Auto World in Brussels--300 cars from 1896 to Today

In a huge complex of buildings connected to a park is AutoWorld Brussels.  The museum is near a huge stone arch commemorating Belgian independence and opposite another huge museum of Belgian military history. Another large museum of fine arts and antiquities is on the other side of the arch.

Auto World displays 300 cars and motorcycles from 1896 to the present.  Belgium has no history of making cars, but this small country is at the center of northern Europe and is also the political center of the European Union and NATO. Belgium is also a center of racing. The Spa-Francorchamps race track is considered the best track, especially by drivers, in the Formula 1 World Championship. 

Just inside the entrance of the museum was a display of new Bugatti luxury high-performance cars costing $3 million to $5 million and other models made over the past century.

2020 Bugatti Centodieci, W16, 4-turbo, 1600-horsepower, 380kmh top speed

2021 La Voiture Noire, W16, 4-turbo, 1600-horsepower, 420kmh top speed

Bugatti luxury cars from the 1920s and 30s

Bugatti race car from the 1930s

Little Cars and car shop dioramas ringed the main display area.

Trabant

A bright red Jeep

1968 Honda S800

1954 Moretti Grand Sport Berlinetta, 748cc, 71hp

1951 Renault R4 CV 750cc, 17hp

Garage dioramas

Renault 2CV

Strange little cars

The Museum of The Bible in Washington D.C.--The 'Merica View of Scripture, Plus Scandal

 

In the Spring of 2018, I was in Washington D.C. for a museums conference and heard a lot about the newly opened (November 2017) Museum of the Bible.  The six-floor $400 million project was launched and largely funded by the Green family that owns Hobby Lobby.  

Even before it opened, the museum was immersed in a smuggling scandal over thousands of looted Iraqi antiquities acquired by devious means for the museum. The Green family paid millions in fines and returned many of the artifacts.  The story is here. 

A second scandal surrounded Dead Sea Scrolls fragments donated to the museum by Hobby Lobby founder Steve Green. Shortly after the museum opened they were called out as possible forgeries. They remained on display until 2020 when they were finally removed after being definitely declared forgeries.  Science writer Jennifer Ouellette reported on the forgeries.

I did not write about the visit at the time because I had such a bad experience. But while visiting several museums in Europe in the past two weeks, I remembered the Museum of the Bible. My overwhelming memory of the visit was of noise and flashing light. The section on Biblical archeology had highly produced videos in which a very handsome man sped around the desert in a very expensive Land Rover telling us the wonders he was digging up (with his manicured hands).

At the time, I knew Christian Nationalism was a threat to democracy, but not nearly the threat it is now. So one of the worst aspects of the museum did not hit me as hard then. There is a strong promotion of America being founded as a Christian nation with a mission for God.  It looked crazy at the time. It is ominous now that Great Replacement Theory is the official position of the Republican Party. 

From Vienna to Brussels, the museums I visited were quiet. When they had video screens they were sequestered, not blaring in the center of the room. If a Museum of the Bible were located in Prague or Paris or Palermo it would focus on words, languages, artifacts, archaeology, and be quiet. 

Another scandal among people talking about the Museum of the Bible in 2018 was the opening Gala. It was held at the Trump Hotel in Washington. Many of the staff refused to attend. 

The "White House" of the European Union

 Almost a decade ago, Nina Wolff wrote a biography of her father, based upon a trove of letters he gave her shortly before he died. Now she is writing the biography of an immense building in the Schuman area of Brussels which is arguably the "White House" of the European Union: the Residence Palace.

The building figures prominently in Wolff's book about her father. It was built in 1927 as a huge residential complex with a swimming pool, a 500-seat theater and all the services of a small city.  Wolff's family lived there before they began their arduous escape from Brussels to France to America from that building. 

During World War II, the huge building became the headquarters of the Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe--Nazis took the best places for themselves in conquered countries.  Because the building was full of Nazis it attracted spies adding to its lore.

Much of the original structure has been replaced by modern buildings. Notable is a building with windows from all over Europe fit together in a giant jigsaw puzzle as a symbol of the European Union bringing together all of Europe.

 The book about Nina Wolff's father, his escape from Nazi-occupied France as a teenager and his service in the U.S. Army a few years later is in the book "Someday You Will Understand: My Father's Private World War II." I wrote about the book and how an Axl Rose t-shirt started a discussion about The Holocaust.

Medusa in Caen, France

 

At the Musee Beaux Arts in Caen, France, is a temporary exhibit of art about Medusa.  She is the terrifying Gorgon of Greek myth with snakes for hair. A man who looks in her eyes is turned to stone.  Her power is so great that when Dante has Heaven's protection to walk through Hell, Virgil still must shield him from Medusa who could have turned him to stone inside Hell. All of this happens in Canto 9, one of the most dramatic of Dante's netherworld journey.

The exhibit is beautifully made. Here is the website. The English translation did not work for me, but Google Translate works well.

Rode Alpine Climbs Near Grenoble

In 2014, a 197.5km stage of the Tour de France ended with 

the climb from Grenoble to Chamrousse  

This weekend, I achieved one of my bicycle travel goals. It happened at the last minute, without a plan, in a series of delightful discoveries. 

