Leuven - weird, creepy and strange

Leuven - Saint Peter's Church

Leuven. The place where I almost got to Erasmus. I have kinda mixed feelings about the place. My best trip was spent in here so far, and the city is ALSO beautiful, and the bar-street is fascinating (later about this), but probably the most important is the company, as I realized. I think I just reached the point, where I can call more and more people my friend and I got over my shyness and starting to be myself. (Everyone can decide is it a good or a bad thing :) )

First, I have to say, it's an easy trip to organize, as there is a direct train to Leuven from LLN. I maybe didn't mentioned, but the city is the basis of the KU Leuven, which is the "mother" university of UCL, as the French speaker part was banned out of Leuven, when the language borders were made. That's the point when UCL and LLN was founded around the 1970's. About the train the short story is definately my new fav city called Heverlee, sounds very erotic, like the name of a pornstar. But definately it was funny just there and then. :)

So we arrived. The train station is nothing special, but at least it has a very good location, we could reach the city center very fast on foot. Shops, churches and the city hall. The new thing, that I've never experienced at the cities before, that the much university buildings (feels like home because of the same logo :) ), like there is one on almost every corner. And a lot of street art, as in the other cities, just more and more creepy here. With the antique churches and beau buildings they make a funny and satisfying contrast. But first let's start with the boring tourist stuff. Churches. You know, they are my favs, here they were also stunning. I think the best church is the one called Saint Peter's church, that you can see on the top. It nice outside, nice inside, and next to the usual stuff, I getting more and more under the effect of the gregorian music in churches. Old, religious music, what made me feel, how tiny, I am under the 40-50 meter high cupolas.




After the churches I should mention also the Grand Place, where you have to go day and also go back at night, as the lights are fascinating then. There are 2 big places, one with the belltower and a huge empty place, and the most important: the giant superweird FLY (!!! - ok it's not a fly, then some kind of disgusting animal, nm) on a stick in the middle of the square.  The other square is the more fancy one, and it is full of people, and here is also the famous and already mentioned bar-street.

Before I begin the beer topic, let's talk about 2 very important sights. First (! - as museums usually close at around 5 pm, check it first) the Leuven City Museum is totally a need to see museum, if we didn't enough creepy stuff around the city. (I have to admit, that we didn't find the Disappearing Toilet ( :D - the toilet appears in the night and disappears in the morning ) and the place, where they perform from time-to-time the famous rape and murder of a young girl of Leuven. So, if we checked them, we should go to the museum. The first impession is wrong! It looks a modern museum about traditional exhibitions. It's not. The entrance fee is around 5€, but it's totally worth it. We spent inside more than 2 hours I guess, and it's really interesting. Yeah, and I'm really glad, that finally I got to a building's roof, so finally selfie and panorama-tiiiiiime. :)

The artistic and/or historical exhibitions are both fascinating and weird. Need to see, I could compare the feeling inside with the song of Tool - Schism. There is a traditional historical and art exhibition, and probably temporary medicine and also a modern art exhibition of Marcus Schinwald. But I won't say anything else, interpret the art, as you wish:

We finally reached the last sight before the desired beer: this is the Nun's district. It is the best place to go in the border of the day and light, as it is the most beautiful place of the city, but a little bit further from the center, so that way you can enjoy also the daylight, the twilight and the night lights. Narrow streets, parks, tunnels split the district into parts, and with the autumn beauty of the woods it is just a good feeling to be there. I would recommend you to go there and find the small pond somewhere in the neighbourhood, that provides awesome possibilities for selfies and possible profile pictures. However its not the cleanest park and water I've ever been. So this redbricked, old town in the town can be explored in an hour, and then, after twilight go back to the city to check the Grand Place again with the lights. And after comes the beer.

So finally we are here at the beer. Definately, because of the university, there is the bar-street, what is one huge community of pubs, as there is next to each other around 10-20 bars with different design and theme, but almost the same prices (~kartel), because it's not worth to compete in that factor. And I can say, I still love Belgians. The waiters really don't bother, if you can't choose for 3 minutes, they are gladly do 5 photos about your group, he also reveals, what his fav beer is. :) Yeah, and they talk to you the way, like they really could care about you, or at least they fake it, like a good wife. :D So I like the mentality, also the place, called The Capital. You can reach the bar directly from the Grand Place. On the 1st floor there is the pub part of the bar, the 2nd floor is about quiet, friendly conversations, while the basement is a library and a wine cellar. So what should I say, I really liked the place, so maybe I'm influenced at the rating of the todays beer. The beer, I've tried is a light Belgian ale, called Préaris Blond, as I know the waiter's fav. It is not local, but near Bruges, but really good. Little lemon flavour, characteristic and strong. Not the most special I've ever tried, but still very good.

