Belgium and France 2012 - Paris and Paris-Roubaix

When we started kicking around the idea of this trip and found out that my parents would be in Paris around the same time, we decided that we just had to go to Paris to meet them. We were able to meet up for dinner every night while we were there and it was great fun. We all agreed that we should meet in Paris more often.



It wouldn't be a trip to Paris without some croissants. Christine's old favorite was under new management so we weren't sure if they were still awesome. Long story short - they're still amazing and we didn't even bother going through the list of award winning croissants that Christine had printed up. If it ain't broke...


On Easter Sunday we drove out from Paris to see a little bit of the Pariss-Roubaix bike race. Similar to Flander the week before, this is a race that features a lot of cobblestone sections of road. It's a real hardmans race, and I love it. We drove up to the start to watch the riders sign-in and roll out, then we drove up to the one of the famous cobblestone sections - The Trouée d'Arenberg. What an amazingly hellish stretch of "road". We were about 100m meters from the end of the sector and I couldn't believe the speed that the riders were carrying. Unbelievable.






All good things must come to an end, and eventually we had to head home. With a 12:30PM flight, we had enough time to drive by Christine's favorite croissant shop one more time and get a couple to satisfy us until our next trip.

And just in case you wondering, we didn't leave Belgium empty handed:

Belgium and France 2012 - Normandy

We checked out of our beer lover's lodging on Thursday morning and drove down to the Normandy region of France. We drove most of the afternoon to get down to Mont Saint-Michel, which is a rocky island that his home to an abbey. Until the late 1800's, you could only get to the island at low tide. Nowadays, the road is accessible all the time. The parking lots, however, are not. As we pulled up to park, there was a sign indicating that the parcking lot would be under water in 2.5 hours. It was less time than we thought we'd need, but we went for it anyway. It turns out that it was just the right amount of time for us to tour the abbey, stop in a couple tourist shops, get a crepe, and leave before the tide buried our car.


We stayed in the town of Bayeux that night so we could explore the nearby D-Day beaches the next morning. We spent most of our time at the American Cemetary and Memorial at Omaha Beach. It's a breathtaking place containing over 9,000 graves of American military dead. I was really blown away at the number of people who gave the ultimate sacrifice here to literally change the world. Neither Christine nor I are too versed in WWII history but we learned a lot at their awesome visitor center. We were only thinking we'd make a quick stop here, but we ended up staying for a few hours. Well worth the visit.




On our way into Paris we made one last stop in Giverny to visit Monet's garden. We were going to skip it, but it turned out to be such a beautful day that a walk in the garden sounded great.

Belgium and France 2012 - Wandering around Belgium

We filled some of our other time in Belgium by visiting some new beer cafes and checking out other sights.

- We went to the World Cyclocross Championship course in Koksijde. It turns out there's not much to see there, but we did have a good time shopping and having a picnic at the beach.

- We drove just across the border to Roubaix France to see the famous velodrome where Paris-Roubaix finishes.


- Flanders is a big hop growing area, so we went to the hop museum in Poperinge. We only expected it to be mildly interesting, but in actuality it was really interesting. We learned a lot about how hops have been cultivated and sold throughout the years.

- The finishing city of the Tour of Flanders, Oudenaarde, also is the home of the Ronde museum. The race has a rich history in Belgium and they've collected a lot of cool stuff.

Without a doubt one of the trip highlights was having dinner with the Paneels, who run our favorite cafe. (I've babbled ad nauseum about In de Verzekering Tegen de Grote Dorst before here and here. We love that place and these people.) On our last trip, they had us over to their house for dinner and we wanted to return the favor by taking them out. We showed up at the house and were greeted like old friends with warm hugs and smiles before they invited us inside to catch up over a nice beer. Their son, Yves, also came over for a little while to chat. He's really involved in the lambic community and we had a good time chatting about some past and upcoming events he's planning. We spent the next couple hours laughing and chatting with a combination of English, French, Dutch, and wild hand gesturing over dinner at a nearby restaurant.

