Visit to Belgium 22.5.2010 - 24.5.2010
Mons
Wisława invited a friend of mine and me to her nice city of Mons in Belgium. While I've been to Belgium before (I think it was Antwerp, but I'm not sure.) it was only a very short stop on other trips. Belgium consists of a flemish speaking (Flemish can be considered as a dutch dialect.) and a french speaking part with Mons belonging to the latter. When dutch is speaken slowly I can understand a lot of it, as it is similar to the german language (especially some northern german dialects - I have more troubles understanding the bavarian dialect of german than dutch), but I have some troubles with french. A lot of people in Mons though understood english just fine, so communication was not as big a problem.
So, how are the belgians? Ok, ok, please read first the disclaimer I put somewhere else about cultural stereotypes (second paragraph in 'Poland the unknown neighbour' - in short, I'm not trying to judge people, but talk about communication and perception differences. According to the theory, that there are no sharp borders in mentality between countries (For example, the dutch mentality seems to be close to the northern german mentality while the bavarian mentality seems to be close to the mentality in some parts of austria) I was expecting a mixture of dutch and french mentality, which is however weakened by the fact that belgium is divided into two parts: The Flemish and the Walloon Region. Apart from language barriers there are also cultural barriers between those communities. Still, the division is historically a relatively recent developement as the language division was "finalized" in 1963 and therefore I suppose a certain intermixing and exchange between belgians from both parts. I've experienced the dutch as very open and direct people. That on its own is not good or bad, but in communication you should keep in mind, that nobody is trying to offend you, but that this is just a way of effective communication. The french on the other hand are very lifely in communication - they know how to live and share it with others. So what if you combine the two mentalities? On the belgians I've met, I love it! Friendly, open and lifely, we can learn from the belgians!
Grand Place and town hall
Mons is a beautiful city from the middle ages . The central square is surrounded by nice cafés and bars for the night, which is quite lively for such a small city (Mons has about 90.000 inhabitants). On the town hall a small monkey "Le singe du grand'garde" resides. Touching his head with the left hand brings luck!
Each weekend there are weddings in Mons. Of course the couple touches the head of the monkey. After that they make wedding pictures in the beautiful park in the backyard of the town hall.
The old town
As Mons is an old city, there are a lot of beautiful wooden doors.
Narrow streets and historical buildings make a very nice atmosphere. The city is very green, which according to Wisława should be due to a lot of rain (We were very lucky with the weather on our visit though - only sun!). It doesn't come as a surprise however, that the old town of Mons is listed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site.
A statue for Antoine Clesse, who was born in Mons and seems to be an important national poet of Belgium (It seems there is need for an english wikipedia article).
The post boxes are very classy.
Historic buildings
Belfries (bell towers for civil use, which are free standing sometimes) are an architectural speciality of Belgium. The belfry in Mons is the only one in Belgium, which is build in a Baroque-style.
Black Nuns nunnery chapel (XVIth century)
The old courthouse (1868)
Le Musée du Chanoine Puissant
Maison espagnole
Sainte Waudru collegiate church
Front of Cathedral
Battlefield of Waterloo
The central landmark of the battlefield of Waterloo today is the Lion's mound, which is an artificial hill of 45m height with a lion statue on top. This monument was erected at the place, where the prince of Oranje was hit by a cannonball and fell from his horse. While the guide on the "battlefield tour" claims, that apart from one additional building the battlefield remained unchanged, that is not true. The lions mound was erected from the soil of the local ground (the volume of the mound is roughly 300.000 to 390.000 m³). Also the lion statue is said to be casted from brass melted down from french cannons, which is probably not correct.
They look just like having survived the war, don't they? (However if the would have fought, I guess there would have been a high chance of one of them missing one leg.)
This building contains a panorama of the fight. I couldn't stand already the battle noise, so I guess I would have been a very bad fighter :).
As said above, the battlefield is probably not anymore like Napoleon looked at it. Quoting the Duke of Wellington: "They have altered my field of battle!"
The Gordon Monument was build by the family of lieutenant-colonel Gordon. Gordon died after loosing his leg being hit by a cannon ball. A strategy of Napoleon was to hit the ground in front of the other troops with cannon balls, so that they would bounce and cause maximum damage. On the day of the battle however the ground was muddy from rain and the cannon balls and a lot of soldiers lost their legs.
Strépy-Thieu boat lift
We visited the Strépy-Thieu boat lift, which lifts ships up 73.15 meters. That makes it the tallest boat lift in the world! Some of the rare occasions, where I wished I had a shift lens!
The boat lift consists of two tanks (caissons), each weighting 2000 tons empty and between 7200 and 8400 tons, when filled with water. They have a size of 118.6 x 16.5 x 8 m and can be operated seperately, because each of them is counterweighted by separate concrete weights.
I'm not sure, why they have to pump water, because the boat lift works purely mechanically, however I think that water is pumped from the caisson to adopt for a lower water level of the channel at the top. This should prevent a flow of water in the caisson at the top, which could press the ship to one of the dock walls. Maybe also be the water between the two water gates is pumped out of it. You could make the water gate tight by using the water pressure on the insight of the caisson.
Note that the room below the caisson stays completely dry - the water gates are really tight.
The counterweights are balanced and dimensioned, that the force on each rope doesn't exceed 100kN. According to the descriptions, some of the counterweights are also used for starting to move the caisson, so I think they are not completely balanced.
The machine room (which unfortunately can't be visited from the inside) is pretty impressive. The red rods which look like pipes, but are probably solid. When the lift is in operation they move synchronously and I think they are responsible for the synchrone lifting of all ropes. This is obviously important as the caisson has to stay very horizontal and the stress on the ropes has to be distributed equally.