Beauty: 2/3

Sights: 2/3

Specialities: 2/2 - Nun's district, City Museum

Mood: 2/2

City rating: 8/10 

Préaris Blond rating: 7/10

Adele / Chez Adele - a student bar

The Adele is the closest (student) bar to my place. You have to know about these places, that they're still smelly in the afternoons from the night before, you have a feeling when entering like you're in your clothes from the last night and you get an instant hangover, so just carefully. The beer served here is the same as the other student bars: 1,5 € for 2 dl plastic glasses, but at least this is Leffe, which is another level than the usual Jupiler. In the daytime the park before is full with picnic tables, and the tables are full with the members and wannabe members of the Cercle de Droit, the lawyers elite club. In the night there is the best music I've been still, so at least you can listen the refrains before the remixing. :) Yeah, and very satisfying, inspite of the crowd I didn't get any beer on my clothes or hair.


Here I have 2 very good memories: one, that after a good meeting and Pálinka night with my kot-mates we had the best party so far, so that's why I love this place. The other is the one, when I met a guy from the Cercle, got a free beer and a small LLN history about these famous hats. Hats? They're not hats!! They're Calottes. This is an old tradition in the Belgian universities, and changes per place. It differs in LLN, in Mons and Brussels too. If you did your Baptéme, it means you're part of the elite club, and within a ceremonial celebration you get your Calotte empty. After every finished semester you get a golden star, and you get silver star after the failed ones. And of course, you can grace the Calotte with anything personal, you want, but the golden pins only can got from the older Circle members for a special achievement. As I understood well, there are various achievements, that you can reach, for example you get some golden letter, animal or symbol for many reasons: for being an asshole or unashamed, funny, uxorious, pretty (girl), handsome (boy), drunk of course :) There is also some achievements, if you act like a gentleman, you have sex or you can drink "afo". So I need these traditions to Hungary, and I need a Calotte (unfortunately it can be bought :( ).

Bar valuation: 7/10

Lille - Belgium in France

Lille grand place

I just can't decide how to feel regarding Lille. It is a beautiful, French city near to the French-Belgian border, so 18 € for a roundtrip, and you can say, that you've been in France. :) The train trip is around 3-3 hours, so not much more than Anvers or Brugge. In the first part I was also excited, as I finally leave Belgium for the first time since my Erasmus, and also dissatisfied, as they are French. Anyway, I don't really know the French people, only the ones at Paris, so I won't be racist. The French Eramus guys are nice, so probably it's just Paris problems. :)

And we arrived to Lille. It was kind of a disappointment, as I didn't realized, I'm abroad. As we left the - btw so simple - train station, and we noticed, that we could watch the same in Wallonie. I'm not whining - okay, maybe a little bit - but it didn't satisfy me. So start again: Lille is a belle French city with lot of Dutch and/or Vallon characteristics. Anyway, there's a lot of sights, so I begin.

As our first trip was to the Tourist Office, we went directly into the heart of the city, the Grand Place. (the Tourist Office - where usually we get the map to start the journey - actually take place in Lille at a church-lookalike building next to the grand place. Inside modern, outside old and cool.) As that day we had the regular morning croissant-coffee-smoke combo already between 2 trains, we started the trip promptly in the grand place. As you can see on the first picture, the place is just perfect for selfies and photos, as the baroque buildings, the huge bell tower and the central sculpture makes easy to take a memorable picture. 

If we have enough selfies, follow the walking streets nearby, so we can see finally the house of opera, ok nice, but we weren't so enthusiastic about it, but the other, the belltower was a perfect, huge beauty. As I really love to climb these tall buildings, I tried also this time, but for some reasons I can't get into any of them in WE. :( I'm not sure, if it was closed, or it is not visitable at all, but we didn't get in, so never mind. So you still have to wait for my nice panorama pictures about some city, where I can finally climb a tower.