Before we drove back to Flanders, they invited us back inside for a special treat. In celebration of Lydia's birthday, her sons created a custom geuze blended from the region's well known lambic brewers. [Briefly: lambic is a style of beer that uses wild fermentation, aged hops, and a lengthy oak barrel fermentation. Old and young lambics are then blended together by skilled blenders to create what's known as geuze. It's often considered the "wine" of the beer world.] They made 20 bottles of this beer and then the grand kids painted labels for each bottle. 20 bottles of an expertly crafted geuze, and they chose to share one with us. It is truly a special beer, and I felt pretty honored that we qualified as a special occasion. I don't know when it will happen, but I can't wait to go back!

Belgium and France 2012 - Ronde van Vlaanderen

About a year ago I was watching the Ronde van Vlaanderen (Tour of Flanders) and Paris-Roubaix bike races in front of my TV with a nice beer in hand, and I started thinking about how fun it would be to actually be there. So...I made it happen this year and went to Europe to watch my 2 favorite bike races. I'll take any excuse to go back to Belgium, though. I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again: Belgium isn't generally the most scenic of places, but there's something about it that feels comfortable. The people are friendly, they love cycling, and they make great beer. What's not to love (I mean, besides the weather)?

After a pleasant trip on Air Canada through Montreal, we arrived in Brussels Saturday morning. I like the fact that we've been to this airport enough that it's familiar. Our first stop was the new Lambic Museum in Beersel, which was worth a visit. If nothing else, they give you a sample of their lambic to taste. Best part - it comes out of a box (like wine in a box). I wish I could have bought some lambic in a box to take home.

On our way out to our B&B in Flanders, we scoped out a good place to watch the Tour of Flanders the next day. The Oude Kwarement had a pretty good setup with beer and food vendors and a large TV so you can watch the rest of the race. That seemed like a good plan for Sunday.

When I was starting to look for a place to stay in Belgium, I found out that there was a B&B right next to the Saint Bernardus brewery. Saint Bernardus is one of our fevorite breweries, and the B&B came equipped with a fridge stocked with all of their beers. Dreamy. Sadly for us, the nearby Westvleteren Abby was closed for the Easter holiday. Tragic, because I'm nearly out of the Westvleteren 12 we brought back from our last trip.

On Ronde race day, we tried to get to the Kwaremont but they had a bunch of the roads closed off. Instead of continuing to drive around trying to find a good route, we parked near a different big climb - The Paterberg. It got used 3 times during the race and they had a similar setup that we say the day before at the Kwaremont. Having seen both on TV now, I think they Paterburg actually looked like a better place to watch from.






We were there early enough to walk on the course and check out the whole cobblestone climb. It's nothing you'd want to ride on your relaxing Sunday ride. We then settled in field with a bunch of crazy Belgians, many of whom were several beers into their day. Before too long the pro women rode by. It was fun to see Fort Collins cyclist Amanda Miller tackling that climb. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how nice it is, to see her suffer on a ride. On any ride that I'm on with her, I'm too far off the back to see that suffer-face.


Next up, the big boys came zooming by. I like this picture with Tom Boonen:



You can see the face of pain on Seb Vanmarcke, but Boonen was looking pretty damn comfortable. He eventually went on to win the race, which was no surprise. To be in Belgium watching the Tour of Flanders with a bunch of Belgians when a Belgian wins is awesome. They love their cyclists, and the crowd cheered loudly when Boonen won the sprint. An amazing experience.

In de Verzekering Tegen de Grote Dorst

One of the things I was looking most forward to in Belgium was revisiting our favorite beer cafe: In de Verzekering Tegen de Grote Dorst. We first visited Dorst a couple years ago and immediately fell in love with the place and the family who runs it (the Panneels). You can read more from our first trip here.

I wondered if they'd remember us two years later. The place is only open on Sundays and church holidays so we rolled up on Christmas day right when they opened. We were the only ones there so all eyes were on us when we walked in the door. There was a brief silence. I could tell we looked familiar to them, but the cogs were turning as they tried to figure it out. Smiles came to their faces when they remembered and they gave us hugs like old friends had just shown up. It was a great moment.

