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Exciting news – I’m going to be taking up a stall at the Crafty Market in Dublin on Sunday 2 August. It’s an indoor market – so come along, rain or shine – featuring the handy work of talented locals including everything from photography, paintings, sketch work, stationery, needlework etc etc etc. And let’s not forget a lovely little cafe serving Dublin’s best coffee…prepared by an Italian bloke, of course!
In any case it’s well worth a visit. There’s always someone’s birthday, anniversary, wedding, christening, special day just around the corner so why not find them something unique while supporting local crafts people. Of course you could always pick up one of my photo cards for no reason…there’s nothing like sending and receiving something nice in the post…something handmade and handwritten rather than an impersonal email or text message.
The market is located in the Dublin Food Co-op space at 12 Newmarket Street, Dublin. It’s just down from Christchurch and just across from St Patrick’s Cathedral.
I’ll be selling my cards for the market special price of 3.50 Euro each or 5 cards for 15 Euro. The new stock is slightly smaller than the old stock but the quality is high…only the best for my supporters! I’m pretty much testing the market and looking to see what sells and what doesn’t, what other people like as opposed to what I like, or think they might like… =)
You can check out some of my other work at www.stephaniefargher.com, where I’ve put up a bit of a portfolio…not much else at this stage. If you’re interested in any of my stuff please drop me an email and I’ll see what I can do.
The City Sightseeing Hop On Hop Off open top bus tour service is a great way to get your bearings in a new city, and Brussels is no exception. The 90 minute tour makes 13 stop on a loop around the city, beginning and ending at the Central Station, however, the beauty of these tours is that you can purchase your ticket and begin the tour at any stop along the way. The first time around, I recommend taking the tour in its totality as this will allow you to see exactly where the tourist attractions are in relation to one another and help you to decide what you might be interested in taking a closer look at later on. This is particularly helpful if you’re short on time. You will also get a good amount of trivia to take away for your next pub quiz as the buses come equipped with a multilingual soundtrack full of historical tidbits to give you a greater context of the city, its landscape and its monuments. Tickets for the Brussels tour cost 18 Euro for adults and 16 Euro for students and the ticket will last you for 24 hours, which means arriving late in the day gets you a few more hops on and off the following morning.
Once you’ve familiarised yourself with the general outlay of Brussels it’s probably time to grab a coffee and a waffle. There are street stalls, ice cream stores, cafes and bakeries dotted all over Brussels selling authentic Belgian waffles plain, sugared, with cream, chocolate, berries, you name it and they can probably do it for you. I recommend the cream and strawberries. Good coffee is difficult to come by, it’s generally inconsistent but most commonly filtered coffee from a machine and either weak or incredibly strong, somehow never a pleasant in-between. And a cappuccino is topped with dairy whip cream from a can rather than freshly frothed milk and chocolate powder. On one occasion we walked into a café/bar with the intention of sitting down to a coffee but were told there was a ‘problem’ with the water and would be not prefer a beer. We’re still not sure what he was washing the dishes in if the water wasn’t working! Drinking beer in Belgium is a national pastime with almost all cafés, restaurants and bars serving a wide range of locally produced beers. You can also purchase local beers at tourist shops, corner stores and supermarkets for 1-3 Euro a pop, including those varieties considered quite up market elsewhere in the world. Most regions in Belgium have a local beer with Trappist and Abbey brewed beers a specialty. There are six Trappist breweries within Belgium, and of those I know Emmet likes the Chimay, in particular Chimay Blue, which is brewed at the Scourmont Abbey and the Rochefort, try Rochefort 8, brewed in Saint-Remy. For the ladies, or those less used to the bitterness of beer, such as myself, the Belgians also have a penchant for brewing fruit infused beers known as lambics, with Framboise (raspberry) and Kriek (sour cherry) flavours possibly the most popular but other flavours available. I can recommend the Morte Subite and Belle Vue. Delirium Cafe in Brussels is a dingy and smokey place to drink, but none the less a Belgian icon boasting over 2000 types of beer ready to drink.
