BOX 254: Sheboygan and back to Belgium.

In January 2005 Anne and I returned to Bruges--joining our annual UW-Sheboygan winter trip abroad. This was our campus's second residence in Bruges (the first was in March 2000), and as before, we made side trips to Brussels, Antwerp and even, via tour bus, to Amsterdam. This photo shows Bruges' medieval Church of Our Lady, famous for its spire (at 379 feet one of the tallest brickwork towers in the world) and for its possession of a Michelangelo Madonna and Child.

This was the last of our campus trips I recorded with a film camera--I went digital at the end of 2005--and looking over the box of slides that I have scanned, I'm surprised that I took only a few photos. I'll show what I have, but for those curious about our previous stay in Belgium, go to BOXES 216-218. And for the really curious, check out my first visit to Bruges, in 1969: BOXES 28-30.

But first I have a few photos of Aron and Tiffany's newborn, Timmy--their third son, our third grandson. He was born at the end of December 2004, and because the unnumbered slides got somehow jumbled in my last few boxes, I can't say for sure whether the following pics were taken before or after the Belgium trip. If you think Timmy looks 7 days old or less in these photos, it was before; if you think he looks 17 days old or more, it was after.

Sheboyganites (and nobody else) will be amused by the headline in the local newspaper next to Anne: "Fighting words: 'widen 23'"!

And now, back to Bruges. Why is it so deeply satisfying to walk through an open-air market? In Europe, part of the pleasure is realizing that the market at hand could actually have been going on for a thousand years. In any case, we were all glad to visit the market that opened one morning on the Burg Square in Bruges:

The other photos I took of Bruges are pretty typical, but it's hard to point a camera in Bruges without capturing something that could be put on a travel poster. For example, here's a shot of a medieval bridge that I took from almost the exact spot where I'd stood in 1995, during yet another visit to the town with Anne:

And here's a canal scene, with a pair of swans obligingly filling in the foreground:

And here's the Bell Tower that stands over the central two squares of the city:

From our day trip to Brussels I have only a couple of shots, both showing students posing in front of the Mannekin Pis, the improbable symbol of the capital city. Apologies for not remembering anyone's name:

Some of our travelers appear also in my slides of our day in Amsterdam, where we took a canal boat tour. In the first photo below I spot my colleagues Juli Leet (with her husband, Bob, on the far left) and Jim Heidt:

My second boat photo is my favorite, because the students look like they're having a very good time:

Here's the view from the front passenger's seat:

Since Anne and I weren't tour leaders on this trip, we stayed overnight in Amsterdam and took a train back to Bruges the next day, rather than joining the others on the chartered bus for the return. We stayed at a hotel near the Vondelpark, in the vicinity of which I took a couple of photos of Victorian-era buildings. The first shows part of the grand Café Vertigo, which faced the park:

The second, taken down the street from our hotel, shows some of the Zevenlandenhuisen--the "Seven Countries Houses"--built in a row, each representing the architectural style of a different European country:

I think I took this photo simply because I liked the colorful facades. It was only in trying to ID them via Google Images that I learned the history of this stretch of houses, and can tell you that the one with the pink stripes represents Spain, with "France" to its right. To its left are "Italy" (pale yellow), "Russia" (onion dome), "the Netherlands" (gabled roof), and just a glimpse of "England."

I don't know if the remaining two Amsterdam slides were taken before or after we left the group, but in any case they show more traditional Dutch architecture. The first in fact shows the oldest remaining Amsterdam house, dated 1590. The second--I found after a great deal of internet hunting--is of a stretch of the Kaizersgracht:

I find only one other photo from our Belgian trip--showing the soaring spire of the Cathedral of Antwerp:

I'm puzzled that I have no other photos of Antwerp, considering that our group took a full-day guided tour of the city.

I finally got a digital camera for Christmas 2005, so our January 2006 trip (back to Canterbury) was the first I recorded with my new device. I used it again for our trip to the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico that summer, and for a visit to Seattle and British Columbia later that summer. But I did have one leftover roll of slide film, which I finally used during a Boston visit that fall. I'll show this last slide roll in my next post.