Sintra, Portugal

A short train ride outside of Lisbon is Sintra, a beautiful city nestled at the foot of rolling, tree-covered hills. The area, The Cultural Landscape of Sintra, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in recognition of its many sites and architectural excellence. It also features a subtropical microclimate and is extremely green and lush.

In the city itself, we visited Sintra Palace, built from 1415 onwards and continuously inhabited from the early 15th to late 19th centuries. Significant Islamic artistic influence, most notably tilework, is evident in Sintra Palace and many other buildings in Lisbon and Sintra.

The castles built on the hillsides were the real stars of the show, though. Laura and I rented electric bikes - they require peddling but a motor kicks in to make climbing steep hills easier - and headed to higher ground.

Castelo dos Mouros (Castle of the Moors)
Pena Palace
At the Monastery dos Capuchos
Monserrate Palace
The view from the hill-tops in Sintra was incredible! Sintra unexpectedly vaulted into our list of favorite places we visited in Europe; if you're ever in the area, don't overlook this gem. You can see more of our pictures from Sintra on Flickr!

Gouda and the Kinderdijk Ride

On Monday - the last day of a wonderful four day holiday weekend - our four travelers (Pam, Tony, Laura, and I) woke up bright and early to catch the train from Utrecht to Gouda. The bike rental shop in the Gouda train station served as our starting and ending location for a 62 km (38 mi), one day bike ride into the Dutch countryside and through the village of Kinderdijk. Pam and Tony, who had been training for this day, are seen below negotiating one of the many bridges on the ride.

As an aside, because I know you're wondering: yes, Gouda is indeed the home of the famous cheese. Just don't pronounce it Goo-da in front of a Dutch person or they will laugh at you - it's actually pronounced How-da.

The ride featured much of the usual Dutch scenery: long green grass as far as the eye can see, canals everywhere, islands of farmland filled with animals, and trees cut in bizarre ways. The lambs were a treat for Laura yet again, and we also saw many nesting coots and swans.

During our ride, we took two ferries across the Lek River, which were fun (and surprisingly efficient). Here I am with my bike on one of the ferry rides.

Throughout the ride we were treated to the sight of windmills - I believe more than 30 overall - but the main event was the 19 of them situated in a 2 km stretch near the Dutch village of Kinderdijk. This area contains more windmills than any other place in the world, was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997, and is absolutely magnificent. The windmills - or molen - are from the 18th century and were used for keeping water out of the polders until as recently as 1950. Although not in use today, they're well-maintained and can still be operated.

The end of our ride took us through another extended area of farm land, where we saw a farmer shearing an entire flock of sheep (and the resulting enormous pile of wool). Laura was particularly excited when we came upon a herd of Highland cows because she saw a lot of them last week in their home country of Scotland (Scotland stories coming next week). These are the only ones we have seen here in The Netherlands.

A bike ride in the Kinderdijk area is a must do activity in The Netherlands and we thoroughly enjoyed it. After riding 61 km, though, we were all beat, sore in the rear, and glad to trade our bikes for a train ride from Gouda back to Delft.

Posted by Matt

Lovely Leuven

I did my homework. I bought Benelux weekend return tickets on sale, picked out a lovely hostel, and researched the "must-see" sites - all five of them. I was not deterred; every weekend does not need to be jammed-packed and we were due a relaxing one.

Unfortunately, the big "must-see" site was soon crossed off the list, as I learned the weekend we were visiting Leuven, the Stella Artois brewery was only giving tours in Dutch. No big deal, we still had one brewery, a church, a town hall, and a garden to peruse. Plus, it meant we could sleep in until 7am, hop on the train, and still be in the Leuven by 10am when the town would start to come to life.

After arriving in Leuven, we made our way to the tourist office to get a map and find out where the movie theaters were in town (our fail-safe cold night activity). We were greeted by a lovely lady, who was eager to show us all the wonderful things Leuven had to offer. She offered us a set of maps for a mere Euro that had two walking tours, a bonus detour, and 76 sites of interest. 76 sites! I had only found 5.

I happily handed over my Euro and we walked out the door to discover Leuven.

We started at #10, so we wouldn't have to back track and with 76 sites I was sure we could skip a few. We were promptly greeted with a wall of construction and no #10 (College of Liege) in sight. It's okay, we could walk right around the corner and visit #11-15. Except we walked right into another wall of construction. However, someone had kindly cut holes in the barriers to allow us to see through - to more construction.
Hey - wait. What's that? It that a bug stuck on an upside down needle? Why? More importantly, why isn't that on my tour?

We passed some "friendship" statues (#20-22) the men of a town erect on their 40th birthdays when they join the Jaartal, but before they are an Abraham, and came upon "the beautiful parks". Well, I am sure they are beautiful in the spring, summer, and fall when there might be a tinge of green somewhere on the hectare , but right now the most interesting thing was the levels of broken ice on the ponds.

