Germany: A Day in Aachen

On Saturday, my friends and I took advantage of Belgium's central location and visited Aachen, Germany for the day. Aachen is most famously known for once being home to Charlemagne and only takes an hour and a half to reach from Leuven by train.

Pondering life - oh so dramatic and candid. 

Our train departing from Leuven was 8 minutes late, so we actually ended up missing the connector to Aachen. This left us in the French-speaking Belgian town of Welkenraedt for about an hour.

It was fairly dead in Welkenraedt that day, but we made the most of it by popping into a few shops and snapping pictures.

Finally, we reached Aachen some time around noon. First stop was one of two preserved city gates. The one closest to the train station is called Marientor and was built in the 14th century.

Hangin' with my new bud.

Next on the agenda was a walk by the Elisenbrunnen, a neoclassical hall covering a geothermal fountain (no picture of the actual fountain because, although nice and warm, it was underwhelming to look at...).

When Googling "must-do's" in Aachen, what came up fairly often was the mention of "Printen". Printen is a special gingerbread made in Aachen that can be found literally everywhere. So, naturally, I made sure to hunt down a place with the best reviews; a bakery chain called Nobis was the winner. We also sat in for a while to enjoy some fresh sandwiches for lunch.

Classically German: Nobis' Printen shop was warm, woodsy, and smelled of ginger.

The day's main attraction, and also my personal favourite, was a walk through Aachen Cathedral (or, Aachener Dom in German). Aachen Cathedral is a Roman Catholic Church and the oldest Cathedral in northern Europe that was constructed by order of the Emperor Charlemagne; he was buried here after his death in 814. Also, for close to 600 years, this was the church of coronation for thirty German kings and twelve queens.

Following a free walk inside the Cathedral, we bought 4 euro admissions to the Cathedral Treasury, which houses one of the most important collections of medieval church artworks in Europe. The Treasury contains works ranging from Carolingian to Gothic times and more.

Gothic Bust of Charlemagne

A quick sight to see just outside of the Cathedral and Treasury was Grashaus, a late medieval house that is also one of the oldest non-religious buildings in downtown Aachen.

The Gothic Aachen Rathaus, below, was built in the first half of the 14th century and took over as City Hall, which was formerly the Grashaus.

Casually pretending I live here.

View of the Markt square from City Hall.

And now, enjoy some street-shots of Aachen. 

All in all, the trip to Aachen was well worth the time and train ticket. The architecture of most buildings were very similar to those in Belgium and less like what you would see in Frankfurt or Munich ("typical" German-style). The biggest difference that I noticed, oddly enough, that made me think "Ah, yes, I'm in Germany", had to do with what was sold in bakeries. You know you're in Germany when soft pretzels and bread done about 100 different ways are piled miles high in bakery windows. 

That's it for my most recent weekend! I'm very excited to share my first ever solo trip to Oslo, Norway this coming weekend. Make sure to look back for that :)

- Alexandra

The Grand Béguinage & Arenberg Castle

This weekend was a laying low in Leuven kind of weekend; it consisted of catching up on course readings with some shopping and city exploration on the side. On Saturday I walked through The Grand Béguinage and Sunday (today) included an excursion to Arenberg Castle.

A river running through The Grand Béguinage.

The Grand Béguinage of Leuven (or Groot Begijnhof van Leuven, in Dutch) is a sort of "city within a city". The Béguinage is a walled-in area of Leuven that was founded c.1232 and beguines lived there until some time in the 1980's. The beguines were unmarried, religious women and the Béguinage was exclusively for these women - some lived with their children and other female family members (young boys had to move out once they were around 10 or 12 years old). The Béguinage was self-sufficient, much like a little town.

Entrance to The Grand Béguinage.

The University of Leuven has owned the Béguinage for about 50 years now and has since restored it. The buildings are now residences for students, professors, visitors from abroad, and university staff.

The Béguinage has it's own church.

Pigeon chillin' on a ledge. There is no shortage of pigeons in Belgium.

The following pictures were taken outside of the Béguinage when walking back to residence, but it's a lovely little park worth sharing. 

I love how the trunks of trees in the more heavily wooded areas here are covered in vines.

Today, Sunday, involved a stop at the market in Heverlee (where I very surprisingly managed to not buy anything) followed by a walk to Arenberg Castle.

Arenberg castle (or Kasteel van Arenberg or Arenbergkasteel, in Dutch) is actually a university building used by the KU Leuven Engineering Science faculty. Engineers seem to draw the long straw in Leuven, too (much like home). 

The lords of Heverlee built a first castle here in the 14th century, but from the beginning of the 16th century the current castle was built-up in renaissance-style. It was then renovated in neo-gothic style in the 19th century before the duke of Arenberg donated the area to the university in the early 1900's. If I don't write a bit about the history of these places then I feel guilty, so there you go.

Like all good castles, it wouldn't be complete without a moat (+ kayakers in the lower left). 

