El carnival de Notting Hill 2007

En el ultimo fin de semana de Agosto que es Puente en el Reino Unido, desde hace mas de 40 anos que se celebra el carnaval callejero de Notting Hill, el mas grande de su clase en Europa. Es una celebración que iniciaron los inmigrantes de las antillas, con sus trajes vistosos, su musica y su comida.

Es un festival que atrae mucha, mucha, mucha gente no solo de Inglaterra sino de toda Europa que viene a pasar el fin de semana de carnaval. Cuando digo mucha gente, dicen que esta vez atendieron 1.5 millones de personas al carnaval. El carnaval se celebra en un barrio de la ciudad que se conoce como Notting Hill, donde viven muchos londinenses ricos o famosos. El festival literalmente se toma las calles.

La atracción principal para muchos es el desfile de caravanas, que incluye bailes, tambores, trajes vistosos y bailes por supuesto bailarines. Además del desfile habían numerosas tarimas con música en vivo y DJs en diferentes locaciones en el barrio, muchos ni siquiera ven el desfile, solamente vienen a disfrutar la música y por supuesto las bebidas. En cuanto a música, un poco de Soca y calipso, reggae, funk y house.

Una de las comparsas que más me gusto fue la de un grupo de energéticas mujeres haciendo música con tambores.

Our holidays part II: Belgium

I was expecting Scott to be keen to write about our travel but I guess he is still trying to get caught up at work. As part of our Holland holiday, we visited 3 cities in Belgium, each one special on its own way.

Ypres - Flanders Fields

Scott's Great Grand father was sent over to Europe to fight with the Canadian army in World War I and thankfully he came back to Canada to tell the story. Scott was very excited to see the fields were his ancestor had fought and also to visit some historic sites and museums that will give us a frame of reference to understand more of what happened there.

The first stop of this journey was the city of Ypres, which was completely destroyed during the war and was all re-built including the magnificent cathedral. We visited the “In Flanders field museum” which holds a very modern (by modern I actually mean abstract) exhibition of what happened in Flanders fields.

We drove around the fields were the battles took place; it was very touching to see the hundreds of graves, so many people died in those fields.

Brugges

Brugges seems to be a town pulled out from a children's book. Brugges was on my must-see list of Unesco World heritage cities. As you approach the city, you see a number of windmills by the river. Then you cross the river over a retractable bridge that brings you inside the walls of the city. The main square is spectacular all corners of it are picture perfect. We sat by the centre monument staring at the surrounding buildings, I was just thinking how much I want to keep those images in my head.

Gent

Gent (or Ghent in English) was a surprise for us. A bit of history, it was in the middles ages one of the largest and richest cities of Europe, it is said that in the 13 century it was bigger than London. The impressive medieval architecture of the buildings remains very well preserved makes you feel as if you were in a movie set. The most scenic place is the old city centre, you can see the Sint-Michelsbrug bridge, the old post office and in the distance the three towers of Ghent. We saw one of the most beautiful churches we have ever been too: Saint-Nicolas church, the stained glass, the cathedral ceiling and the marvelously decorated interior.