Be the First to Know
Get the very latest Tintin news, as it happens, by following the Tintin Movie Twitter feed.
Latest Tweets
- The March of the Crab -- Short, amusing cartoon, in French with English subtitles -- http://www.lamarcheducrabe-lefilm.com >>
- A Doctor Who tale in the style of legendary comic art Will Eisner - THE DEEP HEREAFTER - http://tinyurl.com/284hash >>
- Star Wars characters as in the style of A. A. Milne's Winne the Pooh plus others -- http://jameshance.com/cartoons.html >>
- @arnyxx The film is done with motion capture - see http://bit.ly/9vMaxo >>
- @arnyxx No news but I'm guessing first teaser trailers around Christmas. >>
Belgium Day Five: Belgium is Closed
A vital tip for anyone visiting Belgium – It shuts on Mondays.
With my knee improving, we planned a day of casual sight seeing and shopping around Brussels. Ideally we would have rescheduled our visit to the Herge Museum but it, like much of Belgium, was closed. Coming from the UK, where many shops are open seven days a week, it was unexpected to find so many shops and bars closed on Mondays.
The morning started slowly after a late night drinking beer. We had visited the Théâtre de Toone, a puppet theatre that spends most of its time being a wonderful bar. It sells a good range of beers in a charming, quiet, old fashion atmosphere. Afterwards we went back to Delirium which was busy and very lively. We stayed for several beers and chatted to various people including someone who introduced us to Grottenbier, a pleasing dark ale made in his village. After all this fun, it was inevitable we were a little slow getting up today.
We had no plan for the day other than buying a few mementos of the trip so we just wandered around. It was good to get away from the main tourist areas and see the real city. We found some interesting architecture and curious shops (all closed). We spent a few minutes watching workmen installing a very large piece of sculpture outside the Royal Theatre. It looked like a head with three feet that would be about 15′ high when assembled. What it was and what is signifies is a mystery.
Back on the tourist trail we visited the cathedral which is a nice building but nothing special when compared to other cathedrals. The best bit is the remains of earlier churches under the current building that are visible in a well presented underground gallery.
Next was the obligatory visit to the Manneken Pis. Britain has Nelson’s Column, France has the Arc de Triomphe and Belgium has a small boy pissing. I think this says something about the nation of Belgium but god only knows what. However, just around the corner from the wee widdler, is a large mural of Tintin and Captain Haddock. This is just one of the 20 or so comic murals around the city.
Finally it was some gift shopping, chocolates and beer mostly, before heading back to the hotel. By the end of all this walking my knee was very sore and stiff and we were both in need of a doze.
Tomorrow we return home so a quiet evening is planned. But I suspect we will be able to squeeze in another visit to one of Brussel’s great bars tonight for a farewell drink.
Tintinology (formally Tintin Movie .org) is an independent news and analysis service on the Tintin movie and the works of Herge. (c) Chris Tregenza, Tintinology.poosk.com
Tintin, Tintin & Snowy, Captain Haddock, Thomson & Thompson, Professor Calculus and Herge are all trademarks of Moulinsart S.A. The text and images of the 24 Tintin albums (c) Herge / Moulinsart S.A.
Books & DVDs
A massive bummer about your knee. :-(
It really changes a trip when something like that happens.
Do you speak French? If not, it msut have been pretty weird being there.
If you’re not back yet, I recommend buying one of the Tintin books in French. I can’t remember what it’s called, but you mentioned it here once (I think). It’s one of the Arabian ones, and has a few pages different from the English edition, because issues with British soldiers and Jews (or something like that).
Hope the rest of the trip is okay,
Pe-ads
October 6th, 2009 at 11:26 amI cannot speak French but fortunately my partner knows a little so I let do all the hard bits like talking to people. Though it didn’t really matter as nearly everyone has basic English and it is a very diverse city so everyone is use to dealing with multiple languages.
I picked up the portfolio edition of Tintin in the Congo in French. I thought this would be the most interesting one to read in its original form, given all the fuss about it.
The knee is now healing nicely and I’m almost back to normal. It was annoying to miss out on the Herge museum but apart from that, it didn’t stop us having a really good time.
Chris
October 8th, 2009 at 11:15 amYes,Tintin in the Congo is an interesting one…what struck me the most was the complete redrawing of a page where Tintin literally blows up a Rhino with a stick of dinamite. In the english version I think it attacks him and he flashes it with his camera or something,something lame in comparisson. But in the real book he literally blows the rhino to bits seeing that the hard armor is too hard to shoot with his gun. He puts too much explosive in and leaves no Rhino to bring back or anything. All the work for nothing:-)
October 11th, 2009 at 10:50 pmIts cruel and at the same time a bit humorous :-) I’m glad I own this page in a different language.