Travel: On Forgetting to Remember...

It was on the Rue au Beurre in Brussels almost 10 years ago that I first remembered my father had died ... absurd as that sounds.

It had been four months since he had passed away. Taken quickly, leaving us to deal with the shock at first, and when it left what remained was sadness and a deep, aching hurt - tinged with anger and regret. And that pain was a constant presence in my head over those first few months, as if his ghost was rattling around inside of me daring me to forget him...

So I had gone to Brussels with a few friends, partly as an escape from the constant reminders of his passing and partly because I wanted to go somewhere to relieve that wanderlust itch, which no amount of reading or writing about travel can truly scratch.

Brussels did both. It was here I discovered Bruegel and Horta; it was here that I discovered a bar with 2,000 different beers; it was here I did the Cantillon tour and first found gueuze and kriek; it was here I was served beers in vases and horns hung on timber; it was here I learned how to pronounce Duvel correctly; it was here I tasted stoemp and sausage for the first time. And it was here I started to really appreciate beer, and began to respect it more.

And because of all of this I forgot about my father's death for the first time ... and not due to alcohol consumption I must add, but due to the sheer volume of information that had overwhelmed my brain and had distracted my thought process.

I was standing on the street, looking in the window of a gift shop on the last day of our trip when I spotted a tiny silver trumpet. It looked well made, with intricate, fine detail and came in its own little case. My father played a trumpet in a few showbands in the 1950s and 1960s, so it popped into my head that this would make a nice present for him. I was about to cross the threshold of the shop when I stopped, with my hand resting on the cold glass door...

It was only then that I remembered, as a wave of despair and pain struck me, that he was dead.

Anger then took over and guilt too, as I couldn't believe that I had forgotten his now permanent absence from my life. I turned from the door and crossed the street to a nearby church, seeking darkness and solitude. I sat down on an empty pew in the gloom and cried...

Loss is a difficult thing to deal with, as most of us know, but in those moments when it hits you again it can be crushingly, achingly painful. Ten years on it still happens, differently and perhaps lessened to a degree by repetitivity but it still creates similar feelings and emotions. In a way I'm glad it does, as it makes me appreciate and work on my relationship with others in my family ... especially my mother, and my own son.

But this is not a poor me/pity me post, although it possibly is about me exorcising my demons in some sort of cathartic way. It serves as a reminder that it's okay to grieve, it's okay to cry, it's okay to forget ... as the re-remembering that then occurs jars your emotions awake and makes you feel more human, mindful and alive - albeit with a strong awareness of mortality, and regret.

And that forgetting happens still...


I travelled a little with my father, and I was lucky enough to bring my parents to places such as Rome, Austria and Switzerland. Places both he and my mother had always wanted to visit but would never have gone on their own. And now when I travel, either alone or with others, there is a strange, irrational comfort in knowing that some part of him is with me on the same journey, seeing the same sights, eating the same food and trying those new drinks - because a part of him remains within me, still rattling around in my head.

My father was a hardworking, gentle, caring, honest man, traits I try to emulate although I often fail to attain. He was highly critical of the world around him, and questioned everything. He hated liars and thieves, had no time for fools and charlatans. We were always close although perhaps not as close as we could have been, and at times he was my biggest critic...

... but I'd give almost anything to sit at a bar in Brussels, or anywhere else in the world, and share a quiet beer with him right now.

Liam

Travel: Brussels - Deeper, Darker

She was crying as she walked, letting out huge sobs of pure sadness and despair as she trudged towards us with a cheap shopping bag in each hand, a grotty tissue clasped in her right one. She looked at the ground as she walked in a zigzag fashion up the street towards the Palace of Justice. She had a light frame, gaunt features and straggly hair but did not appear to be a homeless person, like the others we had seen all over Brussels. As she stumbled towards us I stopped dead in the street and watched her approach. The rest of my group were further down the street, admiring the view over the city and trying to spot the Atomium, which is visible from almost every piece of high ground.

Her cries and sobs didn't seem to be anything to do with the hill she climbed or the weight of her bags but seemed deeper and darker than that, like the pain you feel when you lose someone close to you or are driven to the dark depths of depression by something more hurting and oppressive than any physical pain. As she got closer I noticed that she was well dressed but her physical features; her hair, her face, her eyes, reflected a person who had gone past caring how she looked. Her well worn clothes were the only hint that not too long ago she must have been a proud and dignified lady. I wondered what had happened to change her into the wraith-like creature she had now become.