We stood at the bar talking with Maurice, Lydia, and Kurt for a little while and Kurt brought out a nice bottle of Giardin Oude Geuze Black Label for us to enjoy. As people started to file in, we grabbed a spot out of the way at a table. The Panneels told some of the cafe regulars that we were working on learning Flemish and they were happy to come over and give us a hard time. My Flemish is nearly non-existent, and Christine's is rudimentary. But it's fun to learn.

Since our last visit, they have started a guest book at the cafe. They had put the Christmas card we sent them last year inside the guest book, and apparently we had been the subject of some discussion in our absence. I don't know what they talked about, but it was probably something to the effect of "those crazy American alcoholics".

There is no place in Belgium (and probably the world) that carries the selection of Lambics that the Panneels carry. We sampled some really good stuff over the next few hours. We were settling up on our bill as the 1:30 PM closing time approached and Maurice and Lydia asked us if we would come over for dinner. That's not entirely accurate. They insisted we come over.

What an amazing gesture. In all the years they've been running the cafe they've never invited anyone over to their house, so it's pretty cool that they wanted us to come over and talk some more. I originally thought we'd just be going over to have some soup, but we ended up talking and eating for a few hours. It was fun getting to know them and learn more about their family. It's the unexpected moments like this that make a trip memorable.

Euro Christmas Trip 2010 (part 4)

All vacations must come to an end, and this one was winding down. We set the alarm for early-o'clock so we could drive back to Brussels for New Years Eve. First things first, we picked up some pain au chocolat. Seven of them actually.

We left Christine's "dealer" and started back to Brussels with a stop in Blaugies along the way to find some of their beer. Me and Blaguies just weren't to be. They were closed, just like they were closed two years ago when we went. Next we went to Beer Mania in Brussels to pick up some more take home beer and then head to our hotel. We booked a room at the Marriott in downtown Brussels using Christine's Marriott points. We were living large on the "executive" level and we had a sweet room looking out onto the Brussels Stock Exchange.

We did a little shopping at the Christmas market and then managed to run into our friends from Naples while we were both getting food. We had planned to meet in another hour at a bar, so it was funny to just run into them early. We all went out for a couple drinks at the Delirium Cafe. They have a massive beer list so we took the opportunity to try some new beers. The place was packed, and was filling in more and more as the evening went on. I could have sat there all night and drink, but we had some packing to do. We still needed "dinner" though, so we made a stop at Friteland. Mmmm. frites. A couple police came in and they looked ready for business: shin guards and zip-ties. Later they'd have helmets too.

I actually planned ahead for packing beer this time and I brought a bunch of bubble wrap and tape. It quickly became evident that all our beer and gifts were going to be difficult to pack (safely) in our bags alone. Thankfully the fine people at the Marriott front desk found us a couple boxes to use. I'll have to remember that for next time and maybe bring a couple broken down boxes. With Christine's status on United, we could take a total of 5 pieces of luggage so we had 2 suitcases, a duffel bag, and two boxes.

Having stuffed just about everything into our luggage, we went back to Delirium to meet Garrett and Sue for one more beer. It was getting close to midnight and the crowd had gotten even crazier. We actually just stood outside with our beers. Instead of heading into the belly of the New Years beast, we all retreated to our hotel where we could watch the mayhem from above and drink some of our own beer. (It's a clear sign we're getting older.) And mayhem there was. The highlight was when one of the Christmas market booths caught on fire.


How much beer did we cram into the bags?


- 23 Westvleteren 12
- 2 Rodenbach cans
- 4 Rodenbach Grand Cru
- 3 Kapittel Prio
- 1 Kapittel Triple
- 1 Dupont Saison Biologique
- 1 Mea Culpa
- 1 Drie Fonteinen Oude Kriek
- 1 Blaugie Biere Darbyste
- 1 Hoegaarden Le Fruit Defendu

Euro Christmas Trip 2010 (part 2)

One of the good things about visiting places in the winter is that tourist traffic is way down. The downside, though, is that many things aren't open or have weird hours.

