Old Journey - Brussels-Antwerp

grandmaR

I have just had digitized some old photos that my dad took on our trip to Europe in 1950. I put some of them under the Shots category, but maybe they go better here. I see that I haven't actually added much narrative, so I will try to do better.

We went to Europe because my professor dad had two conferences to attend and his expenses were going to be paid. So he commuted for the school year to be a visiting professor at another university to earn enough money to take us all with him. My sister was 10 years old and I was 12.5. I know my dad had one of the first Polaroid cameras, a 16 mm movie camera and at least one still camera. I had a Brownie but so far I've only found one of my own photos and it isn't that good



This is the same group with me in it instead of my dad who is taking the picture. My father's sister and three of her children plus two of their friends have come to see us off - notice that we are nicely dressed - the women are wearing hats



We sailed tourist class on the Niew Amsterdam out of New York in June. New York Skyiline



Daddy took a lot of photos of this bell


This was our waiter




But the boat was a day late because of bad weather so when we got to La Havre



we had to skip the first day when we were going to Luxemburg (I have never visited there in the years since). After a night in Paris, we boarded the train to Brussels.

Our hotel in Brussels


My mother, me and my little sister. My sister does not remember much about the trip which perhaps was because she was extremely nearsighted and no one had thought to check to see if she needed glasses.

From the window of the hotel apparently the sign advertises Whippet races


Policeman


This is called the Peace Palace in my mom's notes, but I'd like to know what the current name is. When I Google Peace Palace, all I get is The Hague



From a taxi



City Hall? There's also a similar one of the PO



Clock maker statue Petit Sallon Square -


There are 48 of these statues, and my dad took quite a few of them, but there are some I can't identify. This one my mom called a chimney sweep but I don't think that was a medieval guild


And she said this was a carpenter and that's what it looks like (he has a auger in his belt) but it doesn't fit the description of those types of trades.



And of course there is always this one...



He was once one of Brussels main water suppliers

grandmaR

We took a trip to Antwerp from Brussels. We went to the zoo which I remember as being near the RR station.



And this is the RR station from the zoo



These are in color



My sister and me





The male peacok (guess that's redundant) anyway he was spreading his tail feathers and courting the pea hen - my dad took quite a long time waiting for him to display his better side.



We also went to Ruben's house, but I haven't found those photos yet.

GSPeP

grandmaR wrote: »

This is called the Peace Palace in my mom's notes, but I'd like to know what the current name is. When I Google Peace Palace, all I get is The Hague

That is the "justice palace" = Court house. Try Google "justitiepaleis brussel"

Great pictures btw.

If you want to see some pictures of Antwerp now: http://www.steendorp.info/In-de-regio/Antwerpen/

grandmaR

GSPeP wrote: »

That is the "justice palace" = Court house. Try Google "justitiepaleis brussel"

Great pictures btw.

If you want to see some pictures of Antwerp now: http://www.steendorp.info/In-de-regio/Antwerpen/

Thank you. That makes more sense. It must have been a translation error.

I think our hotel is still there but is now called Eurostars Grand Place Hotel

This is another one of the statues which my mother called a street sweeper, but I have been able to identify as a bleacher (whatever that is)



My mother took my sister and me to Berlitz for French lessons before the trip . I am still organizing the pictures so there are gaps but I think we went next to Amsterdam.

grandmaR

The itinerary was roughly to be Luxembourg, Belgium, Denmark, (with a day trip to Sweden), Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and then back to Paris. From here we crossed the channel - first London and then after Oxford we rented a car to go to Edinburgh. Then we boarded the Nieuw Amsterdam in Southampton to sail back to the US. We were booked as Thomas Cook independent travel. We had American Tourister (non-wheeled) luggage (which I still have). My father had one suitcase and I think my mother, my sister and I all shared one large bag.

Additional photos of Belguim - Unknown Soldier





Not sure where this was taken - Daddy had a lot of photos of horse drawn vehicles. Do you think this was in Belgium?



Here's another one





To be continued tonight

basflt

grandmaR wrote: »

Do you think this was in Belgium?

its Belgium , indeed

i think all are , except the last one , which is Holland

redleash

I thoroughly enjoyed this journey--thanks for sharing!

grandmaR

basflt wrote: »

its Belgium , indeed

i think all are , except the last one , which is Holland

Yes I knew the last one was Holland.

I thought maybe the license plate on the car (with a next to the grey horse maybe was a Belgium one. But I originally thought this one was in England. I can't see any street signs well enough to read them. There is a US flag, Denmark Switzerland and Sweden and I think I also see Belgium but I'm not sure of the other two - but I know not Great Britain.

GSPeP

This last one is also Belgium. Text below the flags is dutch (is a music store) and the traffic signs are typical belgian for that time. I even think this is Antwerp. If it was Brussels, the text would have been in french.

grandmaR

Engine on the train that took us to Amsterdam


Brussel's RR station in 1950





Belgium rooftops from the train

This one mother said was showing the small freight cars with single wheels


I've also found some old Poloroids (remember they were all sepia in those days)
Daddy used to take the Polaroids of people to give away to them and also to test out the way the 'real' photos would look.

So you can see my dad with some of his equipment - this is a Polaroid taken of him (probably by my mom who often carried that camera for him) in Germany

basflt

99 % sure its Dutch , my guess would be Delft
the text "FOTOHANDEL" means Photoshop ( store , not to be confused with the editing application )


the text on the wall is German AFAIK

basflt

GSPeP wrote: »

This last one is also Belgium. Text below the flags is dutch (is a music store) and the traffic signs are typical belgian for that time. I even think this is Antwerp. If it was Brussels, the text would have been in french.

i was aiming at the fish-vendor in post #5

basflt

grandmaR wrote: »

Yes I knew the last one was Holland.