That goal was to ride Tour de France climbs in the Alps or the Pyrenees before I am too old to finish a seven-to-twenty-mile climb and then ride back down. 

The view from Acrobastille, Grenoble

On Friday evening, I rode up a short, steep climb to a Acrobastille park just north of Grenoble. The steepest grade was 22%, the average grade, according to Strava was 15.6%. The road was three meters wide, less in some places, with tight switchbacks every few hundred meters. 

Cars were speeding up and down the hill toward restaurant at the park at the top of the road. A few of the hairpins were so tight that larger cars stopped and backed up a little in an effort not to hit the barriers at the edge of the road. Here is the climb on the ClimbFinder website.  

The road was painted with names of riders for most of the mid-hill steepest section. I was moving at barely over walking speed. I imagined Tour de France riders zooming past me at more than 20kmh. At the top I turned around and headed back right away. Sundown was in 15 minutes. I was glad the carbon bike I rented had disc brakes. I used them hard going into the turns on the way down. 

When I got back to the hotel room I started searching for destinations for the next day’s ride. I looked further north. I knew there was a long easy climb to the south on the long road to Alpe d’Huez, but the fabled mountain was too far for me to ride there—150km from Grenoble. (I rode Alpe d'Huez in 2000 and 2005. It was as tough as advertised.)

I decided to ride east to the ski resort at Chamrousse. It would be a five-mile ride through the city of Grenoble then a 20-mile climb: a six-mile climb on a five-percent grade, followed by a flat mile through a resort town then an eleven-mile eight-percent grade to the summit: almost 1800 meters of climb, more than a mile vertical. Chamrousse was a Tour de France climb in 2001 (time trial), 2014, and 2017.  

This sign was on the lower slop. When I saw it, I thought, 

'No chance I am violating that speed limit.'

The first climb was fine, but the second climb went from slow to slower. The long climb was in forest so I could never see more than a few hundred meters ahead. I would ride through a switchback then a kilometer of winding road, then another switchback. I was moving faster than the previous day but only just. I mostly rode 4-5mph with occasional short bursts of speed standing on the pedals going 7-8mph! 

Early on the long climb, 800 meters of altitude to go

Three miles from the top I was out of water and thinking about turning around. But I kept going and made it to the largely deserted resort at the top. I got water and a Coke and a sandwich. I was going to take pictures at the top, but I got on the bike, and it felt so good to be rolling on a flat road near the top. I was speeding along at 10mph! Then I took the downward turn toward the intersection at the top of the climb. I leaned down, shifted to the highest gear, and flew down the winding road into the forest. 

For the next 11 miles, more than 20 minutes, I sped down the eight-percent grade, braking just before the switchbacks then pedaling out. By the time I was in the village at the bottom of the first climb, my arms were aching from leaning into the handlebars while braking. The road was mostly smooth so I could swing wide going into turns and lean deeply without getting bounced by bad pavement. 

Even with 40mph wind in my ears, I could hear cars coming up and could definitely hear the motorcycles using the mountain for a high-speed thrill ride. Going into a hairpin on the way up a Suzuki FZR flew past me. The ride-white-and-blue-leather-clad rider leaned so far in the turn I heard the hockey puck on his left knee scrape the pavement for a second. He was followed by three other touring motorcycles that went progressively slower through the turn. 

Since I was going 5mph, I could judge their style as the flew past me. I saw no motorcycles on the way down. I saw several bicycle riders making their slow way up the mountain. I also saw a few cars coming up, but only once did we pass by each other in a turn. European drivers hold their lane in hairpins, and I was tight on the inside of the turn. 

At the bottom of the steep hill in the village I rolled slowly through the tourist traffic, then started down the shallower six-mile descent onto the city. The road was smooth and straight with few turns. I rode back to the Natura Velo bike shop and returned the bike. They charged me for one 24-hour day from Friday at 6:30pm to Saturday at 5pm. The guy renting the bikes was friendly and helpful. 

As I walked out of the shop, I ended the Strava trip down the mountain. I walked to a coffee shop and sipped a cappuccino while I looked at what Strava said about my trip. On both rides it is clear I am among the worst riders going uphill and the best descending. 

Of the 2,800 riders who climbed the short, steep hill to Acrobastille, I was in 2,551st place. I was second of two in my age group, 70-74. Going down the hill, I was 772nd of 2,700 riders of all ages and 1st of five riders in my age group by more than a minute. 

On the climb to Chamrousse, I was 4,467th of 4,562 riders going up. On the steep 11-mile descent that begins the road back to Grenoble I was 1,178th of 3,556 riders but #1 of 22 riders in my age group. I was a half-minute ahead of second place. The other guys on the leaderboard live in the area so it was fun to think I could compete with guys who have made many trips up and down the mountain—at least on the descent. 

Both the climb and the descent give me joy in very different ways. The climbs were so difficult I thought about quitting both. On the first I told myself it was getting dark soon and I did not want to descend after sundown. Near the top of the climb to Chamrousse I was moving so slowly that even the 5km to go sign meant I had almost an hour to ride. But I couldn’t (wouldn’t let myself) stop in either case. The 5km sign gave me some inspiration; I went just a little faster.

