Belgium: Trains, Race Cars, and a Little History

Kate in Belgium

. . . la Belgique! Europe’s mini-Europe, home to the EU, NATO, and the legacy of the tres bizarre King Leopold II.  It’s also the land of very good food–waffles, chocolates, beer, chips and mayo.  Mais ce n’est pas tout. . . deep in the beau provence of Wallonia, nestled in the Ardennes forest, is a slab of tarmac.  And every September, thousands of people, including Burgess and I and our equally crazy friends Dawn and Steve, flock to this beautiful middle of nowhere for the Belgian Grand Prix.

As it was my first Formula 1 race, this was indeed a big adventure. First, I had to conquer my fear of tunnels and take the Eurostar through the channel tunnel to Brussels. No problem. I would have Burgess to dig my fingernails into and friends to make me laugh. And if things got very serious, there was le rhum (Ron Zacapa 23 year old, hereafter known as ‘Ron’) that I had stashed in the bag in case of emergency. Never mind that our train would leave Ebbsfleet at 6am. . .

We live in East London, very close to the Thames, so as we made our way to the station at Ebbsfleet, I noticed a familiar name on the road sign: Gravesend. This is where Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness opens, where Marlowe sits, Buddha-style, on the deck of a ship awaiting the tide to go out into the world and do his mischief. Of course I thought about the novel before the trip, but while imagining my visit to the white sepulchred city, Brussels, I had sort of pushed the English connection to the back of my mind. This is a novel that I’ve struggled to wrap my head around each time I’ve read it.  Dense and complex, alienating and provocative. If Conrad hadn’t written it, he would have gone mad. Anyhow: Gravesend. Back on the train and it’s thankfully dark in the tunnel, not much to see. OR maybe I had blacked out?? We make it out surprisingly quickly and we’re in France. The only difference I notice is that farmers roll hay in France while in England, they stack it in bales.

In Brussels, we are all struggling to remember our French from high school. I remember to try to find my high school French teacher and thank her when I get back–I actually remember quite a lot. It must have been all the “repetez, s’il vous plait”s. Brussels, or Brussel (Dutch), or Bruxelles (French) is interesting. (nb: this is the word I use to describe the ineffable.) King Leopold’s campaign to build a city to rival any in Europe yielded a landscape that is just aching for some authenticity. There are cathedrals, parks, squares, halls, monuments, obelisks, a statue of a soldier or a lion on every street. But everything looks like you saw it already somewhere else. Voila, I shall show you (these are my own names for these things, by the way)–

La Obelisque

La beautiful castle and lawn

Yet another war statue at the base of yet another obelisque

un arc en trois, Brussels

As we walked around Brussels and rode around on the double-decker tour bus (gee, where did they get that idea?), we discovered several things: (1) Brussels is full of replicas; (2) Someone in Belgium wants to make sure that all are aware of its short and embattled history–and I can’t quite make out whether they are latent warmongers or not. One of their major economic sectors is making weaponry. That’s right, they’re legal arms dealers.  So, exactly how is Brussels the seat of the EU and NATO? Oh, and (3): The place is a little bit weird. I’m still not sure what to think. Especially after the chocolate shop close to the obelisque. Inside, next to the truffles, was a tray of dark chocolates made in the mold of tiny African male heads. If you don’t believe me then visit yourself: Le Chocolatier Manon on the Rue de Congress (by the obelisque thingy). Funny, they don’t have this particular chocolate listed in their online catalogue. . .

Shake it off.

From the English bus, we saw many wondrous things, including this:

Atomium, from afar

This is a huge model of an atom, called the Atomium, which the Belgians built to show everyone the strength of their steel industry.  They built this on the occasion of something called Expo 58. This was Belgium’s own World’s Fair, the first after WWII. You can go inside and up to the viewing decks. I’m sure the view is spectacular, as the Atomium is adjacent to the Chinese pagoda, the Shogun temple (very Belgian), and the splendorous hidden castle belonging to of one of the royals (so much for it being hidden). We did not go as we were still suffering from train and travel fatigue. Here’s a closer look–

Atomium, from a-near

This, though, was la piece de resistance for moi:

la facade de la monument de la capitalisme

As the English bus stopped to let les passengers disembark near a French cafe, the tour guide’s voice in my headphones told us about the facade of this building here. Adorning the side of this building is an illustrated monument to capitalism, depicting stone cherubs set upon a variety of capitalist tasks. . . I suppose.  These seem to be weaving cloth on a loom? sawing timber for a building? washing clothes in a cauldron? I’m not really sure.

