I MAY HAVE BEEN A BIT HARD ON BELARUS. I was considering softening my stance — Minsk isn’t that bad, after all — when the check-in folks at the airport started giving the two young blacks ahead of us a hard time. The security officials took over where they left off, stopping just short of a strip search. Belarus is still “white Russia” it seems. Screw ‘em. The young blacks were probably even more relieved than we were when our flight took off for Amsterdam.
Tournai (photo of a photo)
We’re back in the European Union and I, for one, am relieved. Everything was fine in the former Soviet Republics but the realization that if something went wrong it would be really wrong was always in the back of my mind. We spent the first night at the Golden Tulip Hotel at CDG airport in Roissy and picked up our rental on Sunday. No teeny-weeny car this time, we need a big buggy to haul Connie’s brother Ken and Dee around when they finish their river tour in Amsterdam.
Notre Dame; it will be better in 2018
We’ll spend the first two nights at Plumes et Coton, a quiet B&B (chambre d’hote) in Ecurie near the Belgian border. This, the last weekend of summer, is a traditional time for community flea markets and town festivals and we had to navigate around and through packed streets. Things were much quieter today as we visited the Notre Dame Cathedral in Tournai, Belgium. More than a millennium has taken its toll on the cathedral which is halfway through a major restoration project. We had to read the history on signs around the construction fences and look through the scaffolding to see the stained glass. Even so we could get the general idea; it was — and will again be — a magnificent sight, definitely worthy of its World Heritage status. Come in 2018 and be thrilled.
Through the scaffolding