On Christmas Eve day, pretty much everything we tried to visit was closed. Families in Europe usually get together for their holiday dinner on 12/24. After driving around for most of the day, we got back to Brugge and had dinner at a Thai restaurant. Nothing too exciting.

Christmas was the day of this trip we were probably looking most forward to. It was the day we'd be going back to our favorite cafe and I'll save that for a separate post.

We got back into Brugge after dinner on Christmas and went out to bar with a huge beer list - Cambrinus. You have to love it when you go to a place in Belgium and the beer menu is an inch thick book. While we were sitting there, the couple from Naples came in too. We found out we were all going to be in Brussels for New Years, so we tentatively planned to meet up.

On the 26th, we headed south with the ultimate goal of making it to Luzern Switzerland and visit with a friend from our recent raft trip. Along the way, we decided to swing through Westvletern. Thankfully they were open and we got to enjoy all three of their beers: 12, 8, and blond. So good. While we were still finishing our beers, I went to the gift shop and picked up a couple 6-packs. You're allowed a max of 24 per person, but I thought I'd try to be conservative and same some space in the luggage. Christine talked me into picking up an additional 12. :)

We continued on south to Paris. We decided to try and go to Christine's favorite boulangerie (which ended up being closed) and then stay in Dijon. As you'd expect, we got into Paris and hit traffic. It was my first time driving in Paris though, so that was fun. I love driving in Europe. It's aggressive, and in the city you zig-zag through lanes as you see fit. On the highway, the left lane is used for passing. It's an amazing concept.

We thought about just staying in Paris for the night, but eventually decided to carry on to Dijon. In retrospect, we should have just stayed in Paris. There was an hour long traffic jam on the way to Dijon which meant that we were going to get there too late to go out and grab a nice dinner. We ended up just eating at a pizza joint across from the hotel. It was a bummer to be driving out there in the dark too, because we didn't get to see the countryside. Although, it had been overcast and foggy in Europe since we arrived, so even in the daylight we wouldn't be able to see much.

The next morning in Dijon we went to the bakery near our hotel and they had surprisingly good croissants and pain au chocolate. I wish we would have picked up more. It was another dreary day, so we could even see any of the mountains as we made our way into Switzerland. In Luzern, we set up at a nice hotel downtown. Christine had some work to do, so I walked around town and did some shopping.

In the evening, we went out to dinner with our friend, Petra, who we met on our Grand Canyon raft trip. We went out to dinner at a local brew-pub with good beer and Petra gave us the scoop on some things to do around Luzern. After dinner, we walked around and then went for drinks at a bar top floor of a nearby hotel with a nice view of the city.

We were ready to see the sights the next morning, but it was another foggy day. It would have been nice to ride gondolas up to the nearby mountains, but there wouldn't have been much of a view. If we had brought some outdoor attire, we could have played in the snow. Instead we walked around the city some more and decided that we should maybe head out the next morning if it wasn't clear out.

That evening, Petra invited us over for a Swiss dish called raclette. It involves melting cheese under a tabletop grill with some onions and bacon and then pouring it over potatoes. So yeah, it was pretty good.

Euro Christmas Trip 2010 (part 1)

Christine and I spent this Christmas in Europe. Originally we had planned to spend most of our time in Belgium, but we made a last minute change when Christine was potentially allergic to beer. If you're going to Belgium in the winter, you're going to be drinking some beer. So here's how it went down.

Europe got hit with some massive snowfalls in the days leading up to our trip, but we were still able to get into Brussels without much trouble. We picked up our car, mentioned that we'd probably be going through Switzerland and Germany, and we found out that it's against the law now to drive there without snow tires. Our car didn't have snow tires. Hmmm. The Hertz guy was super helpful though and found out they were expecting a properly equipped car to be coming back later that afternoon and he'd call us when it came in. That gave us an excuse to hang around Brussels for the afternoon.

