The Aalst Carnival Parade "It's Too Much!"

I was excited to see the Carnival Parade in the Belgian town of Aalst, it is another UNESCO recognized event on the list of intangible cultural heritage.  We hopped in our car and headed about 30 minutes north of Brussels.  We found a parking spot and parked next to a Dutch family.  I said something to them about being excited to see the parade and the man laughed a bit and said, "It's too much"...a very accurate description!

It was all in Dutch so many of the political jokes went right over our heads, but much of it looked like something right out of Oompa Loompa Land in Charlie & the Chocolate Factory.  The floats & costumes were super elaborate! 

Here are some photos...

The Prince of Carnival!

Greg thought if you had to pick a float, this would be a good one to be on..the even could just sit!

Lots of bathroom humor!

This guy carried the outhouse with him through the whole parade. There was a delay so his helper was giving him a few minutes to rest his rig.  I think he should make friends with the beer float people for next year!

Speaking of bathrooms, I'm not sure I've ever posted this, but this is a very common site in Europe, an outdoor urinal...allows 4 guys to go at once..lucky I found it not in use when I passed it!

Kind of ruining my image of Iron Man!!

I walked down by the reviewing stand for a few minutes!

Cool clock near the old square!

Each of these guys had a dog, no idea why!

Another of the Belgian Giants...this one got sprayed with silly string!

This little cutie stood next to us to watch for a bit, I think she came off a float!

He reminded me of Peter O'Toole in Club Paradise..one of my favorite movies!

From Club Paradise!

This one was super cool when they shot confetti everywhere!

Awesome costumes on spectators alike, I liked the lampshade people!

Cute kids!

I had to curate my pictures for this one carefully, as there were some that Greg told me a could not put on the blog...if you want the crazy ones, I will fill you in offline!  We saw some things that would never fly in the US.  We also missed the float that doesn't work anywhere. It made headlines around the world...here are some articles!

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/08/world/europe/belgium-carnival-anti-semitism.html


http://www.flanderstoday.eu/unesco-condemns-aalst-carnival-anti-semitic-representations

Clearly the Dutch guy was right, "It is too much!"  However, I'm happy we got to experience it!

Day 5-Agora & The Greeks Built it Better!

Our final day we visited the Ancient Agora.  Once again we learned we should be proud of our fellow Americans. Back in the 1950s, the American School of Classical Studies at Athens restored many parts of the Agora.  (an old church & the building that is now the museum)

They also planted all the beautiful trees and flowers that we were lucky enough to enjoy on our walk through.

I thought this was a gorgeous design and it was just standing next to the old church!

More cabinets full of old pieces & parts!  Again the Greeks have the challenge of storing all the ancient treasures!

What is this thing you might wonder? 

A baby toilet of course!! Charlie loved this!

 This was the Greeks answer to a voting machine...no hanging chads here!

These were the names of the undesirables!  Bottom 5 in peer evals...right Coasties?

Kelly is inspired and there is no one to yell at us for posing like the statues!

A real Spartan shield, to match Charlie's sweatshirt!!

For Papa Hughes...a baby pull toy, but not made of wood but clay!!

 The real draw of the Agora is to see the Temple of Hephaestus, which is a temple that is still mostly intact.  It has its roof, columns and interior sections. It gives you a much better idea what the inside of the other temples would have looked like.

At the corner of the temple!

A view of the Acropolis from the Agora, so you can get some perspective as to where it is in relation to the hill.

 We leave the Agora and walk through the remains of Hadrian's Library.

We passed this almost every day in our various walks it is Arch of Hadrian

Another view of the top of arch when the sun was setting on it one day!

A quick stop to see Katie's favorite man in Athens, the bubble man.  Charlie loves chasing the bubbles and comes away sweaty!

 The girls and I had discovered the bubble man a few days before and Katie was super excited to come back!  He was in front of the convention center, a big open, breezy spot perfect for bubbles!

Our final big stop was the Temple of Olympian Zeus, which was built by the Romans.

View of the Acropolis from the Temple of Zeus.

This is what leads me to say that the Greeks built it better!  The temple collapsed during a storm. Seeing the piece of the column really make you think of a block tower that has gone over..or dominoes!

Athens really was a wonderful place to visit that our family will never forget!

Greece-4-Poseidon's Temple

My plan was to leave Athens for one day and visit the island of Hydra, but it involved a ferry ride.  The draw of the island was to see the donkeys (no cars allowed) and maybe have the kids take a swim.  It was still not the warmest weather, so it seemed like a bad idea to do a choppy ferry and freeze on an island.

So instead, we rented a car and took a ride down the Athens Riviera to Poseidon's Temple.

We stopped along the way to admire the view.  I like the Red, White and Blue!

The temple was dramatically perched on the cliff at Cape Sounion, overlooking the Aegean Sea.

This is what we drove up to!

It was a very beautiful spot and we took a vote and asked the kids which temple they would rather have, Athena's or Poseidon's?  Greg and I would take Poseidon's all the way, the kids thought they would rather be in Athens so more people would see their temple!

On our return trip we also visited this place called Lake Vouliagmeni, which is supposed to be hot spring fed lake.  Charlie and Kelly were the only ones brave enough to put on their suits, but only Kelly really swam.  (she was the youngest person swimming by about 50 years)

Note Greg in hat & coat..it was COLD!

Katie and I did a cool hike to the area above the lake and we had amazing sea views.  She was part mountain goat and wanted to keep going off trail.  I kept trying to keep her one the trail!

Our view from the trail-not too shabby!

We checked out a beautiful place by the sea to enjoy the view!

As the sun was setting we were rolling back to Athens to turn in our car.  One interesting thing about the "Athens Riviera" was that it really seemed to still be attempting to recover from the financial crisis.  All along the way we saw abandoned buildings some covered in graffiti.   The buildings weren't a million miles from anywhere, they were along the sea an hour south of Athens!  It made us wonder what it looked like when things were in better times!

We were happy to get out of the car with fighting kids...funny how a 17 year old and a 9 year old can drive each other and everyone else crazy!

Greg and I did escaped and headed for a cool rum bar to enjoy a fancy drink!

Another great day in Greece!