You wouldn’t be a tourist in Brussels if you didn’t head down to Grand Place, which is situated in the middle of town. The square itself is surrounded by brilliant gothic, baroque and neo-gothic buildings that can be truly imposing. The Town Hall (Hotel de Ville) is the centerpiece and is surrounded by terrace cafes and restaurants, a lace store and chocolate shops. The occasional market takes place in the square itself with the Town Hall apparently available for weddings – or so we witnessed on one of our trips into town. As with most areas of intense tourist interest the price goes up the closer you get to Grand Place, but on a sunny afternoon it’s not a bad place for a beer, coffee, sandwich or waffle.
If you’ve taken a stroll around Grand Place but aren’t quite ready to sit just yet head over to Godiva Chocolatier on the corner of Grand Place and pick up a chocolate dipped strawberry cone or box of fruit cups and head over to Brussels Park, which is right beside the Royal Palace (Palais Royale). It might seem like a bit of a walk judging by the map, but it is just that Brussels is an incredibly dense city; it shouldn’t take you more than a twenty minute stroll. A wander around the lungs of the city is a nice distraction from the stressed population of bureaucrats on a weekday or just something peaceful and nice to do on a weekend, when many of the workers have deserted the city and tourists are left to their own devices. The Palace is indeed a grand neo-classical structure overlooking a perfectly manicured garden before leading onto the cobblestone roadway, across the road from which is Brussels Park. The Palace is the official residence of the King Albert II who became King of the Belgians in August 1993. The Belgian flag flies at full mast when the King is within Belgium and is taken down when he is traveling. Unfortunately, the Palace was not open to the public during our trip, but it can be visited while the King is away from late July until late August. Even so, it is quite a site and well worth a visit.
If you’re happy to keep on wandering continue on beyond the Palace up a slight incline along Rue de la Regence, which will bring you to the Law Courts of Brussels (Palais de Justice), a foreboding structure incorporating a number of architectural styles. The façade is currently being renovated and so is in part obscured by scaffolding, but overall it is none the less impressive. In front of the Courts and to the right is a brilliant view of Brussels city, which, unfortunately we were not able to capture effectively with the camera. Once you’ve been awed by the views, you’ll notice you’re on the edge of a shopping area featuring an eclectic mix of luxury brands such as Tiffany & Co and Chanel on Boulevard de Waterloo, to H&M and the Zara flagship store along Avenue Louise. Part way down Avenue Louise you will find Place Stephanie. Heading back down Avenue Louise there are two side streets dedicated to pedestrians. One, Rue Jean Stas, has a small but decent selection of cafes and bars spilling out onto the street. Try Mamy Louise for a pastry or just a pot of tea before heading around the block to the parallel street, Rue Jourdan to treat yourself to some wholesome Italian cooking at Al Piccolo Mondo. I can recommend the buffalo mozzarella and tomato salad and the spaghetti bolognaise, followed by the tiramisu washed down with a glass of the house red to top off a truly Italian meal.
If you’re in Brussels close to the summer solstice there should be plenty of sunshine to guide you back to your hotel for the evening, but if that last spoonful of tiramisu has put you over the edge there is easy access to the metro and tram systems.
Of course, there is plenty more to do in Brussels, but for one day, this is probably enough. Again, taking the initial bus tour to show you where everything is helps you choose what you’d like to see again in more detail without having to crisscross the city. In brief we also saw the EU Quarter of Brussels, which consists mostly of large, modern and secure buildings and banners with unification slogans announcing upcoming conferences on climate change. As you may know, the European Council recently met in Brussels to discuss a number of things, which added to our lacking interest in revisiting the area mainly due to the massively increased security of the area, road blocks, detours, media and a protest by EU farmers. And (allegedly) following a robbery the EU Parliament is (allegedly) more difficult to get into these days than in the past, so we gave that one a miss, but should we need to go back to Brussels may consider making an application at that time. We also didn’t make it back to Parc du Cinquantenaire which features the Triumphal Arch. Although beautiful to see from the open top bus, the park was a little too far out of the town centre for my legs to take me, and due to other activities didn’t make it onto the list this time.
