It's our last morning in Belgium and the rain has returned. Jake is giving his last lecture to the students and my goal is to try once again to get postcard stamps at the PO this morning. It has been closed for a week for repairs or something so I guess everyone has been going to some different post office in Leuven, maybe on the ring road.
Yesterday I went into Belgium specifically to go the Horta Museum. Victor Horta was a Belgian architect who was one of the better known architects during the Art Noveau period. His house and workshop are now open to the public. It is in the once again up and coming neighborhood of St. Gilles with its diverse restaurants and shops. Lots of little boutiques for those of you who like shopping. The Museum is only open in the afternoon (they do group tours in the morning). The house is 4 stories tall and the rooms are arranged around a central spiral staircase. At the top of the staircase is an arched window that lights the whole center section of the house. Behind the house is a walled garden dense with roses and flowering shrubs. The only part of the house closed to the public is the kitchen.
Every detail of the house from moldings to light fixtures to door handles and furniture are done in Art Noveau style. The woodwork glows with different hues of gold and brown. The fabrics on the furniture were damasks with art noveau designs in beautiful rich colors. There were also quite a few pieces of Asian art which I think were also popular at the time.
With the entrance ticket you get a little map showing where other art noveau buildings can be found around the neighborhood. Since the tour of the house didn't really take that long I used the map to explore the neighborhood and see some of the other buildings. They were designed by several different architects and some are private homes. Two were designed as hotels but are no longer operated as hotels. You couldn't go in them, but just the outsides were impressive with all the curliecues and stained glass windows. It's always been one of my favorite styles even though I wouldn't really choose the style for my own home. The designs always look so exuberant and romantic.
In the morning I went to the Natural History Museum. It is undergoing major renovations so the only exhibit really worth seeing is the dinosaur hall. It is filled with Iguanodons that were found in a coal mine in Belgium. The early paleontologists arranged the skeletons to be upright in "kangaroo" position a sign said, but now most think they ran around on 4 legs. The skeletons are huge - maybe 30 - 40' long. They have good exhibits on the evolution of feathers, and what classifies a dinosaur as a dinosaur and on the discovery of the skeletons. The hall is also one of those old-fashioned museum halls with a balcony around the room and beautiful high ceilings and iron railings. They do have the signs in English as well as in Dutch, French and German in that hall unlike in the rest of the museum.
I caught the train back to Leuven, but still don't get the train postings for local versus express trains. This time I also couldn't find track 3 where the first train to Leuven was leaving from. I followed the signs one direction, no track 3. Looked back and saw a sign for track 3 in the opposite direction, but no 3 over there either. So there was another train that was listed as Machelen -Leuven and I caught that one. After a few stops the conductor came by to take my ticket and said something long in Dutch the gist of which was "this is the longest route you could possibly take, but the train will eventually get to Leuven." An hour later after some scenic countryside and a lot of stops, it did get there!
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