The woods just a few minutes from Arenberg. The water was a lovely shade of brown...

That's all from this weekend. I'm happy to have finally finished another post. Next weekend, spoiler, is going to highlight a day trip to Aachen, Germany. So, look forward to that! 

- Alexandra

Park Abbey & M Museum Leuven

This past weekend I had tickets for a couple of tours in and around Leuven; so that is what I will recap in this post. The first tour was for Park Abbey and the other was M Museum Leuven. Of course, for good measure, I’ll show a little pre-trip to the Sunday market in Heverlee called Chocoladebroodje.

A beautiful view of Leuven from the roof of M Museum.

The Sunday market in Heverlee was honestly more of the same – many of the same vendors and products – but I have no complaints, because I love these weekend markets in general. The novelty definitely hasn’t worn off and I’m not sure it will, even after 5 months.

I didn’t buy much this time around mainly because I knew I’d be hauling my backpack around well into the evening – and flattened bread isn’t happy bread. I did, however, treat myself to a freshly brewed coffee that tasted absolutely delicious (accompanied by a pastry that didn’t live long enough for a photo). You can really tell the difference between good coffee and great coffee when you finally have some to compare. I’ll definitely be back to buy my own grounds for brewing at my dorm.

Though I didn’t buy any (*gasp*), I had to take a picture – because heart waffles.

The first tour began about as great as it ended, which wasn’t great. There was some miscommunication between the orientation coordinators and the tour guides, so the guides were a good 45 minutes late. The area, Park Abbey, we were to be shown looked super cool on a map and the guides were very thorough – but that was also the main issue. Our group stood staring, for a good 15 minutes, at a map of the Abbey while the guide talked and talked in front of it (I wanted to get on to the real Abbey…). There was going to be a time crunch getting from the Park Abbey to M Museum regardless, but now that we had begun late and the guides were very chatty I didn’t get to finish off the Abbey tour.

I did manage to take some pretty photos of a distant church while the group made its way toward the main attraction (which, again, I did not end up seeing). I do plan to go back on my own time when the weather is nicer and time isn't rushed to take some proper photos. It was much colder than it looks.

The main attraction for me was seeing a swan. I was actually very excited about this.

Majestic.

Some cute, colourful little buildings on the way to M Museum.

Here’s another fancy schmancy university building; I actually happened to have a class inside the following school week.

Entrance to M Museum.

The highlight of the day overall for me was definitely M Museum. Not only because it kept me out of the cold wind, but also because there was a great range of exhibits.

The museum tour was arranged with the oldest works first and moved along in a chronological way. The first exhibits we saw were the permanent, and oldest, collections – which are mostly, if not completely, based upon the Bible.

These carvings are made of solid alabaster and tell the story of the Bible starting from the bottom left and moving left to right from there. The first stone actually depicts the birth of Mary (mother of Jesus) – which isn’t told in the Bible.

These wooden carvings were repainted in a later century than the one in which they were created, and show how Jewish burials happened back in the day. Women, never men, would wrap the corpse because touching a dead body was seen as impure (the two guys at the end aren’t touching the body, only getting as close as possible). Our guide joked about how this tradition kept consistent with all other sexist customs of the time.

Another Bible-based exhibit, but with paintings instead of sculptures and carvings.

This bronze fountain was used for wine at extravagant parties – and could still function today if properly hooked up.

Lastly, we moved on to the temporary modern art exhibits. The featured artist at this time is Sarah Morris, originally from New York; I believe her work will be up until the end of February. I’ve never been to a modern art exhibit in person, so this was a new experience that I really enjoyed.

Modern art exhibits seem to dedicate entire massive, white, concrete rooms to maybe two or three paintings – makes for clean photographs, though.

The walls in the room pictured below with a view of Leuven were painted by Sarah herself and will be painted over with white when her exhibit is moved (a shame). The guide told us how the grey and black were meant to represent the rooftops of Leuven and that the salmon pink was used because of how on-trend it was at the time of painting. This exact piece of art will never be seen again after it's painted over.

The final exhibit before exiting features another modern artist. For some reason a couple of the pieces reminded me of blue painters tape.

A fun side stop that wasn’t included during the museum tour (I went back afterward) was a cute little room with retro furniture and items. This area is meant to be interactive and houses a bunch of old-school books, records, toys, etc. for guests to hold and experience.

The shelf on the left was full of old items such as roller skates, figurines, and pictures.

I enjoyed flipping through what looked like the journal of someone who had fantastic penmnship. Taped onto the pages of this particular entry are old postcards from the city of Brugge.

And here’s me being a tourist on the museum rooftop.

That about sums up the most notable pieces of my (previous) weekend. It would probably be more accurate to call my blog Alexandra Weekly or even Alexandra Biweekly, but I’m doing my best to post worthwhile updates somewhat in accordance with when they happen. This post was a bit slow in the making – but I hope you enjoyed!

- Alexandra