Our first stop was the Atomium, a structure built for the 1958 Brussels World's Fair that represents a iron crystal magnified 165 billion times. The drive there through a snowy park area was really nice. The structure is impressive as you drive up. You can go up in some of the spheres and there are exhibits inside. I must say, though, that you're better of just looking at it from the outside. The exhibits inside aren't very interesting. On a clear day, it's probably a nice view from inside.

From the Atomium, we drove around the city to the village of Beersel to visit Drie Fonteinen. They make some of the best Geuzes in the world. Aside from the cafe owner and her friend, we were the only two people there and we sat down to enjoy some of their finest. A short while later, the brewer, Armond, came into the cafe with another couple Americans who were visiting and offered to take us to his barrel aging warehouse down the street. It's one of those moments where you happen to be in the right place at the right time I guess.

We walked to his warehouse and he showed us around the small space. He had just gotten some unfermented wort and his assistant was pumping it into barrels. He mentioned that he doesn't usually do tours, because he prefers to just do the work. But it was the holidays. :) We were thankful that he spent so much time talking with us both at the cafe and at the barrel room. We learned some interesting things about his past and the potential future of the brewery (or lack there of due to a big fire in 2009).

We had brought over some beers from the US for just an occasion like this. What better way to say thanks than to give someone the gift of a special brew from the US? We went back to the car, grabbed the bottle, and headed back to the warehouse. We brought him an Avery Depuceleuse - one of their wild fermented barrel aged projects. We were just going to give it to him and leave, but he insisted on opening it up right away and sharing it with his assistant. I was nervous that he wouldn't like it, but he was genuinely surprised that it was good. He said it was "One of the better ones" and went on to say how several other similar beers he's tried from the US were too vinegary.

After he finished the beer, he said "I'm going to open something special." He disappeared to another room and came back with a dusty old unlabeled bottle. Based on the information stamped on the cork, he knew it was something he bottled about 10 years ago. We couldn't believe that he was opening a 10 year old Geuze for us. (Geuze, like many wines, ages really well and finding an old one is a nice treat.) Oh man, it was delicious. So smooth and dry with a slight bitterness. What a special treat. Then he rinsed out our glasses and poured something right out from one of the stainless steel vessels in the room. It was a kriek that still had the cherries seeping in it. Whoa, was it good. They were local wild cherries, and the tart cherry flavor was great. I would love to taste that same beer in a few years.

By the end of that amazing experience, it was time to go pick up our snow-tire'd car and head to our B&B in Brugge. It was a really nice place. Really close to the main square downtown and our room overlooked the street. After we settled in, we went to a beer cafe called Brugs Beertje. It was here, apparently, that the New Belgium founder had his epiphany to create his company. It's a cozy place with a great beer list and a must for any beer fan visiting Brugge.

On our way out, we met a couple other Americans, Garrett and Sue. They live in Naples, Italy where Garrett plays trombone for the Navy band. They were traveling the area drinking beer too, and we'd run into them later.

Beer Pouring Ritual

What? You're not sick of hearing about Belgium yet?

In Belgium, there’s a little more to receiving a beer than pulling a pint glass of questionable cleanliness off a shelf and dumping some beer into it (which I would argue is what usually happens in the US). It feels a little more ritualistic, and the ritual starts after you select your beer.

Belgium - Part 5

World Cup Cyclocross
What luck (for me), there was a world cup cyclocross race in Zolder the day after Christmas. Cyclocross is a completely different animal in Europe. It draws big crowds, and even more so for a World Cup event. Even at €14 per person, there were easily a few thousand people there.

