Pillar #9: Traditional cities actually are fairly easy to navigate

The final stop in our trip to Belgium was a 3-hour layover in Brussels on Monday afternoon en route from Bruges to the Charleroi airport south of Brussels. Four of us decided that we would venture in to the city without any prior knowledge of where we would be surfacing after leaving the train station, but we were mostly just excited that it was warmer and not raining. We consulted the less than informative subway map, and decided that we would try to find the market square, cathedral, and galleria that our professor suggested we see before leaving. After venturing forward only a few blocks, we spotted the side of what appeared to be a significant church and headed towards it. Sure enough, it was the cathedral, perched upon a hill overlooking the historic center. After quickly going inside, we came out of the front doors to see a spire and suspecting it was the market tower, we naturally headed towards it. Before too long we reached another plaza, and came face to face with the entrance to the galleria as we rounded the corner. Most of you probably read "galleria" and think shopping mall, and that would actually be pretty accurate. The only difference is, this galleria, or passage (like massage) according to my professor's urban spatial types (see post 8), is basically one normal street with a roof over it. It was really neat because another open street crossed it towards the middle, and basically passed through the colonnade and continued on. We passed through the galleria and followed the crossing street, only to be presented with a head-on view of the market tower framed by buildings leading into the plaza. Our walk continued on like this, leading us to several other churches, lunch, and eventually back to the train station (with a little help from an occasional street sign). Even if we didn't have signs helping us, chances are pretty good we still would have run into something interesting because that's how traditional cities work.

Quite the opposite was true the time I flew into Orlando for my friend Carol's wedding and was left to the mercy of the public transit system (being too cheap to pay for a cab from the airport out towards Universal Studios). I got off the bus in a pretty touristy area where I thought I could walk 20 minutes to my hotel. Four hours of wandering later including a bit of off-roading with my rolling suitcase, I was still no closer to the hotel, having been blocked by an interstate highway, an overpass with no sidewalks, dead-end streets, and an outlet mall. Finally, I came across a tourist trolley that took me back to the same spot I got off the city bus just in time to catch the last trolley of the evening across the interstate to my hotel. This was with plenty of street signs and maps available, and it still took more than four hours to get a mile and a half. And I can read maps. I figured out the DC metro when I was 10. It just goes to show you how the modern system of planning is just ok for cars (assuming there is no traffic or wrecks or construction), but pretty miserable for everyone else. (By the way, Carol and others may be reading this, so I should add that I had a great time in Orlando other than that!)

That aside, Brussels was pretty neat despite the speed with which we saw it. The sun even came out for the last hour we were there, which was probably the longest we saw it while in Belgium. It was different than Bruges because it was mostly French speaking, where Bruges was predominantly Dutch (which, consequently, is very much like English if you were to speak with your mouth full, or if you were to type quickly without the spell check. Some of my favorite signs from the Antwerp train station were Centraal Station, telefoon, and telegraaf, for example.)

I have finally caught up with my photo uploads to Picasa (now that I am on the next trip to the Veneto and Tuscany!), and I realized I was even farther behind than I though. SO...
Umbria: http://picasaweb.google.com/rsmith31/Umbria
Campania: http://picasaweb.google.com/rsmith31/Campania
Belgium: http://picasaweb.google.com/rsmith31/Belgium

I hope that will keep y'all busy until we're back from Tuscany in a week or so.