another word, as if embarrassed with his own generosity. I loved these guys, and the feeling was unanimous.
Our thirsts quenched, I sit here under this reading lamp, scribbling away on a borrowed notepad, my memory still fresh. For tomorrow is another day, another adventure. 5 countries covered in a single day, and tired, I drift away to sleep.