Though I wasn't disappointed in the church options in Lille. As I got used to that in the Belgian cities, there are a lot of old churches in the downtown area, but more or less all are quiet the same, like in Belgium, ok, maybe there is more frescos on the walls, maybe it didn't get robbed in the WW2, I guess. anyway I won't tell any more about them. Except one. There are almost 10-20 churches in the inner city, almost one in every corner, so you really can get tired of the lot of faith, :) but this weird thing is the only church if you want something fascinating in Lille.

This one church in Lille is - another - Notre Dame (de la Treille) - I am getting used to it now, that THE Notre Dame is just ONE from the bunch. :) So, as I got it well, this church is ruined in the 1st WW, and then some modern architects thought not to reconstruct it, than rather build a half new church above/in front of the old one. When I say, it's weird, you can't imagine, how much it is. (I don't have a picture yet, but I will put it in later, when I get the photos of the trip :) ) In the inside there are different plastic, wooden and textile "things" with different colours, shape in different positions. Outside it looks like a new church half-built, as it is not finished yet. So it was kinda bizarre for me, but some of us liked it very much. So you just have to see it. And finally let's go to the Citadel.

Second disappointment. The Citadel is not as interesting as I expected. On one hand, we couldn't enter, as they said, we need reservation for 3-4 weeks, uhh, and on the other hand it looks really cool from above, but is really flat, so more boring and less spectacular as a Hungarian castle on a top of a mountain. So we couldn't have a really good picture about it. But good news: the next-to park is full with picnic places and of course tourists and families, so feel free to buy a baguette and eat out. Good for photos also. And the best activity at the Citadel is the zoo, wait for it, for freeeee. So you shouldn't expect a large one, but quite nice with different, fedup, friendly animals, so nice to visit for a half-one hour. Yeah, and there is this sculpture, I don't know what it is, but looks cool.

So now comes the end of the post again, so we got to the beer. :) The picture in the left is taken from the place, where the open-air bar called Oz can be found. It was hard btw to find a place, what is not full with tourists at 6pm, so we're really glad. I loved the place anyway, and it was beautiful also in the sunshine, the sunset and the night. And now comes the real speciality. The Hungarian Erasmus from Belgium travels to France with some Polish, Russian and Swedish to get in an Australian bar to drink a French beer. :)

The Grimbergen Rouge is - as the name states - a red beer, but I didn't got any special glass or bottle, so I'm not sure about the design. It is a specially sweet beer, as e.g. the Kriek's in Belgium, so not a typical beer, not strong, I think 6% only, not sour, but I loved it. There is some nice fruit taste inside, that I couldn't identify, maybe next time, if I drink I will remember. Anyway, best red beer so far. :)

Beauty: 2/3

Sights: 2/3

Specialities: 1/2 - zoo, no Citadel

Mood: 2/2

City rating: 7/10 - nice, but maybe not worth to travel so much for another Belgian city...

Grimbergen Rouge rating: 9/10

Brugge - Venice of the North

Grand place of Brugge

Brugge or Bruges - as all the Belgian cities has a French and a Dutch name - is now my new favourite bestcityIhaveeverseen city of mine. Actually I have so much pictures, if I should start a photo-blog instead of this boring reports, as the pictures show more about the true beauty of the city. :) Almost all of the buildings of the city is an architectural work of art, literally, in Hungary there is one as famous house/building in every village, and they mean sights there. So I probably couldn't decide, which place is famous and which is not, so there are a huge amount of pictures about "random" houses, that I just liked a lot.  

But something about the city: as we arrived, there was a modern train station, nothing special, and outside there is a huge park and the suburbs. The main part of the city is around 1-2 km from the station on foot, I think because of they didn't want to mess up the united mood of the downtown. You can see already from the station (~3kms!) the spectacular giant of the belltower on the grand place. Sunshine, as in all the weekends so far, I feel really lucky. :)

As we reached the city, I just realized, why it is called Venice of the North. The many channels and/or rivers in the downtown give a great opportunity for selfies and group photos. Plus it has a good program opportunity as well: you can travel through the channels by boat ~7€, which is good news for your legs after a few hours (bad news for your nervous system, as the queue is always long, okay, except in heavy rain. :) ). Anyway, the tourist part in not large, we could get to know with like 2-3 hours. Except the windmills, as they are also famous, but quite far from the other sights and from each other :) , so we just skipped them - I check them in Netherlands I suppose. Yeah, and kind of a bad habit, but I keep starting all my trips with a coffee, smoking and lunch. I quiet like their coffee, I don't know why others say the opposite. Not an Italian one, but satisfying :)