Back at the hotel, I picked up a copy of something called The Gold Book, a commemorative volume about Belgium commissioned for the millenium. We were also watching John McCain give his acceptance speech at the Reptilian National Convention, but this blog is not about politics. . . In The Gold Book, I read about the royals, Belgium’s economy, what’s great about Wallonia, blah blah blah. Flip to the page about Belgium’s Royal Museum of Central Africa, which I wanted to visit, especially after I read an article in The Guardian about the Belgian government ignoring historians who were trying to persuade them to own up to the atrocities of their colony in the Congo. Millions were killed or maimed in the mad scramble for control of the Congo and the precious trove of ivory. Now, THIS is capitalism. THIS is what happens when you give yourself permission to go and loot other peoples’ countries with impunity. Basically, the Belgians will admit to having done something bad, but are reluctant to go into detail about it. And I guess they aren’t going to put Africans with severed hands on the facades of their buildings as the monument to capitalism. It just wouldn’t look right.  In The Gold Book, the museum was described as an institution that likes to think of itself as a living monument to Western exploration in Central Africa. Living monument to. . . Scientific research institution. . . I shut the book, realising the Belgians were still stuck in Marlowe’s paralysis, and decided I’d rather go watch the race cars after all.

The next day, we intrepid voyagers made our way into the labyrinth of the Belgian railway. It is the densest rail system in the world and we could not find a map. Nor are the railway ticket officers particularly helpful. It doesn’t help either that the signs are all in French, Dutch, and Flemish. But being a tourist is about bumbling about, after all. Our first attempt to get to Spa-Francorchamps, a 2:05h journey according to the Belgian rail web site, took 6h. Burgess was fuming, but Steve and I were enjoying traversing the countryside and eating waffles. Yes, we had some Ron in the bag, too. We finally got to the race track just as races were finishing for the day. I heard my first set of zzzzeeeeeeeRRRRRRRRRRRRRwwwwwww for the weekend and saw this:

Spa-Francorchamps, le race track

Le WOW!  This place is gorgeous, not to mention magnificently huge. Cars going around this circuit at 200mph can finish a 200 mile race (approximatelyl 44 times around) in under 1.5 hours. People walking around this circuit have less of a good time. On the first day, there is practice, and the plan was to go and find a good vantage point for the next two days of watching. Our tickets permitted us to bring our own chairs and watch from designated BRONZE areas. At 135 Euro, these are the cheap seats. Because my companions know this track well–ok, they have kind of obsessively memorized the names of all of the corners and stuff like that–I wasn’t even looking at a map. Who can look at a map anyway when you’re seeing this!

And this!

The Ardennes forest, host to the Francorchamps circuit

We started our hike and soon found trails leading up up up. . .

Up a hill at Spa

Apparently, we were trying to get to some remote nook or cranny where you could see it all: Spa Shangri-la or something. Really, these two were in heaven. Dawn, Steve’s partner, was wisely hanging out in the antique markets in Brussels while we were walking around in the forest. On we went, and on the way out, we diverted into the GOLD seating section where there were actual seats (although for that money, I kinda expected cushions).  This was the start/finish line and these seats overlook the team trailers where the celebs hang out.

Gold start/finish BLING seats at Spa-Francorchamps

This is the view from what Burgess and Steve deemed was the best seat in the house. I did not have my zoom lens on.  You really can see everything. There’s even catering service. Very fancy.

Le cafe at Bruxelles Centrale

The next day, our journey from Bruxelles began as usual, with confusion at the train station. This time, we had to wait an hour for the fast train to Verviers.Here are the members of the expedition, sitting in the raspberry decorated cafe at the train station. Notice Steve’s Ferrari hat. He wore it the whole time, but his team still didn’t win! More about that later. . .

Our vantage point. I'm sure there's an official name for it, but I can't remember it.

On race day, we sat uphill from a group of Brits. Natural fun, but oddly, they weren’t chanting. My car won: McLaren Mercedes, driven by the amazing Lewis Hamilton. (Yes, I realise there was a penalty after the race; no, I do not wish to discuss it except to say that it’s a scam!) On the way home on the bus, we were subjected to drunken Northern Europeans yukking it up and being obnoxious, forcing a Brazilian fan they met on the bus to see how they can ride snowmobiles on the water (camera phones are really a dangerous thing) and singing a strange chorus in English: “Kimi Kimi all night long” (Kimi Raikkonen is a top race car driver from Finland–I guess they like him.) We hopped off the bus at the train station in Verviers, hoping to ditch these losers and catch the fast train back to Brussels. As I watched the Kimi fans head to the beer shop for more wodka and 7UP, more beer, and more waffles, I felt kind of sad to be leaving this really weird place. We rushed to the end of the platform to get seats on the train, stuffed with more F1 fans going back to Brussels. Just as we sat–wouldn’t you know it–it was Kimi Kimi all night long ALL NIGHT LONG on the train.

piggy backing at Spa

Belgian Grand Prix - a really fast car

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