There is also the Brussels Expo featuring left over exhibitions from the 1958 World’s Fair, which now hosts events, markets and is a general exhibition space. The Atomium, a scale model of an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times, remains and is a functional museum and restaurant. Again, this one’s a little bit out of the city centre and although we were satisfied with the view from the tour bus it probably requires a day trip all on its own. We did, however, make it to Manneken Pis, the small, and I do mean small, bronze statue of a boy peeing into a fountain. We came around a corner just off Grand Place to find a group of tourists taking photographs of what looked like a crummy fountain. As we got closer we noticed that they were in fact photographing the statue, which is tiny and I’m not sure what all the fuss is about. Apparently they dress him up in seasonal costumes such as a Santa suit around Christmas time. He is replicated in all manner of tourist trinkets from bottle openers to postcards to corkscrews and candy! Some ingenious marketing ploy.
Tips for visiting Brussels:
- The place is closed and deserted on Sundays –the workers have gone home and most of the shops are closed, apart from around the really touristy areas. On the one hand it’s probably a good time to wander around without bumping into anyone, on the other, don’t be too picky about your lunchtime options.
- It’s probably a good idea to book an apartment or B&B with cooking facilities if you’re planning to stay more than a couple of nights so you can save money by not having to eat out for every meal, and you can pick up some greens in amongst what is an awful lot of brown food takeaway, sweets and pastries.
- Don’t be fooled by the tourist map, things aren’t really all that far away. Brussels, as with other Belgian towns and cities is incredibly dense, and for this reason the maps can look pretty daunting – the tour bus really puts this into perspective for you.
- People aren’t as friendly as you might like them to be. You have to remember that most of the locals probably aren’t ‘locals’ at all. Brussels can feel like a transient city with its population coming in during the week and leaving at the weekends.
- A little bit of French goes a long way in Brussels. Fortunately for me Emmet studied French at uni, but if you don’t have your own personal translator try to pick up the basics with a phrase book or, if you have one, a Blackberry or iPhone application, which can help with pronunciation too.
- Just because the beer is cheap it doesn’t mean you have to drink it. Take it easy, enjoy the Trappist beers but remember some of them are quite strong, and if they’re not strong they may be served in glassware portions larger than one standard drink.
- Belgium is the home of fries, so they’re everywhere. Beware too much brown food – it will mess with your tummy as it did with mine!
Still to come…fries and chocolate in Bruges and the banks of Luxembourg.
So, we’ve arrived safe and sound into ol’ Dublin town. The flight was long, but fortunately Etihad flies directly to Abu Dhabi and then on to Dublin, dividing the journey into around 14 hours and 8 hours, much more reasonable than the Dublin-to-other Euro city (1-2 hours) + other Euro city-to-Asian hub (20 odd hours) + Asian hub-to-Sydney (around 8 or 9 hours). Okay, maybe my assessment of those travel times is a little off, but basically what I’m trying to say is that while travelling Economy is never ideal Etihad made the journey bearable. Although I think we somehow managed to have three breakfasts over the course of the 25 hours between Sydney and Dublin. To be honest a little bit of egg and tomato is preferable to several larger meals, it means less time spent in those teeny tiny toilets and it means a more comfortable belly for us long haul customers.
Survived the flight by watching Bride Wars – not as bad as I thought it was going to be, although Anne Hathaway is a way better actor than Kate Hudson, Easy Virtue, which was wonderful – all you Colin Firth fans out there should probably watch this, he has some of the best lines, and Marley & Me, which was completely watchable even though it has Jennifer Aniston in a lead role, and gave me a little tear given I was leaving my Tilly behind in Wollongong.
The stop over in Abu Dhabi was interesting. The reason we decided not to spend time there in between flights was cost, because we arrived around twenty-passed midnight we would have had to pay for two night accommodation, $800-odd we thought was a little excessive. I did notice the indignant couple seated in front of us for the first leg of the flight, who boarded the plane very late and then spent the entire flight with their seats back had decided to spend that $840. Before landing we were party to a promo video that detailed all the features and available developments in Abu Dhabi. I’d be curious to have a look around, but the whole things strikes me as a little odd. One of the main features they plug is the malls…you can shop until your heart’s content in Abu Dhabi, but at the end of the day, it’s the same ol’ stuff you can purchase anywhere else, only tax free. Also, in the video, ‘local’ families are portrayed enjoying a walk through the malls, the wife in her cover-up clothes walking side by side with her professionally dressed husband and her children along side. Interestingly enough, this is not what we saw at the airport. While I have absolutely no problem with the religious and spiritual convictions of others provided they do not impinge on my own beliefs ad vice-versa, I must admit that I was taken aback by the women in, what I believe are called niqab, the black fabric head and face cover that only has a slit for the eyes. In this case the women seemed to have pinned the eye slit so as to also cover the bridge of their noses. What interested me most was that these women were accompanied by their husbands who wore trendy jeans and brand name t-shirts with some swanky brand of sneaker. While I probably would have taken notice of the ladies in their outfits anyway, as I’ve not previously been in the presence of such numbers, I don’t know that I would have thought much of it had the men not been in such capitalistic garb…food for thought.