I was starting to feel like I should have spent my Euro on a waffle.

After passing countless old building that in other towns would definitely have not made the walking tour, we reached a chapel for women with crying babies. Ummm...don't all babies cry?
More old buildings, more statues.

And then finally, the star of the show: The Great Beguiage. It seems every Flemish town has one of these - an old courtyard surrounded by buildings and a church that were reserved for the use of women of faith. This one happens to be the largest we have seen yet and it is a UNESCO World Heritage site. I wonder if that stops the rambunctious activities of today's inhabitants - the university students.












Having seen enough of the sites of Leuven, we abandoned the tour and went off in search of dinner.

Cheese and Chocolate

Switzerland is famous for two of our favorite things: cheese and chocolate. That fact alone guaranteed that our weekend in the of land neutrality would be wonderful. We arrived in the city of Geneva and headed to our hostel to drop off our bags. When we checked in, we were pleasantly surprised to learn that Geneva gives all its hotel and hostel guests free transportation within the city. What a deal!

We then hopped onto the tram and headed out to Botanical Gardens for a picnic lunch. The gardens (and conservatories) were free to the public. Even in the dead of winter and the middle of the work day, they were quite full of people. It seemed to be a popular running spot for locals. After enjoying our lunch in the warm tropical conservatory, we perused the gardens and noticed there was even a deer reserve in the gardens. I imagine this would be the perfect place to spend a warm spring afternoon when the flowers will be in full bloom.

Our next stop was the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum. The permanent exhibit explained the founding, history, and role of the organization. While I believe the museum was cutting edge at one point, the 10 projectors needed to show a single 8-minute slide show seems a little out of date. I wonder what the return on investment would be to pay someone to create a movie with the slides verses the cost of running so many projectors. However, features like the large transparent, layered photographs of wars and natural disasters were visually compelling. One of the rooms contains all of the POW cards from WWI and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Also on display was the Nobel Peace Prize that Henry Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross, was awarded in 1901. Dunant was the first recipient of the prize. The International Committee of the Red Cross has gone on to win 3 more Nobel Peace Prizes during the last century.

The highlight of the museum was actually the temporary exhibit Walls Between People. It was a look at 8 different walls that have been built to separate people. The photographs of the walls showed how people were separated, lives disrupted, and other effects of the wall. It was interesting to see the world/humanitarian view of the wall between Mexico and the US and how it wasn't depicted that much differently from the barbed wire enclaves of Spain in Morocco or the barbed wire line between Pakistan and India.

Our last stop for the day was the United Nations' Palace of the Nations - quite possibly the least inviting tour ever. Nowhere was their a tour schedule; water damaged directional signs pointed into locked doors and the one open door lead to workers sitting at their desks beneath signs that completely mislabeled their function. After the security check, badge issuing, and payment, we were directed to an obscure door #39 "past the parking lot and to the left." To our amazement, there were actually a lot of people behind the door, and we joined them for what was actually a pretty good tour.

The tour took us through the "old" and "new" buildings, a few conference rooms, temporary exhibits and past gifts from around the world. It was similar to the Peace Palace in The Hague, in that every part of the building was built with materials from around the world and decorated with gifts from visiting dignitaries.

As the sun set, we strolled along through the parks that follow the shoreline of Lake Geneva. The view of the lake and mountains was positively breathtaking.

The rest of the day's picture are on our Flickr site.

Gallivanting Around Greenwich

On Tuesday morning we headed down to the Waterloo Pier to catch a commuter boat down the Thames River to Greenwich. We started our walking tour at the currently covered-up and under-renovation Cutty Sark tea-shipping vessel.The rest of our walking tour took us through the Maritime Greenwich UNESCO World Heritage Site. We walked through the Old Royal Naval College that was designed by Christopher Wren, who also designed the Old Royal Hospital in Chelsea. The wonderful example of baroque architecture is now home to the University of Greenwich and the Trinity College of Music.Our walk led us to the National Maritime Museum, which tells the story of British seafaring. My favorite exhibits in the museum were the photo gallery showing life on the British seashore, called Beside the Seaside, and the exhibit on the history of cruise ships and vacations.
Next we walked through Greenwich Park to the Royal Observatory. Here we had the opportunity, along with tons of other like-minded tourists, to straddle the Prime Meridian and stand in both the Eastern and Western Hemipsheres at the same time.

We also stuck around for the "ball dropping". Every day sine 1883 a red ball has dropped atop the Royal Observatory at 1pm to help boaters on the Thames set their clocks. This ball moves halfway up at 12:55pm, the rest of the way up at 12:58pm, and then drops down at 1:pm. The following video clip shows the dropping of the ball (sped-up, of course).

