December Part 5 (Dec. 26-27)

After spending a relaxing few days in Lille shopping, showing my family around, and having Christmas, we rented a mini-van-type vehicle and set back out on another couple days of sightseeing. The day after Christmas, we got up reasonably early and drove about an hour and a half to see a medieval castle called the Chateau de Pierrefonds.

View of the Chateau from the front

It was pretty cool, although I thought it was more interesting from the outside than the inside. It's been used as a location for filming several movies, like The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, The Man in the Iron Mask, and some TV show about Merlin. It is a real medieval castle, originally built in the 12th century, but has fallen into ruin and been restored and rebuilt multiple times. The restoration that created the current incarnation was started in 1850.

One of the halls inside the Chateau

We spent most of the day seeing the Chateau and wandering in the village below. It was getting dark by the time we left, but we decided to make a small detour on the way back to Lille and stop in Amiens, which has a very famous cathedral, which is (I think) the largest cathedral in France.

Amiens Cathedral

The Cathedral was really magnificent, but unfortunately, we couldn't go inside. When we got there, we found out that if we waited around for about an hour, we could see a light show they do every night on the front of the Cathedral. So we wandered around for a bit and came back to see the light show, which was kind of cool. They projected colors onto all the sculptures in the three doorways, making them look like they were painted (which they used to be). We didn't stay for the whole thing though, because we were all pretty hungry. When we got back to Lille, we went to a creperie which Jenny and I had been to before with Liliane and Francois. It was delicious.

Canal in Bruges

The next day we ventured into Belgium. We stopped in a port town called Zeebrugge because Mom wanted to see the ocean. We then went to our main destination, the city of Bruges. We walked around the streets, looking at the canals and chocolate shops, and got some lunch in a sandwich shop. Then we headed over to the main square, where the famous belfry is located.

The belfry in Bruges

We paid to go up in the belfry. It was 366 steps to get to the top, and it was very narrow and therefore very crowded since there were people going both up and down. Several times we had to stand off to the side on landings and wait for people coming down to pass before we could go on. But once we got to the top, the view was pretty spectacular.

View from the top of the belfry

From the top, you could see a very long way in every direction (although we probably would have been able to see even farther if it hadn't been cloudy that day). It was cool to look down and see the city with all the canals going through it. It was also very cold, since we were so high up. After looking around for a while, we went back down and Bonnie Jo, Robin, Jenny and I decided to go to the chocolate museum, while Mom and Dad wandered around some more.

This weird little guy was the mascot at the chocolate museum

The chocolate museum was relatively interesting. I learned a lot about the history of chocolate and how it is made that I certainly didn't know before going there. After we went through the museum, we watched a guy actually making chocolates, which was pretty cool. And everybody got to eat one, too! After the chocolate museum, Jenny and I went to see about taking a boat ride, but all the boats were done for the day (which wasn't exactly a huge disappointment, because it was pretty cold and had been raining on and off all day, plus it was getting dark). It was getting to be around dinner time, so we left Bruges and found a nice seafood restaurant on the way back to Lille.

The next day was my family's last day in Lille. Liliane and Francois had us over for lunch, which was delicious, and of course they had presents for everyone! Claire and her boyfriend Eric (who she met at UT and is also from Tennessee) were there too, which was nice. After eating, we all went over to the Vimy Memorial, a nearby memorial for Canadian soldiers who fought in World War I. We then headed back to the house, where my family packed and got ready to leave in the morning. Dad, Jenny and I went to return the rental car, which was somewhat of a fiasco, because it was too big to fit into the parking garage the rental people had told us to park it in. But we eventually talked to a guy who told us where a different entrance to the garage was, and everything worked out.

The next morning, Jenny and I accompanied my family to the train station to see them off. Their train was on time and everything, and they made it back home without too much trouble (although apparently they had to go through a lot of ridiculous airport security because of the attempted bombing that had happened like a week before). And that's the end of our December adventures with my family!