Next topic is the rain. It was the first rain in all my trips here, why I'm really grateful to the weather. So very important, as I already learnt it in the second week in Louvain, and still every day there's umbrella and sunglasses in my bag. (ok, not true, as my umbrella just broke today, I must buy another one) That's the way you can prepare for every possible solutions. :) So this is the story of how my first rainy group picture was made. Thanks again to the incredible weather the rains lasted only 1-2 hours, and sunshine again #sunglasses, so we could walk around the city again. You know, that I'm really into the churches, but the city was so spectacular, that I won't show, just outside pictures: 

About the sights: I'm still not sure, which is famous building and which is not, so it is hard to speak about any of them. In the right it is possibly the city hall. :) Same style, as the rest of the town - btw I'm really into these Dutch-Flamande architecture, seems so romantic and tiny, even if huge. So I hope it is the city hall. There was some concert in the front, so we didn't come closer, but nice after all.

So sorry, but it's not the post, where I can say anything about the buildings, just about the city. Maybe if I come back in the winter, as probably I will come back with my parents in December. And if this blog, then a beer is needed, right? The girls were eager to the chocolate museum, and the boys to the beer museum so we split. So I can's say much about the chocolate museum, but the girls said it was awesome with chocolate tasting. Although I heard, that the Bruxelles one is better, as much more chocolate and less museum for 4 €. :) But the beer museum was cool. It costed ~10 €, but it was a bargain, as we could try 3 kinds of beers in the museum's bar in return, so if you think about it, it's almost a free museum, but not free beer. :) The museum btw has not much to show, they show with the interactive Ipad (!) the brewing process and the famous trademarks of Brugge, as well as some important facts about the beer. And we got in the and from some friendly tourists free coupons for some more beers, so we tried all the 16 beers possible in the bar. At least, I finally know, that my beer belly isn't caused by the beer, than it's because of my unhealthy lifestyle, so I'm proud not to be an alcoholic. :)

Beauty: 3/3

Sights: 3/3

Specialities: 2/2 - beer museum, chocolate musem, Venice

Mood: 2/2

City rating: 10/10 - with my best recommendation!

Beermuseum rating: 8/10 - Finest beers, but not all of them are satisfying for anybody, so better to ask the bartenders about the tastes and tell them, what you prefer, as they are very helpful and know the beers. My 3 full glasses were a red, a blond and a wheat beer, and all of them were perfect. I just can't rate the museum's beers for 10, as we tried the 'specialities', 3 beers, each of them were horrible, smelled and tasted like pee, so I won't recommend them. But the other 13 are just perfect. :) 

Antwerpen - The Sleeping Beauty

Town Hall building

Antwerpen/Anvers is the most beautiful city of Belgium, where I was so far. It has a taste like the 19th century, like the city sleeped in the last 2-300 years, and now the Old Town is like a little pearl in the modern surroundings, that's why the title. The city don't have the modernity, as for example Bruxelles, as has the lot of modern glass and concrete buildings and offices. Here you also can't find any fancy metal constructions and so. The only exeption is the harbor, as it is a famous transit point of shipping, but later about that.

As we arrived to the city, there is the train station building, very pretty and awesome in one place, as nothing modern, if you just see the building, but you just have to check, it has 26 platforms, and without place for the vertical placing, the platforms take place on more than 3(!) levels above each other. It is of course neccessary because the giant amount traffic it makes. It's either an artistic or an engineer miracle, I vote for both. So why not the first selfie?

