Back to the Netherlands

We all think of the Rhine River as being in central Germany. But it actually flows into the North Sea, making its way through the Netherlands as it does. Our cruise through the Netherlands had us on the main channel of the Rhine at times. But because the Rhine delta as it nears the North Sea is immense, we were always on some branch of the Rhine.

We had a chance to visit Brussels on a day long bus excursion, which I jumped on. It turns out that whenever the Germans decided to wage war with the world, they had to plow through Belgium and the Netherlands to get at northern France and good ports nearer the English Channel. So, they were both pretty much devastated in both WWI and WWII. There are military cemeteries everywhere you turn, mostly British, Canadian or American occupants.

Flanders Field was a WWI battlefield where John McCrae, a Canadian Lieutenant Colonel, penned the infamous poem about the poppies. He originally wrote the poem on May 3, 1915 after presiding over the funeral of a fellow soldier who had died in the Second Battle of Ypres. But he was not happy with it, and he crumpled it up and threw it on the ground. Fellow soldiers who had heard him recite it retrieved it, and the rest is history.

We found the cathedral in the main square in Brussels. Originally built in 1519, it was not given cathedral status until 1962, which is unbelievable given how huge and beautiful it is. Like all the cathedrals we have visited anywhere in central Europe, we found the clam shell outside which signified the start of another leg of the Camino de Santiago. It brought back really strong memories.

Not far from the cathedral we found the Manneken Pis, which in Dutch means “Little Pissing Man”. This 1618 bronze two-foot-tall sculpture of a boy urinating into the fountain’s basin is the best-known symbol of both the sense of humor of the Belgium people, as well as their independence of mind. Probably due to both, Manneken Pis is dressed daily by locals with a new and very complete set of clothes – funny!

Remnants of the both WWI and WWII are part of everyday life in Belgium. We visited a trench warfare line where the Brits had tunneled under the German lines and planted a massive pile of explosives, which were later detonated to the dismay of the Germans. The Brits did this something like 29 times. Only 26 of them were successfully detonated – the other 3 are still buried somewhere, but nobody actually knows where. On a daily basis, farmers find unexploded armament in their fields, and local specialists go around and collect and dispose of them. Creepy!

There’s so much more I could say about the Netherlands and Belgium, but it was time to move onto Italy. The anticipation was killing us!

Talk to you soon.