Yesterday we left Great Britain behind for the the mainland. Our train took us through the Chunnel to Brussels. Took about 4 hours, 20 minutes or so of which was under the English Channel. The tunnel is 163,680 feet or almost 50 kilometers long it cost about $21 billion to build. Here’s a picture of the inside of the tunnel.
Our first stop was Brussels however we only saw the train station as we were rushing to meet with Jessica (my first cousin on my mother’s side) and Walter (her husband) in Antwerp. Antwerp was beautiful, we walked around the old town, the beautiful cathedral, the ‘Steen’ Castle, the statues and the like. We tried to take some pictures here but many of them were too dark, so I’ll have to photoshop them when we get a moment. Here are a few that look OK. 
The cathedral is “Our Lady” and dates back to the 14th century. The statue there is of Silvius Brabo, he was a Roman soldier who legend has it defeated a terrible giant who had been collecting toals from sailors on the Schelde River. After killing the giant Brabo cut off it’s hand and threw the hand over the river. The place where it landed is where Antwerp was built. “Ant” mean hand and “Werpen” is to throw so we were in HandThrow and loved it. (Walter is responsible for any errors or ommissions in the above).
We then went to a bar called “The 11th Commandment” which is “Thou Shalt Enjoy Beer”. I didn’t find this one very hard to comply with and we sampled Cherry beer, Rasberry beer, and several Trapist Monk brewed pints. They were all delicious and the ambiance in the bar was great, it’s filled with Madonna’s and other religious icons. 
We ate dinner in an underground restaurant (The Pilgrim) and then Jess and Walter drove us across the border about 50 minutes to the underwater country of the Netherlands which we’ll cover in our next entry.
The Easter Bunny did manage to find us in Zoetermeer, Netherlands he delivered gourmet chocolate eggs that were much too good to share with a badly behaved monkey like George. I did let Ali have one though…
Happy Easter,
Mark & Ali
Yesterday we took a bus trip to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and Bath. The trip covered about 5,000 years of British history in about 12 hours.
We started at Windsor Castle, the Queen’s main digs. They make Buckingham Palace look like a bit of a dump by comparison, I can see why she likes to spend most of her time there. Our guide told us that the entire royal family was there for the Easter weekend however we were not invited to tea.
We then toured the very picturesque town of Windsor where I think the highlight was this crooked tea room.
We stopped in at an old thatch roofed pub for lunch and then on to Stonehenge.
After the mystical Stonghenge of ~2,600 BC on to Bath which has an interesting history. The Romans built a city here in what was once a swamp after draining it. They had a temple, an amphitheatre, baths, etc., however when they left around 400 AD the drainage system deteriorated and the swamp returned. The British ‘discovered’ the place again in the 1700s and built new baths here, this time for the ‘healing’ powers of the waters. A hundred years or so later a lady complained that her basement was leaking and when they dug it up they found this:
Anyway we are off to enjoy our last day in Britain, tomorrow we take a train through the Chunnel to Brussels and then on to Antwerp where we’ll hook up with “The Dutch”.
Cheers,
Mark & Ali