I felt numb. Should I help her or speak to her? Was there any point? Would she understand? Did she want help? I stood there as she walked past me, ignoring me and everyone else on the street and being ignored by others to such an extent that I wondered was she real or some character from my mind or the past, a banshee who had followed or appeared to me here, hundreds of miles from home. I reached my hand out a fraction to see would she react but she just continued on past me, sobbing uncontrollably. One of my travelling companions - Pete - was walking back up to me now, wondering why I was standing transfixed on the street, as he hadn't noticed this apparition of sadness, pity and despair, .

            'Did you see that lady?' I said to him, nodding up the street in the direction she had departed. 'She's crying.'

            'Oh,' he said, a look of genuine concern crossing his face, 'Is she alright?'

            'I'm not sure. Did you not see her?' I said, slightly aggravated, and annoyed with myself for doing nothing.

            'No, I wasn't minding to be honest,' he said. 'I'm sure she'll be OK ...' and with a shrug he headed down the street after the others.

She had disappeared over the top of the hill by now and no sign of her passing remained. Again I got the uneasy feeling that I was the only person who had seen the woman, even though I knew she was real, or at least thought I knew she was real at the time - if that makes sense.

A wave of emotions suddenly swamped me as guilt, sympathy, uselessness, empathy, helplessness and anger washed through my mind and left me feeling lost and alone. Perhaps this was how the woman had felt? By now the others were at the bottom of the hill. They hadn't seen the lady so I couldn't blame them for their lack of concern.

Slowly and deliberately, I placed one foot in front of the other and headed down the hill to catch up with them. Every now and again I looked behind, knowing I wouldn't see her but hoping I would. I never saw her again but her sorrow haunted me for days and nights afterwards.

To be honest, it still does.

Travel: Brussels - Art Nouveau Walking Tour and the Victor Horta Museum

Art Nouveau

noun, art nou·veau  \ˌär(t)-nü-ˈvō\

: a style of art, design, and architecture that uses curving lines and shapes that look like leaves and flowers

Mirriam-Webster

I awoke early to a gorgeous morning. The sun was out and I had a spring in my step as I was heading to yet another museum, and a self-guided Art Nouveau architectural tour of sorts. My travelling companions were having a lie-in, having overindulged the night before so this was a solo tour, following a walking guide-map I had picked up in the tourist office

Art Nouveau developed in the 1880s and 1890s, possibly from the Arts and Crafts movement in England and swept through many cities in Europe and North America in the 1900s and 1910s, going by different names in different countries - Jugendstil and Liberty style to name but two. Brussels was one of the main cities where it took hold, thanks in no small part to the work of Victor Horta, Paul Hamesse and Paul Hanker, who along with others left their stamp on the city.

An overly simplified description would be to say that the style was influenced heavily by organic, florid, flowing forms and by the use of new materials - by-products of the industrial revolution such as cast iron for example - but hand crafted instead of mass produced. It is typified in art by the works of Mucha and Klimt, and others such as Mackintosh, Gaudi, Liberty, Lalique and Tiffany are also synonymous with the movement.

I set off through the quiet Sunday morning streets of the city. Very few people were around apart from the street cleaners, and the odd person walking their dog while leaving a trail of turds. (The dogs I mean...) I passed the obscenely enormous Palace of Justice, crossed the busy ring road and soon I was in the St Giles area of the city, an open-air Art Nouveau building museum. I spent a pleasant morning admiring the beautiful façades of the houses that lined the streets. Appreciating the flowing metal and stonework, and studying the intricate woodwork of the doors and windows. At any minute I expected a police car to roll up and to be taken away, accused of being a peeping tom as I stood staring in awe at the design and workmanship of the buildings. It was, for me, a fantastic way to spend a Sunday morning in a strange city with no other souls around.

The city was starting to wake up from its Sunday morning slumber as I made my way over to Rue Américaine and the Victor Horta Museum, my ultimate destination. Cafés were opening up and people were coming and going with the morning papers or buying pastries for breakfast. The streets were a mixture of old and new buildings and I still caught glimpses of the city's Art Nouveau past squashed between ugly 1960s or 1970s structures. The city was relatively clean, only marred by the dog turds and the 'tagging' graffiti that seemed to be in every town and city in Europe now. I am all for decent urban 'wall art', especially on ugly concrete slabs but this is meaningless vandalism to my mind.

