Fighting the Cobbles - My trip to Belgium in 2018, Part 6 - Walking towards Brussels

This blog continues the previous Part 5,

https://gerdiwanninger.blogspot.com/2018/07/fighting-cobbles-my-trip-to-belgium-in_26.html

Sunday, June 24, 2018

  

   After leaving Brussels airport I only passed smaller houses and small villages. The first real town I walked into was Diegem/Machelen. From the main road I took a left turn passing small and narrow roads into the center. As with mostly older European towns it seemed that they were build around a church on a hilltop, in this case the Gothic Saint Cornelius Church. The construction started around 1400 to replace a more than 400 years old church. The current church was completed and inaugurated in 1543.

   In front of the church is a big parking area so I had to try a right angle to get the shot from the front. As anyone can see the weather was cloudy but actually nicely matched the old church building. For a Sunday morning everything was very quiet, the busiest place was not the church for the Sunday worship but a bakery already open on this early morning.

Saint Cornelius Church Diegem/Machelen

Right across from the church was the interesting Château Marga from the fifteenth-century. The current building, an fortified gate, is all what remained from the original building…

The Gate or Towers of the Château Marga

After my first pictures on Belgium grounds I went back to the main road and just continued walking. This road is like all modern roads: it has only the purpose to bring people from A to B. No decoration, no designs which were worthy to mention. Occasionally there were some workshops but also some goats grazing beside the road.

   Slowly I walked to Haren, an old municipality at the northeastern edge of Brussels. The first Brussels airport was located here between 1914 and the early 1950s the site was later used by the Belgian Air Force. It is being cleared for the construction of the new NATO HQ. Between 1932 and 1997 Hare was the location of a Renault automobile factory, concentrating on the assembly of Renault 4 and Renault 6 models for sales in Benelux, Germany and Scandinavia (wikipedia).

   Walking through some narrow streets I've discovered a bakery. Not because I was hungry but more to find out more about the attitude and language abilities I went inside. In the low and somehow dark (meaning old) bakery was one young customer and an elderly sales lady. As I started in English the lady did not understand. So I pointed onto the object of my desire with my finger and with the help of the young customer I bought a kind of sweet cake. It was a whopping Euro 4.00 (!) but I tried to smile. Before leaving I thanked the translator for his help. Walking until I came a nearby park I enjoyed my first sweet Belgian morning break.

Sweet Pie with Powder Sugar

   With sticky hands I continued my trail and noticed a man carrying a lot of bread under his arms walking towards me. Not much later I ran into a Middle Eastern supermarket. I went in just to check the prices. They were very human, a whole French baguette was less than Euro 1.00. I've learned my lesson and later only went to supermarkets to buy my food and drink supplies.

   My luggage worked very well. The wheels rolled easily until I came to my first cobbles. A cobblestone is a natural material based on cobble-sized stones used for payments. The problem with the 'natural material' is that the stones are not even, between the stones there is actually only sand. Through usage, weather etc. some cobbles become loose or even got lost creating holes in the road. All these 'specifics' let the handle of my luggage rattle in my hand which not only hurt but seriously hardened the skin of my fingers. Sometimes I had to take out and use my bike gloves to soften the shaking of the handle in my hands. For me to use cobbles in road construction is not a very good idea, hence the title 'fighting with the cobbles' of my blog.

To give the Readers an Idea how uneven the Surfaces of the Cobbles are.

Ladies, try walking with high heels!

   Accidentally I passed the huge Decathlon Evere store. Decathlon it is a French sports chain store which has a great following even in Taiwan. I wanted to go in and check it out but I came here for travel...

   Evere is a one of nineteen municipalities (a single urban or administrative division with corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and state laws) with has a roughly population of over 33,000 citizens.

(to be continued @ 

https://gerdiwanninger.blogspot.com/2018/07/fighting-cobbles-my-trip-to-belgium-in_30.html)

Disclaimer: I traveled Belgium by myself, I am not sponsored by anyone. Interested subscribers and/or followers in traveling an in this small but beautiful country are more than welcome! If not convenient to subscribe on Blogger.com, I've started my own homepage @ https://gerhardwanninger.wixsite.com/travel