Marianne in Brussels

The day started with a metro ride to the centre of the city. The Grand Place is one of the great squares of the world, with medieval merchants' houses alongside a royal palace. Everything is ornate and in many cases coated in gold. TSH and Diva used their DK guidebook for a walking tour around the lower town, which is really the working town. The small shops come really close to the old royal palace - in medieval times royalty and peasantry lived in very close proximity. The walking tour started in the GP, and then took in the grand (the Opera House), the scruffy (lots of graffiti) and the gentrified (fish restaurants and a fabulous cheese shop). The return metro trip was so crowded that Diva got claustrophobic and had to get off and wait for an emptier train.

There are nominally internet facilities on the TV at the hotel but navigation is not clear and its not very usable. TSH improvised a scoop from the foil on the top of the jar of coffee. The hotel do not provide spoons - its all supposed to happen in a stupidly complex drinks machine. Hence the kettle from housekeeping and the coffee bought at the Carrefour across the road.

Dinner was taken at the hotel and was acceptable without being great. Diva has taken a holiday from her studies but sometimes there's no getting away from Leonard Cohen, as Marianne played in the restaurant (not his own version). It was preferable to the Buble on a loop we had the previous night in the Italian. Diva does not like Buble but TSH really hates the music.

Titanic and Marianne

Diva and TSH provide the kiss of death to more excursions. They were notified in the evening that the planned excursion for Bar Harbour was not running so booked another which by the following morning was also cancelled. If the fourth choice does not run it’s back to the shop to spend more on board credit.

On the last day in Canada for Diva and TSH, they were greeted on the quayside of Halifax by a bagpiper and a drummer playing traditional Scottish music. Later, after TSH had seen a train, they enjoyed walking on the boardwalk. They visited the maritime museum to see the exhibit about how the search for bodies from the Titanic was coordinated from Halifax and many of the bodies were buried here. This exercise served Halifax well when they had their own disaster in 1917. Two ships, including an ammunition ship, collided in the harbour, triggering the largest man-made explosion ever (eventually eclipsed by Hiroshima). Many people died and many bodies had to be identified and buried. The US city of Boston helped with organising the aftermath and building new dwellings at a fast rate.  

On the way back to the ship, a busker was singing the Leonard Cohen song ‘So Long Marianne’ (he did not write a So Long Diva and TSH). And it’s the last day.  And Diva is writing a dissertation about Cohen. How spooky is that?

Quite a lot of Irish influence in this part of Canada which is noticeable in the names on signs and some of the music that Diva and TSH have heard.