I arrived too early at the museum and after pausing briefly to admire the two buildings that it is composed of, I headed further along the street for a stroll in the sunshine, eventually reaching a nice circular park, Leemansplace. It was a pretty spot to sit and have a rest only marred by the now ubiquitous, aforementioned piles of dog faeces and some discarded needles under the benches, both now a part of the sights and experiences of parks all over the world. Worried about the chances of catching something or of being accused of now looking like a heroin-junkie-peeping-tom, I decided to wander back up the street to a small café that was just opening up as I went past it towards the park. I resisted the urge to have a beer and instead had a coffee and a glass of water, as I waited impatiently for the museum to open up.

Eventually it did and I joined the small queue waiting to enter. It is a smallish building which wasn't designed for large groups of people so only a certain number can be inside at any one time, so as some leave, more are let in. While waiting outside I admired the façade's design again and the attention to detail, which Horta applied to all his work.

Victor Horta was born in Ghent, Belgium in 1861 but studied and learned his trade in Brussels. He made a name for himself when he designed a couple of hotels in the city and his career snowballed from there. He was soon being commissioned to design buildings throughout Brussels. He built his house and studio on the site where I now stood between 1898 and 1901. After an enforced stint lecturing in America because of the WWI he returned to Brussels and sold the house and the attached studio. The house was bought by the local community in 1969 and opened as a museum two years later. The attached studio was purchased in 1971 and restoration has been ongoing since. Horta died in 1947 and many of his buildings were demolished in acts of what can only be classed as insanity in the 1950s and 1960s. (How this could be let happen is a mystery to me, I can only presume that monkeys were among the town planners back then. Actually, that is probably a little unfair to monkeys.)

I was finally let inside the door and had to wait in a small hallway, for some unknown reason, for five or so minutes before being let into the house proper. Perhaps it was an airlock where I was slowly and secretly infused with Art Nouveau appreciation gas. Whatever the reason, when I reached the main hall I was blown away. A beautiful staircase winds its way up through the house, culminating in a curvilinear glass ceiling that floods light back down through the stairwell. The rooms leading from the stairwell on all levels were exquisitely designed with incredible attention to detail. Even the door handles were decorative works of art. It was staggering how the functional aspects of home living were cunningly concealed. (Like a urinal which swings out from a hidden compartment beside the bed, a feature that would be of utmost use in my own home.) I walked up and down the stairs with my mouth open, seeing things I had missed on my first trip into a room or looking at a stained-glass window, beautifully moulded door or mosaic section of flooring from a different angle. Sometimes I just stood and tried to absorb and see the tiny details that are the hallmark of a perfectionist. Time appeared to slow down... and almost stop, but looking at my watch I realised I had been in here for ages.

The house was starting to fill up now so after one last look around and a visit to the gift shop I headed out. With a smile on my face, and whistling to myself I headed back towards the city centre. On the way I visited another Art Nouveau building, the beautiful, if slightly less ornate, Hôtel Hannon on Rue de la Jonction, designed by the architect Jules Brunfaut and built in 1903. The sad thing was, I was the only one there. Nobody else came to admire the mosaics, mural and ironwork, or the extremely elegant façade. I wandered around the building with only some photographs, a gallery, and the curator for company.

I met up with the others in a little park in the Sablon district called La Place du Petit Sablon. It was a very pretty little place full of statues, roses and lavender with a nice fountain as a centrepiece. Directly across from it stands the 15th century church of Notre Dame du Sablon, yet another example of Gothic architecture of which Brussels has some superb examples. The park was quite busy with locals enjoying a cooling break from what was now becoming a heavy, clammy day, and tourists like us admiring the statues, fountain and the view across to the church.

We decided to go for a beer, as it was now early afternoon, calling in to the church firstly. Unfortunately, some restoration and renovation was taking place and most of the church was sealed off so we traipsed back out and around the back to an antique market. We had just surmised that anything worth buying was outside our budgetary constraints when we noticed the sun had disappeared and it was getting overcast. Suddenly the heavens opened and we ran to the safety of the nearest bar, shaking ourselves dry as we entered.

   

We immediately sensed that this was not our kind of place. Something about the well-dressed clientele, the silver cutlery and the look of disdain on the waiter's face as we stood shaking like dogs at his desk were a giveaway I think. Not to mention the fact that we now realised it was a restaurant and not a bar.

    'Ah, a table for four?' inquired my companion, not wanting to lose face by retreating back to the rain.

The waiter looked us up and down from his lectern, his hands moving to a shelf underneath. I sensed his finger hovering over the button that called security or opened a trap door under our feet, but he must have had a change of heart as next thing he ushered us towards a seat across from the window. If I had been him I would have hidden us down the back of the establishment but perhaps he felt we might be a source of amusement for the other customers.

    'Here are the lunch menus, gentlemen,' he said, handing them to us.