The next important session, if we go out of the station, is the city, especially the Old Town. The city has a feeling, that the architects were drunk, when they planned the buildings, as any of them is similar as the others. Very funny and oldschool btw, as it looks completely different, than LLN, where you can lost because of the same lookalike buildings. So the inner city caught me pretty much, as it is so colourful and smells old. Pretty amusing in the beginning, but after... still amusing. :)

In the city there is not much car, neither car-zones, as I'm getting used to it, a real Belgian city don't have cars in the heart of the city. So a lot of narrow pedestrian streets, Gofridors, restaurants and coffee shops, just like in Croatia, just not as hot. So maximum points for the feeling. I just can't and won't show every churches and museums in the city, as it is just too much, and e.g. we didn't get into any of the museums, as EVERYTHING closes after 5pm in Belgium, even the tourist attractions. And the almost 8 hours we spent there was not enough to get to know with the city, as it is bigger, than it seems. (That's why we late the train in the last minute, so we had to wait like an hour. But the good thing, that I learned, when can I use officially the word Fanculo.) I won't tell more about the city, there are the pictures, they describe the more.

So I will show you the most important 3 things in Anvers: the grand place, the fort and the cathedral. Systematically the next one is the Cathedral of Our Lady, so another Notre Dame :) , as it is the first, we found and it's the closest to the train station. The cathedrals most typical characteristic is the golden clock on the tower, which you can see far from the place. Btw the building is as huge, as you cannot really take a photo about it from the place in front of the church, as it looks on the picture. I cannot say anything about the inside of the cathedral, as we weren't inside, as you have to pay for it, and we are students. :) But possibly the same beauty, as the other churches I've been already. The next station is the Grand Place / Grotte Markt, but it is near to the church, as everything important is in 500 metres area of the grand place. Das Grotte Markt has 2 main attractions, one is the Town Hall with the flags from all over the world (mostly Europe, but not just from there). The another important stuff is the statue of the discus thrower with a giant hand. As we realized it later based on some guide book and the busy girls, this is a real "Giant's hand", as there is this legend about an evil giant, who lived there and stole from the merchants, and one day somebody cut his hand and voilá: Anvers... So that's the story in short words. And since then it is the symbol of Antwerpen. Yeah, one more story, when we were at the Grand Place, there was a freestyle cycling competition, quite interesting, and very fotogenic.  So we were sitting a few minutes to take photos about the cyclists and the town hall and tried to guess, what are the unknown flags, but I'm sure, it't not the most interesting place in the city. So we continued our journey to the coast.
  

If you reach the coast exactly from the Grand Place, you arrive in the front of the castle (that is really tourist-friendly), which is pretty small to defend such a huge city. The castle is beautiful anyway, but in it there is only a restaurant, and you can walk through on it, but we didn't see any exhibition. I got to 2 conclusions at this point, as it was the second "fort" I saw in Belgium without any military use:
1: I think Belgium was invaded as much for a purpose. The soldiers can be as brave as possible, with those useless castles it is just impossible to defend a country. :) (My other theory about the invasions is, that the Belgian soldiers probably drank beer instead of guarding the walls. :) )
2: More disapponting is the fact, if there is no exhibitions in Belgium about the old ages, as it would mean, that the Germans, the French, the USA or whoever took all the values from Belgium during the WW-s to "save" it or for own purposes. The reason don't matter, just it seems that Belgians try to blow up the modern era's popular people, like Hergé, about him in another post. So I'm just really disappointed, that the only thing these wars left in Belgium are the buildings. They're nice btw, just I miss some live history class from the trips.

Now back to our journey. If you walk north from the castle, soon you'll reach the harbors. Meanwhile enjoy the sunshine, ships, selfies, and the huge building in the beginning of the harbor. It looks like a bastion between the modern and the ancient part of the city, and it's just enormous. So selfies again, selfies with each other, with the buildings, with sunset, if you still have time, buy a baguette sandwich and sit on the coast to eat it.
Well, then a few annoying things: tourist city, so not cheap. Belgian city, so everything closes after 5, we even couldn't check Rubens house at half past 4, as "the last group is already in there". From the outside it looked ruined, and some say, that the inside isn't as interesting - like the painter's favourite toothbrush. One more thing! Do not ever try to find the biggest Diamond Museum in Europe! Never! Ever! Some say it is moved, some others say, it is moved to another place, and the police said, it isn't even exist, according to another police it may be moved. I'm not sure, if there was anything like this ever in Anvers.
But it was the best city with the best people so far, I really enjoyed it. Yeah, and before I forget, it is a Dutch speaking city, so no Bonjour and Merci, strictly ENGLISH!