The last time I rode in the Alps and the Pyrenees was in 2005.  I am not sure I will ride the great climbs of France again, but I am beyond happy that I was able to ride Acrobastille and Chamrousse.

Talking About Language, America, the Cold War, and Sherlock Holmes on a train in Austria and Switzerland

On the train from Vienna to Zurich, I sat at a table with Weiran and Matilda. 

Weiran is a professor of computer science at the University of Shanghai. He was graduate student in Dresden from 2013 to 2017, then a post doc at UC Davis near Sacramento from 2017 to 2021. 

Matilda is a retired teacher from Feldkirch, Austria. She and her husband taught English and other languages. Her husband taught Latin and Greek early in his career, then English and French when demand for classical language teachers disappeared.

When Matilda first sat with us in Salzburg, she and Weiran talked for a while in German. Then Matilda asked me a question in German. I responded with one of my few German phrases, which says I speak little German. They switched to English, and we talked together for the next two hours. Her question was whether we were sitting in a Quiet Car and were they talking too loudly. I said there was no Quiet Car as far as I knew.

Then we talked about Quiet Cars in America and Europe. Matilda thought it would be terrible, disrespectful to talk in a Quiet Car. I asked if they had been to America. Matilda never had. Weiran lived in California but never rode an Amtrak train. I said if they every rode an Amtrak train, the Quiet Car is not always quiet.

We talked more about travel. Matilda has been to the UK (She said England) many times, but never to America. She thought about it but each time she would travel to England instead. Soon after she retired, Trump was elected and that was the end of considering a trip to America. Matilda rolled her eyes and looked disgusted at the mention of Trump. Last year she spent a month at a monastery near Trondheim, Norway. She likes peaceful settings. From 5,000 miles away America looks like a world of noise and guns.

Weiran lived in California during most of the Trump administration and the first years of COVID and had no problems with either. He worried about the increasingly authoritarian government under President Xi and very much admired our Constitution and how the courts protected America from Trump. He thinks even if Trump gets back in power America will remain a free country.

We also talked a lot about languages: about teaching and learning and grammar and alphabets. Weiran explained the Chinese language and how he moves from one language to another. Matilda said she heard the music of Ancient Greek from her husband who taught the Greek poets singing them to his students.

Weiran told us how he expresses time in a language that does not have formal tenses. It was something like “Yesterday I drive…. tomorrow I drive…. I drive” for past, future, and present. I laughed and said that was how I spoke German 40 years ago. I used the present tense for everything. When I made the joke about speaking a little bit of bad German, I said I had lived in (West) Germany from 1976-79. Matilda said she had recently read a book about the Cold War. She had no idea how many Americans lived in Germany at the height of the Cold War in the 1970s and 80s. (A million). In western Austria near Switzerland, the Cold War seemed very remote.

After Matilda left the train, Weiran asked me about tanks. We talked about firing them and why they litter the battlefield in Ukraine, especially Russian tanks. Then as one does, we switched from talking tanks to Sherlock Holmes. We have both read all the Sherlock Holmes stories and started sharing pictures on our phones of our favorite video remakes of the drug-taking detective.

His favorite is the 1984 “Sherlock Holmes” starring Jeremy Brett. I told him about “Sherlock” starring Benedict Cumberbatch in which Dr. Watson is an Afghanistan War veteran from the recent war. The original Dr. Watson had served in the second British defeat in Afghanistan in the 1880s. I also mentioned “Elementary” in which Lucy Liu is Dr. Watson.

Weiran and I left the train in Zurich. He was staying the night then flying to Shanghai the next morning. I ran off to catch the train to Geneva. I had ten minutes between trains. Looking at America through the eyes of others is one of my favorite parts of traveling.

 

Ig Nobel Moment on a German Train

Brain activity in dead salmon

On the train from Utrecht to Frankfurt, I sat at a table with Max, a German man in his thirties on the way to Koln. He was wearing a t-shirt from a physics meeting. He runs a lab studying cardiac MRI techniques. He said they study the tiny magnetic fields that surround charge pulses within the heart. 

We talked for a while about his work. Then I asked if he had heard about the Ig Nobel Prizes. I mentioned that a physicist, Andre Geim, is the only person with a Nobel Prize and an Ig Nobel Prize. 

Max was aware of Geim and very aware of an Ig Nobel neuroscience Prize in 2012 won by a team that studied brain activity in dead salmon using fMRI. Max said the paper caused a big reaction in the MRI community because there were real problems with false readings. Here is the Ig Nobel follow up.

After a couple of minutes, Max took out his phone and showed me the fMRI images of brain activity in the now-famous dead salmon. He had the images on his phone. Dead salmon were reported as reacting to human faces. Dead salmon don’t react to human faces as it turns out. Here is the report on the Scicurious blog at Scientific American.

We shared the four-person table with a couple in their 20s who were playing cards with actual cards while the older people at the table were sharing pictures on their iPhones.