I thought maybe the license plate on the car (with a next to the grey horse maybe was a Belgium one. But I originally thought this one was in England. I can't see any street signs well enough to read them. There is a US flag, Denmark Switzerland and Sweden and I think I also see Belgium but I'm not sure of the other two - but I know not Great Britain.

"muziekhandel" is a Dutch term , so its north Belgium or Holland

grandmaR

basflt wrote: »

i was aiming at the fish-vendor in post #5

basflt wrote: »

99 % sure its Dutch , my guess would be Delft
the text "FOTOHANDEL" means Photoshop ( store , not to be confused with the editing application )


the text on the wall is German AFAIK

This was labeled on the back as the Antwerp zoo. Of course it could be wrong, but I don't know of any other zoos we visited except Whipsnade. I also have this photo also labeled Antwerp xoo


This one is labeled King's Palace Grounds - Brussels 18 June 1950


This is an unknown man in front of a statue of Antoine Depage (1862-1925) who is Belgian so I assume this statue is someplace in Belgium




and this one says "The Lion at Waterloo" 18 June 1950



and now that I see it I do remember going to Waterloo and hearing all about Napoleon's defeat here.

This is all of the Belgian slides and prints except a couple taken at Ruben's house

basflt

its an amazing series you have
and a wonderful job on the scanning

grandmaR

Thank you -

I didn't do the scanning though - it was done by Scanmyphoto.com. I just got all the B&W ones back in the print box.

All I have done is try to match the photos up with the scans and label them with whatever my mother wrote on them at the time. She was amazing in that she did quite quite well at labeling.

Sometimes she was puzzled about a photo.

Like this one



which she did not recognize. And that is not surprising because it is Rome and she never went to Rome until about 30 years later. I don't know what this photo was doing in our slides.

basflt

thanks for additional info

my guess is ; the folks wrote the description on the back much later , probably when reviewing

---

perhaps some slides were given to her by others ( friends or something ? )

grandmaR

I think the slides were developed at the PX (I know some of the B&W prints were) and they got one slide from a previous order mixed into ours. Because at that point (1950), not many people from the US went to Europe but I think it is definitely possible that Army folks stationed over there at the time would have been traveling around.

As for writing on the back later - yes some of them. Some of the I know I wrote on the back at a time I was using purple ink - mostly I just wrote "1950" and sometimes the country. For slides our usual practice was to project them and write on them what they were when she got them back. That one from Rome she said was taken in Munich which was the only place we were that had buildings anything like that. It about drove me crazy trying to figure out what it was a photo of. The slide has number 1906 which is in the series taken in Europe. The group from Belgium were numbers 1515 to 1593. She didn't go to Rome herself until about 1984.

But I'm pretty sure SOME were written at the time as they were specifically dated (June 18, 1950 for instance), and sometimes the people in the photos wrote their names on the back which I can tell from the handwriting was done at the time.

basflt

interesting ....
i wish you success in your project
hopefully i can be of any assistance in the future ( looking forward to the Dutch journeys )

grandmaR

Thank you very much for your help. The Dutch ones are pretty much in disarray. I was thinking of doing the journey up the Rhine to Koln - there are GREAT differences between the way that city and the river looked then (pretty much all rubble) and now. And even in 1964 my mother commented that the hotel was much nicer looking than in 1950.

But I can do what I have of Dutch if you want.

basflt

its your thread , you post what you like

grandmaR

Here are the comparatively few photos I have from Holland. We were in Amsterdam, Markem and Volendam and also went to Delft. My mother was astonished by the number of bicycles and also by the cars that had the turn signals that flipped up out of the doors. We were still using hand signals for turns.


Two from the train - hundreds of small gardens


and from the diner where mother remarks that we have to drink bottled water



I'm thinking we are in Holland someplace - it is obviously raining a little so we are wearing raincoats



This Poloroid is labeled Costumes - Vollendam Holland - June 22, 1950



I think this was also taken in Vollendam or Markem

I don't haven't found many photos of this part of the visit yet.



I thought this one was Dutch - possibly identified as Delft




You would almost think from these photos that we traveled all over Belgium and Holland in horse drawn vehicles

Everywhere we went, my mother had made arrangements in advance for my sister and me to meet with the Girl Guides of the area. My sister was really too young, and I was too, but I looked older. I think this group was the Dutch Girl Guides



What do you think?



In Amsterdam, my dad met Ed Spear and his family


I'm not sure whether my dad knew he was going to be there, or if it was a chance meeting. Also I am not sure if Ed was one of Daddy's former students.

This is the only other photo that I am sure was taken in Amsterdam as it is labeled "Mint Tower"



We went to the cheese market on on June 23, 1950 and I know my dad took movies of the bouncing cheeses but this is the only still photo I have found so far



This is the building that the hold the Cheese Market from/in front of.



Oh - and I do have a windmill photo

basflt

thanks
not much more to add , except ;

cheese-market

this town is Edam , a neighbor town of Volendam
with the carrying of the (bouncing) cheese , that an Edam tradition
they still do it every year
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edam,_North_Holland


and ;

this are allotments
for city-people , so they are able to do some gardening
also still exists

grandmaR

I don't think we were in Edam - at least the cheese market was labeled as Alkmaar. I remember that the market was only held one day of the week and the color of the hats the guys wore indicated something about their town or affiliation. I remember bright green ones and also rounder cheeses (those in the picture are kind of disc shaped). They carried the cheeses on a wooden sledge type thing - one man in back and one in front to be weighed.

DavidTO

Loved this series!

grandmaR

Thank you -I put the boat photos up at the beginning and moved the photos around so they are in the correct country at least.

Thank everyone for the help and comments.

I am going to start a new thread for Denmark (not very many photos yet), and traveling up the Rhine to Koln.