And a beer of course, why miss it?
As I couldn't find, what is the beer of the city, we tried a Greek one, as we ate at a Greek taverna with Greek language without Greek employees. As I remember well, the Greek guys said, it's the best Greek beer, or maybe just the most known. So, it was nothing intense, it was like a good Hungarian beer, so an average. To the gyros and souvlaki it was perfect choice, good quality-price ratio, nothing special.

City rating: 8/10

Beauty: 3/3 - best so far

Sights: 3/3 - all day program and more

Speciality: 0/2 - no beer, no exhibitions

Spirit: 2/2

Mythos rating: 5/10 - average beer for an average price, totally average, like a good Hungarian beer. :)

Namur trip

Best panorama so far

The city is beautiful, it has some kind of a middle-enlightenment aged feel with it's crowded narrow streets, and of course the amazing churches decorated with marble and carved-wood sculptures. My best guess for the feeling is somewhere among the middle-aged, the south-european and the modern lifestyle.
By the way the a inner city doesn't have many sights, there are some museum, in which the student usually not much interested, and neither us. On the other hand (as in all cities, I've been till in Belgium) the buildings are awesome and the churches are really beautiful. I just love these catholic decorations with a lots of marble, handmade carved-wood sculptures about the saints and the weird naked babies, and of course, my favourite, the lead glass windows with the saints and biblic stories, them I really miss from Hungary. I'm not sure, these beauties how could survive so many occupations and war, but probably the Belgians assimilated to most of the situations as they always do. If in Belgium, do as the Belgians.

You have to get across the river to get to the fortess, meanwhile check the lot of beautiful sites along the riverside, and the lot of bridges (as there is two rivers in Namur, we realized). If you plan to climb the hill (what in this flat country seems like a mountain), be prepared for a lot of stairs, parks, endless ways to the forest and a huge amount of walking upstairs. So prepare with drinks, food, and a lot of time to rest on the panoramic sides of the walls. But don't expect too much from the fortess, it's just a lot of high walls and serpentins, but there's no central building, or something else, leastways we didn't find it. (Don't forget to make selfies, if you can, maybe upper you won't find any place for this purpose, as there are a lot of woods hiding the sight everywhere) Food is especially useful for students, as you get really hungry, if you reach the top, and yeah, there are restaurants, but not with student prices. (Based on Thanasis's observation  - Cezar salade for 14€)
Still on the top there is a free parfumerie, who sells the homemade parfums for ~30€, and some of them smells pretty good (e.g. strawberry). There is also a Roman-aged theater, it seems good for a photo, but don't expect much more. And btw, if we are talking about restaurants, there is this little beauty, what is called Chateau de Namur, it should be the final destination with all of it's rose gardens, tower, and this kind of girly stuffs. This is in my opinion the greatest building in the city, or at least the most beautiful. When you're finished with the resting, selfies and sightseeing, you can leave the hill now and find something to drink or eat in the city center. 

Almost all of the pier is walking street as most of the city center, so you can walk along the river and watch the other sides nice mansions. For the lunch I could offer some hamburger, pizza, baguette or waffles, as there is no Greek restaurant in the city. If you choose the burger, try the Ot's, good burgers (normal-giga-mega, btw not as big, as shown, but 2-3-4 meat in one burger and a lot of fries) for average prices (menu ~7€)  In summary I recommend the city to every Erasmus student in Louvain, as it is like 7€ and half an hour trip from the University, and it's just 5-6 hours to explore the whole downtown. After or better meanwhile the discovery of course, you have to take 1-2 hours for a baguette, a coffee, a beer and for the panorama, so just enjoy the day like the natives would. Yeah, one more thing, if you found a suvenir shop, please take me a fridge magnet. :) Well yes, last, but not least, does anyone know, what is the hipe on the snails?

The beer speciality of the city is the Blanche de Namur, it's a wheat beer, and you know, I just love wheat beer, so maybe partial in this question, but it was my best beer so far in Belgium. (And the best wheat beer, but it was also the first one. :) ) Much gas, icecold, not to powerful, than a mild flavour of the typical wheat beer, and it's also not strong: 4,5%, so I can recommend it also to women. Try it!


City rating: 7/10
Beauty: 2/3 - average (compared to the Belgian cities)
Sights: 1/3 - half day program
Speciality: 2/2 - own beer, parfume
Spirit: 2/2

Blanche de Namur rating: 9/10 - best beer till now.

Budget: 7€ train ticket, 7€ food, 2,6€ beer, free map