Anyway, we arrived at Dublin after two very steady and ‘relatively’ comfortable flights to find that spring had most definitely sprung! The weather here, for the last two days has been brilliant. The sun is out, flowers are blooming, birds are singing and there’s a cool breeze in the air to take the edge off too much sun. It is a little strange, and probably not helping too much with the jetlag, but the sun is up until around 10pm! It’s glorious, but I have absolutely no idea what time it is when judging by the amount of light out!
On our first full day in Dublin Mr Emmet took be into town to have a look around, and in an attempt to figure out the buses and somehow get my bearings…I’m just as lost as ever but I now have a collection of possible homeward bound bus timetables in my bag…shame I wouldn’t have a clue which is my stop! Mount Merrion isn’t far from town, it’s very suburban and very Irish, if you ask me – the foreigner. It’s lovely though, and the plots of land on which the houses are set is quite large for the outer suburbs of an international city – in comparison to the estates you see in Western Sydney that have McMansions taking up every possible square metre of space with concrete rather than preserving any green space. Most of the houses are set back from the street with a small area for parking up to two cars before the front door. They’re a couple of stories, with bedrooms upstairs and living areas downstairs – they pretty much all look like they follow the same design, from what I can tell from the outside. Then there’s a significant back area, well, enough for Emmet and I to throw a ball around with the lovely Daisy. One of the major issues for suburban Dublin though, is water. There doesn’t appear to be much of it, the pressure is really low and having a shower is a bit of a chore. I had an incident today, all I wanted was a nice warm shower…but it wasn’t happening. You have to flick this switch and that switch and turn on the pump…etc etc etc. Okay, so it probably isn’t that hard, but it’s not walking into the shower turning it on and having instant hot water flowing consistently and hard enough to have a light massaging effect on your shoulders. Anyway, being the second day here, my being more than a little jetlagged and the lack of any sort of routine for me meant a few tears before we worked out how to get the thing moving…I’m now happy to say that I’m all clean and shiny.
So yesterday Mr Emmet showed be around parts of his home town, seeing it in a slightly different light, showing it off with lots of little tid-bits and random facts. We wandered through Trinity College, which I’m sure he thought was so blase as he went to Uni there, but I enjoyed it. There was a tonne of tourists out and about doing the same and I think we walked through a wedding on the grounds as well. The line for the Book of Kells was already long…this was around 10 in the morning, with the only people up at that hour the tourists…no Dubs. We wandered on through Temple Bar and found us a little market like the ones we were going to in Pyrmont but not of that scale. In any case some very decent coffee was had! I was pleased to find it as last time I was here the best coffee I managed to locate was from Starbucks, which says a lot, unfortunately. They had lots of yummy things but we refrained…this time.
The Maritime Festival was on down at the Quays so we wandered down there. There were a few boats and a bunch if market type stalls as well as some rides and things for the kids. We wandered along the wrong side of the Liffey looking at all the development that’s going on there. There’s a new bridge that apparently has come in from Denmark – made entirely there and then brought over by boat, it’s not quite ready for use just yet, but it’ll be an interesting feature, a modern take on the traditional Irish harp. We eventually noticed that we were on the wrong side and all the boats were docked on the other side so we took a small ferry across – Emmet’s first time actually on the Liffey apparently, mine too, an continued our wander around. I managed to get myself burnt, either here on on the walk through St Stephen’s Green, which was FULL of people in clothing ranging from bikinis (it really wasn’t bikini weather) to t-shirts and shorts to jumpers and jackets! Funnily enough, although there was no ‘keep off the grass’ sign to be seen, the masses managed to avoid certain sections of grass…well trained by the looks.
That was pretty much our day…although we did find a lovely restaurant for lunch and potential small after eloping celebratory lunch venue, the Pig’s Ear…yum!
More to come…photos soon…
