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Shopping in Tongeren, Belgium
September, 2004
By Stefanie

Every Sunday at 7 a.m. , a flea market is held in Tongeren , Belgium . It is reputed to be the 2 nd largest flea market in Europe , and many friends who have gone have reported getting some great finds. Additionally, Tongeren has dozens of antique shops in which to find treasures.

I have wanted to go for over a year now, but circumstances kept interfering. Finally, I asked Gordon to go with me, even though for him any kind of shopping is a more of a chore than a pleasure. I wanted to go in search of furniture and since this would require removing all the seats from the van so we could haul stuff home, the kids could not go.

I figured if we got a babysitter, we could make it a one day trip. Tongeren is

about a 4 hour drive and we could leave in the very early a.m. Our friends Sandi and Jeremy generously offered to baby sit overnight, so we decided to leave Saturday afternoon and stay the night.

Now there are not a lot of hotels in Tongeren, maybe four or so, with a grand total of about 40 rooms. The two hotels we had e-mailed had no rooms available. I was sure that we could just walk in and get a room- the whole “bird in the hand” theory, and knew people who did it all the time when traveling. Plus, we decided that if worse came to worse, we would just bunk down in the van.

We arrived in Tongeren around 7:30 p.m. and went to the first hotel, the Lido . There were no rooms available because all four rooms were already booked. Yes, I said all FOUR rooms! Only four. Four rooms in the entire hotel. No more, no less. Just… four.

We then proceeded to walk across town, about a 10 minute walk, to the Ambiotel. The Ambiotel was one of the hotels that we had tried to make a reservation with before we left, but were told that they were already booked.

We approached the desk and I asked if they had any rooms available. She asked me if we had a reservation.

“No.” I said

“A double room?” she asked

“Yes.” I replied

Then I watched as she erased someone's name off of the reservation list. Like I said, a bird in the hand. Although this is the first time it has actually ever worked for me.

Gordon and I went back to the car to get our bag and by the time we came back, there was a couple there that looked quite unhappy, and it was apparent that they were being told that they had to go find a room elsewhere. Perhaps it was their room that we were given!

By this time we were hungry and went in search of dinner. We walked down the street to an Italian restaurant to get take out pizza. All of a sudden realized that since we were without the kids, why not actually sit down and enjoy a leisurely meal?

The restaurant was actually kind of fancy, and when we were asked again if we had a reservation, we wondered if the $6 pizza on the take out menu would suddenly turn into a $30 pizza. We were seated at a table for two crammed against the radiator, which fortunately was not on. The restaurant was very busy and it was evident that it was quite popular. Our waiter lit a candle for us and we ordered salads and a cheese pizza to share. It was a bit confusing at first trying to order; because I could not get my brain wrapped around the correct language- we of course speak English and a little bit of German, but here we were in Belgium, where they speak French or Flemish, and the waiter spoke Italian!

Our waiter brought us an aperitif of marinated olives and some tiny slices of pizza. After our meal we each had a cappuccino and shared a thick, incredibly rich piece of Tiramisu. Yumm!

We walked off dinner a little bit before returning to our hotel room. We jumped into our individual beds, (1 double room = 2 single super skinny beds). We turned on the telly and joy of joys! There were 5 or 6 channels that were in English and SUBTITLED in the foreign language! Only someone who lives with one English speaking channel (British CNN) can fully appreciate the pleasure of shows that are not dubbed!

Our room had an interesting view. The second floor, picture size window opened completely and was big enough to push your husband, or throw your wife from. Not that those thoughts entered our minds! (wink) Directly below us, was a big fenced in area where they are excavating some ancient Roman ruins. It is so close to the hotel, that I wondered if the hotel was built on top of ruins as well. Incidentally, Tongeren is the oldest city in Belgium , so I suppose it is possible.

On the other side of the fence are two covered areas (kind of like huge pole barns) where vendors set up their wares for the flea market. The flea market also lines the streets directly in front our hotel and in the surrounding blocks, making a huge square.

I woke up around 2:30 a.m. to the sound of car doors slamming and looked out the window to see people driving into the covered areas and apparently beginning to set up their tables. It was hard to sleep because I could here van doors sliding open and shut the rest of the night. Finally about 6 a.m. we got up, showered and dressed and headed out.

It was still dark as we started our first circuit. We did not see any furniture that caught our eye- we were looking for some bookcases to be specific. I did however find a couple of little items that I liked. We made our way back to the hotel and put our purchases in our room before heading to the hotel restaurant for breakfast.

When we finished we went out and made a second circuit. By this time it was quite light out and each subsequent circuit resulted something little that interested us that we would purchase. We of course made a stop in a bakery/chocolate shop to get some Belgian chocolates for the kids!

By this time we had checked out of the hotel and it was almost 11 a.m. when we spied a hope chest that we like and got a fair price for it. We lugged it to the car and made one last circuit. New stuff was being brought out for quite a while past the opening of the market so on each circuit we would see different things that would catch our eye.

Now, I must note, that everyone is giving you “the best price”. It is their mantra. None of them would haggle. And if they did they would only go down only a dollar or two. It took a lot of the fun out of the hunt. I guess they figure someone will eventually buy their stuff for the asking price so why haggle?

That being said, I must also note that while many people were there with some beautiful and quality pieces of furniture, there were even more people there with crap. And I don't mean just furniture. I mean stupid nasty why would you even try to sell that stupid plastic ash tray at a yard sale kind of crap.

So about ¼ of the stuff we saw was just stuff that I am sure they got junking, (garbage picking), nd then they try to sell it for a couple hundred Euro. Like old and decrepit somehow equals antique and valuable. Or they slap some hideous grey or baby blue paint on it, which only makes me wonder what they were trying to hide by painting it? Don't get me wrong, it was possible to find some nice stuff- if you wanted some huge, heavy, ornately carved pieces. I personally am into a more country rustic type of look.

I did see an armoire that I liked and the guy excitedly told us that he had just bought it, (from a little old lady incidentally), the day before. Apparently we had sucker written on our foreheads. He was going to let us “have it “ for 150 E. We examined it in and out and it looked sound, except for a few worm holes here and there. Wood worms infest wood furniture here and make tiny pin sized holes. You have to treat the furniture so that they will die and/or not come back. Then I looked at the back and the entire top piece was eaten up and looked like it had been varnished over. I pointed it out to him and he looked embarrassed and laughed and said someone will buy it today because it was such a great deal. The last circuit we made, it was still there.

We left Tongeren about 1 p.m. and since we were passing Cologne on the way back, we decided to stop at the cathedral there, which is supposed to be quite impressive. It was. It was so huge we could not get the entire cathedral in a single photo.

We grabbed some lunch and stepped around the woman sprawled face down in the middle of the gutter, her head and face covered and her arm holding up a shaking cup. Personally I wonder how much money these people actually make? It is so sad that they do this, and all I could think of as we walked by her was that she had artfully arranged herself so that trash covered her dress and I was impressed with her attention to detail. Now before you think me cold and heartless, please read our account of Venice and understand that this type of begging is an actual job to these people.

Anyway, we passed a guy cutting his fingernails outside the cathedral entrance and went inside. Of course it looked very similar to every other cathedral we have ever seen, aside from the stained glass windows being different. But the sheer immensity of it made it quite intimidating.

We did a quick tour and then bought a ticket to climb 505 stairs UP to the tower. Did I mention that there were 505 narrow and winding steps UP?

The view was nice though and after taking a few photos, we headed to the car to continue home and relieve Sandi and Jeremy of kid duty. Thanks guys! It was nice to spend some time as Gordon and Stefanie instead of Mommy and Daddy!

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