After setting our watches precisely, we headed back down through Greenwich Park to the Queen's House. Well, we might have stopped for a bit of Mexican food for lunch, but then we were on own way again. We took a quick walk through the Queen's House to see the Tulip Stairs (the first spiral staircase without a center support column), a beautiful marble floor, and the exhibit Turmoil and Tranquility (same wonderful paintings of seascapes, ships, and battles).
After the Queen's House, we took the bus back to the Tower Bridge and began our walking tour of the South Bank...

The view of downtown London from the Royal Observatory through the Old Royal Naval College.

Art Nouveau & Comics

Brussels is home to two often forgotten arts: Art Nouveau and comics.

Brussels is the capital of Art Nouveau, with the first two Art Nouveau buildings being built here in 1893 by Victor Horta and Paul Hanker. The movement of Art Nouveau, the merging of applied art and fine art, sought to combine function and art into every part of life: architecture, furniture, textiles, household appliances, art, etc. It is recognizable by the curved lines, stained-glass windows, flora motifs, and metal & glass structures. My favorite characteristic of Art Nouveau are the Tiffany like stained-glass windows, made famous by Louis Comfort Tiffany, in so many of the buildings in Brussels.
We visited the Old England building- a classic example of Art Nouveau architecture- which houses the Musical Instrument Museum. Even though there are over 1200 Art Nouveau building in Brussels very few of them offer the public an opportunity to see the interiors and the Old England building provides one of these rare glimpses into the inside of the unique buildings - making a visit to museum worthwhile just to see the inside. While there was very little information provided in the museum in English, the music on display speaks internationally. I particularly enjoyed the room where you could play and experiment with different musical instruments.












One of the most famous Art Nouveau buildings is the Waucquez Textile Shop, designed by Victor Horta and part of a four building group that has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Today the building is the home of the Belgian Comic Strip Center. Don't let the English website fool you - all the comics and almost all of the commentary is in French or Dutch. Do as Rick Steves recommends - visit the lobby, take photos with the comic book characters, and save your €5 entry fee to buy a beer later.
















Brussels' love affair with comics doesn't end with the museum, or even the countless comic book shops around the city. They took it to a whole new level. There are 35 + sites throughout city where you can find larger than life comic character statues and murals - and more are added every year. We visited as many of them as made sense with our other site seeing - hopefully we will be back in Brussels before this adventure is over the see the rest, or at least add to our list.

Cologne, Keulen, Koln

We rose extremely early for our train ride to Koln - like 4:20am early - the trade-off for dirt cheap train tickets. Due to the early departure time, we had to ride around the country in order to get to Koln and over five hours later we emerge from the train station.

We were quickly jerked out of our half-opened eye state by the site of the Dom. It was ENORMOUS! We were amazed despite having seen TONS of huge churches lately.


Amazing Facts:

• It was the world's tallest building until 1884 (when the Washington Monument was built)
• It has the world's second tallest church Spires
• It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site for "exceptional work of human creative genius"
• Has the largest facade of any church in the world
• It has stained glass from the Medieval time period, the Renaissance, post WWII, and a window designed by Gerhard Richter in 2007
• Houses the largest reliquary in the Western world - the bones of the three wise men
• Has the largest free-swinging bell in the world

Step inside a Piet Mondian Painting...

Step inside a Piet Mondrian painting and enter the Rietveld Schroder House, a house built entirely in the "De Stijl" style or neoplasticism. Artists of this movement aimed to simplify everything to vertical and horizontal lines and used only primary colors along with white, black, and grey. The house provides a large contrast with the traditional style Dutch canal homes with which it shares a wall.

The house was designed by Gerritt Rietveld and Truus Schroder. The owner of the house, Truus Schroder, is considered one of the architects because the house is a collaboration between the two - his artistic style and her functional designs. It was built in 1924 and was lived in by Ms. Schroder until her death in 1985.


The house was architecturally and artistically amazing. The furniture inside was even designed by the architects and follows in the De Stijl style. The house was designed with walls that could be removed during the day to allow for a more social, open atmosphere in the house. So at night there are 3 bedrooms and an office, but during the day the walls all slide back (much like a temporary classroom) and a large living space is created. I wish I could show you more pictures of the interior of the house, but it is protected by copyright and we were not allowed to take photos. A small clip of the house is available here.

This house is a world heritage site, considered "a masterpiece of human creative ability" and "an important and unique icon of western architectural history" by UNESCO. There are 7 UNESCO sites in the Netherlands (only 6 on the mainland - the 7th is in Curacao) and we hope to visit them all during our stay here. In comparison, the United States only has 20 sites.