Belgium - part 4

Ghent from our hotel room
Ghent
Christmas eve day was light for us. Our main target was to get to Ghent where we’d be staying for the next 2 nights at a posh hotel near the city center. Along the way, we decided to stop in the tasting room of Ellezelloise (pronounced el-zel-woz) since we enjoyed their Hercule stout so much. It was a rather large tasting room and I bet they pull in a nice crowd in the summer. Today, however, we were the only two there. We sampled their other beers and bought some to take with us. They were recently bought by another brewery, so we also picked up some beers from the new owners for tasting later. You know, just in case we couldn’t find any beer on Christmas day. Oh the horror that would be.

Belgium - part 3

Rodenbach, Westvleteren, Silly
December 23rd was an exciting day and one of the few pre-planned things on the trip: a tour of Rodenbach. Rodenbach makes a delicious beer they call Grand Cru and I don’t know if it’s available in the US right now. Therefore, we needed to make a trip to the mothership and bring some home.

Belgium - part 2

Winter Markets
The best thing about traveling around during the holiday season was that there were winter markets or festivals seemingly everywhere we stopped. After leaving Brussels (and stopping at a great café), we stopped in a small town for lunch and they were having a festival complete with drumming marching Santas. We had our first (of several) bratwursts here while we walked around.

The beers we tried

Here is the list of beers we tried in Belgium:

In de Verzekering Tegen de Grote Dorst

In de Verzekering Tegen de Grote Dorst translates to “Insurance Against Great Thirst” and it’s the name of our favorite café from our Belgium trip. The place was slated to close down in 1999 when the original owner retired after 51 years, but the Paneel family (the brothers Kurt and Yves, and their parents Lydia and Maurice) stepped up to run the place and I’m glad they did.

Belgium - part 1

(My trip report for Belgium has quickly grown out of control, so I'm going to split it up into several posts. Stay tuned for more. There's a selection of photos up on Flickr. You can also click on any of the photos here to see a larger version.)

---

I’m not sure where the idea for a trip to Belgium came from. Christine was going to be working in London and we decided it would be cool to have me meet her somewhere in Europe and spend Christmas there. We must have drinking beer, because a beer tour through Belgium came up and a trip was born.

Liquid cargo

How much beer can two people bring home from Belgium?



On my way over to Belgium I stuffed an extra duffel bag into my suitcase with the intent of giving us some extra storage room. My original plan was to put all the beer in my suitcase, which is semi-hard and tough for the airlines to really damage. We got a little overzealous with our beer and chocolate purchases so we ended up putting beer in all four of our pieces of luggage. Amazingly, it all made it unbroken. We spent a lot of time packing it all up, even snagging an empty box from the hotel that we put into the duffle. My big bag was barely under the weight limit (at the airport we had to shift some bottles to Christine's bags).

Left to right:
2 large bottles of Rodenbach Grand Cru
12 bottles of Rodenbach Grand Cru
1 bottle of Rodenbach Vin De Céréale
1 large bottle Eylenbosch Faro Extra
1 large bottle 3 Fonteinen Oude Kriek
3 bottles of Ellezelloise Hercule Stout
1 bottle of Ellezelloise Saison
2 bottles of Hanssens Oude Kriek
2 bottles of Verhaeghe Echt Kriekenbier
3 bottles of Rochefort 10
2 bottles of Van Eecke Kapittel Prior
1 bottle of Cantillon Rose
1 bottle of Boon Oude Geuze

They represent some of our favorites from the trip, and they each have their own story. Like the Faro-Extra that was given to us as a gift from the owners of a great pub near Brussels. But more on those stories later.

Belgium

Just got back from our short trip to Belgium. We left London early on the Eurostar train to Bruges on Wednesday. We did a lot of walking around the pedestrian areas and Christine called it the Estes Park of Belgium. It was a fun city to walk around. We visited an old brewery, drank some good Belgian beer, and ate some chocolate. We were full of beer and junk food, so for dinner we just had a bread and prosciutto appetizer and some more beer. This morning we took a boat trip that goes along the canals of the city. We did some more walking around and found a couple nice places to have waffles, fries, and ice cream for "lunch".

Tomorrow is that start of the Tour de France festivities. The team presentations start at 6PM and I'm looking forward to all the craziness.