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| We saw John Deere and Lamborghini tractors, among others |
The fair has been designated by UNESCO as part of the "intangible cultural heritage of mankind". Food plays a major role. I was tickled by the menu offerings at the many snack carts:
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| On the menu: hamburgers, hot dogs and escargots (snails in garlic sauce) |
We skipped the escargots and instead enjoyed a grilled sausage slathered with mustard and grilled onions. Our snack was washed down with champagne since the fair's pavilion featured products of that region. The fair was fun, and different from our town's own Saturday market mostly in scale and language. In Sint-Lievens-Houtem we heard both Dutch and French spoken. In Venlo, it's Dutch and German (mostly the latter).
On the way home we stopped at Mechelen, a university town near Antwerp. I read recently that Belgium became a country in 1830 - as a political entity, it's younger than the United States. Mechelen has a much older feeling - we visited the 13th century Gothic cathedral, climbed the 15th century tower, and watched and heard the restored 18th century clockwork chime the hour. As the light began to fade we searched for chocolate pralines (an obligatory stop when in Belgium) and enjoyed an early dinner on the Grote Markt (main square).
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| Cafes on Mechelen's Grote Markt |
I must be a town mouse*. I'm already planning our next visit to Mechelen, sometime in the late spring or summer. I'd love to hear the double carillon played (Mechelen is also home to a world-renowned carillon school) while sitting on the Grote Markt enjoying a Gouden Carolus beer.
*The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse is one of the Aesop's better-known Fables, and maybe my favorite. Unfortunately the Town Mouse doesn't come off so well, at least in the version I am familiar with. But I'm pretty certain that farm life isn't the life for me.