    'Actually, we just wanted to get a few beers.'

This news was received with a withering look of disdain but in fairness he took our order and came back with our selection promptly but by then we had suddenly been distracted by a plaque that we had spotted on the wall.

It read:

(Mr Bill Clinton

President of the United States of America

sat at this table on 9th January 1994

He drank coffee and chatted an hour

with all present.)

Imagine if it hadn't started to rain, and we hadn't run in here, and the waiter had turned us away? We would never have sat at the same table as Slick Willy - for good or for bad.

As we drank our beers, which I never took note of, we started to wonder why the waiter had put us there? I am not sure what it says about us - or Bill - but at least we can say our butts shared a seat with an American president. We thought and talked about this as we drank our beer, then paid our enormous bill - obviously there was a surcharge for that table - and vowed to come back for a meal sometime we could afford it.

Which wouldn't be any time soon...

Liam

(Originally written 2008)

(All written content and the research involved in publishing it here is my own unless otherwise stated and cannot be reproduced elsewhere without permission, full credit to its source and a link back to this post. All original photographs are my own and can not be used elsewhere without my consent.)

Trollekelder - Ghent

You know the mustard is hot when it causes your eyes to stream and your nose hairs to drop off one by one and fall in to your beer. Expletives arrive unbidden on your tongue and are driven out by their inability to tolerate the heat. A gulp of beer helps but time is the only healer, and you wait patiently for your breath to return.

But let's go back a few hours or so...

Trollekelder (For some reason I want to call it Trolle-n-kelder and I don't know why?) sits in the shadow of Saint Jacob's church. And when I say shadow I mean in the descriptive shadow before some pedant tells me it is south of the church.

The neon sign on the building seems at odds with the medieval looking trolls that stand guard in the window, grinning and gurning manically at the passersby. The theme continues inside with more trolls, bottles and beer paraphernalia decorating the timber and brick clad interior, which instantly makes you feel at home and content. The split levels, that include the cellar - kelder - where the trolls presumably live(!), give the place a suitably disjointed feel and at the time of our visit there is some extension work going on in the upper level.

We sat at a table on a raised area just inside the door with a view of the street and the church. Service is quick - mind you it is quiet - and we are presented with the most attractive beer menu I've ever seen. It's more of a magazine or a work of art than a menu and is full of beers I'd promised myself I'd try to source on this trip including some from Troubadour and Struise - but no Black Albert unfortunately.

We went for Troubadour Westkust which had a sharp, dry stoutlike flavour backed up with bitter hops and a dash of cocoa, Verhaeghe Barbe Noire a sweetish, strong stout and the Kasteel Hoppy, which had some bitterness and was OK but didn't suit my palate as much as the other two.

We were joined by a young couple we had spied through the window who had been drinking copious amounts of Westvleteren at a table outside on the street. She was Canadian and he was from London. They were over on a wine excursion to France and had detoured to Belgium to stock up on some beer and visit some breweries. They were pretty merry and in good form so we chatted about the beer scene in London, French wine and Belgian brewers. My only issues was that our new Canadian friend had a slightly unnerving habit of touching your arm every time she spoke and was somewhat obsessed with our Irish accents...

We were in our stride by now and while chatting I had a superb Struise XXXX (Not what I ordered, which was the barrel aged Tripel, but I had it anyway!) that tasted of rich honey with plums and prunes followed by an equally excellent Struise Tsjeeses Reserva PBA, a big 10% beer that tasted of spicy sultana and Christmas pudding.

We all left at the same time, the couple we met stocking up on more Westvleteren - carried out of the bar in an undignified manner in white plastic carrier bags - and we headed back to the hotel to freshen up.

A few hours later after getting food and touring the city at night we ended up back in Trollekelder again for a nightcap. I ordered another Troubadour, Obscura this time, which tasted like milky treacle but in a good way and we decided we were still a little peckish. The bar man suggested the staple fare of every Belgian bar, a platter of cheese and salami, which arrived with a small bowl of brown mustard and a shaker of celery salt. The salt with the cheese was a revelation in itself and as for the mustard, well that's back to where I started isn't it?

Trollekelder is a great bar with great service, beer and atmosphere. It was our favourite of those we visited in the city centre and only narrowly beaten as the best we visited in all of Ghent by De Planck. Having said that we didn't get to all the bars but we did get to most of those rated on websites or listed on beer tours of the city.

It's definitely high on our list for next time we visit.

We might take it easy on the mustard though...

(Visited 11th September 2014)

(Apologies for the lack of pictures.)