Trains and Ferries to Continental Europe
Last Saturday morning, Bettina (from the farm in Wales where we worked and stayed) drove me and Dan to the train station in Clunderwen (which, by the way, is pronounced clin DARE wun, with the emphasis on the second syllable). We rode two different trains to get to London-Paddington Station, where we caught the Tube (underground train) to a second station in London (Charing Cross). From there, we took yet another train to Dover (renouned for its “White Cliffs”, on the southeast coast of England. We stayed overnight at the Dover YHA Hostel and took the 90-minute ferry across the English Channel to Calais, France the next morning.
As a side note, we opted to take the ferry across the channel rather than the Eurostar (or Chunnel) due to cost. We had rail passes in both Britain and the rest of Europe, so the trains to get us to and from the ferry were alreadz paid for, and the ferry was only 12 British Pounds (about 24 US dollars) per person, whereas the Eurostar would cost at least 75 US dollars. Coming back to London for the flight back to the U.S. might be different since our BritRail Pass has now expired. We will need to compare the cost of Eurostar against the cost of the ferry plus the cost of a train from Dover to London.
The ferry ride was uneventful, but as foot passengers, we were last off the boat, and we just missed the hourly bus to the train station and had to wait an hour for the next bus. This would have worked for the train we were planning to take out of Calais had it not been for major traffic delays due to some festival that was taking place in Calais. After moving slowly through stop-and-go traffic, the bus driver stopped the bus mid-block and seemed to tell us and the other couple on the bus — in French — that this was the end of the line and we needed to get off the bus. But, where was the train station? He pointed up the block to the right. We exited the bus and walked up to the corner. Still not seeing an obvious train station, Dan walked over to a woman and her two kids and asked “Ou est la gare?” as if he had asked the question a thousand times before. (He had taken a community education course in French and we had just been studying our “French Survival Phrases” out of our Rick Steves guidebook while waiting for the bus.) The woman and both kids pointed a half block down around the corner. Ah… there is the train station! Unfortunately, we were too late anyway, missed our train and had two hours to kill before the next one. We had eaten our packed lunch earlier, but it was nearly suppertime, so we found a restaurant near the train station and had a bite to eat for supper.
We caught the 5:26 pm train to Lille, France and transferred to two more trains that brought us into Bruges, Belgium at about 9:30 pm. Bruges is a beautiful, old city with many 14th and 15th century buildings, and walking into it at night — with many buildings lit up and a light mist falling — was a treat.
Monday was split between walking around town to get our bearings and taking care of some internet business (email, blog entries, money stuff, upcoming train times and hostel reservations) as well as buying some groceries for the next couple days.
Tuesday morning we walked through the courtyard of Bruges Begijnof, which was one of many around Europe that were built in medieval times to house women of the lay order called beguines, who spent their lives in piety and service (without having to take the same vows a nun would). Bruges Begijnof is now inhabited by Benedictine nuns and is a peaceful (except for the tour groups not minding the “silent” signs) respite from the rest of the bustling, tourist city.
On Tuesday, we also walked through the Groeninge (art) Museum, which displays the works of the Flemish Primitives (pre-Renaissance period), and toured De Halve Maan Brewery, which is a working family brewery. We climbed a lot of very steep steps (and, Dan bumped his head on one of the low doors 🙁 ) to see the workings of the former large-scale and multiple-brew operation that — after regulations were imposed in the 1970s prohibiting open, iron fermentation tanks — was reduced to brewing just one beer, Brugse Zot. Unlike the museum-lke quality of our visit to the Guinness Storehouse, we actually saw a young man running about this brewery, pulling levers, pushing buttons and rinsing the brew kettle. Very cool!
Afterward, we went to the nearby Church of Our Lady. The church — beautiful in its own right — houses a “Madonna and Child” sculpture by Michelangelo. The sculpture is said to be the only Michelangelo statue to leve Italy during his lifetime.
Later, we spent our last evening in Bruges walking through the old town taking some night photos.
Tags: Europe
timdan2
Hi guys,
We love reading your entries – they’re so descriptive. It’s great that we can follow you around through your blog. The picture of you two in the London Eye is terrific. Hope all is going well. Keep safe.
Love you,
Mom and Dad
Hi Guys,
Thanks so much for sharing your adventures with us! This is really weird….as soon as I brought up your blog the song “When You Say Nothing at All” came on the radio. It brought a smile to my face and a tear to my eye thinking about sharing this song with you two!
The Anderson’s are all doing well. It is a very wintery day today. Temps falling into the 30’s with rain and snow showers. Yuck!
Love ya,
Brenda