Once upon a time in Paris, from 1673 to 1879, there was the Salon, a series of curated blockbuster art exhibitions that were the talk of the town. Sadly for the impressionists, its juries were not at all impressed with their work, and rejected the vast majority of their paintings. In 1874, Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Degas, Morisot, Pissarro & Cézanne therfore decided to hold their own exhibition, at Atelier Nadar, which opened just two weeks ahead of the Salon of 1874 and which showcased the work of 31 like-minded artists. One of the paintings on display was Monet’s Impression, Sunrise, which indirectly gave the movement its name, when art critic Louis Leroy coined the term in a derisive review titled L’Exposition des impressionnistes, suggesting that the paintings in the exhibition were mere impressions and not finished works of art.
Originally erected in the 13th century, Gaasbeek Castle, in Lennik, was razed to the ground in 1388 by citizens from the nearby city of Brussels, in an attempt to express their annoyance with the Lord of Gaasbeek, who had had one of their aldermen assassinated. The castle was quickly rebuilt, and through inheritance, conquest & purchase, the estate changed hands several times. Its most illustrious owner was Count Lamoraal van Egmont, who, together with Count Filips van Montmorency, earned a place in the history books for being executed in 1568, marking the start of the Dutch Revolt against Spain. From the early 17th century onwards, the castle underwent renovation, but in 1695, during the Nine Years’ War, French troops destroyed an entire wing, which — it must be said — improved the view from the courtyard tremendously.
The Knights’ Hall at Gaasbeek Castle
In 1796 the castle fell to the Arconati family, whose last scion died in 1876. Marquis Giammartino Arconati Visconte was outlived by his wife Marie Peyrat, a petty-bourgeois Parisienne whom he had married just over two years before and who went on to inherit one of the largest Italian fortunes of the time. In 1887, the dowager Marquise commissioned architect Charle-Albert to transform Gaasbeek Castle into a neo-Renaissance fairy-tale castle — not just the building, but its furnishings as well. When the reconstruction was finished, in 1898, the castle looked more Renaissance-like than it ever had before, and Marie would spend her autumns here, often dressed up as a medieval page, and entertain guests. Her marriage had remained childless, and therefore there were no heirs. She donated the castle to the Belgian state, and in 1924 it was opened to the public.
Maliebaan Station in Utrecht, which opened in 1874, houses one of the finest museums in the Netherlands: the Railway Museum. The station became a museum in 1954, and since its expansion in 2003 the museum has become more of a theme park, featuring several novel train-related attractions, which have proved increasingly popular with the general public. Last year close to half a million people, mostly families with children, visited the museum. As a father of four, I greatly enjoyed taking my family to the Railway Museum, but as a train enthusiast, I am less positive about the main focus being on providing an experience that generates recurring visits rather than on the collection itself. I have seen railway museums that are much better — but not half as much fun, at least not for kids.
Blue Angel diesel-electric railcar
The museum’s main feature is, as you would expect, its collection of rolling stock, which includes the oldest preserved Dutch steam locomotive (1864) & carriage (1874), the first electric railcar (1908), chicly furnished in art-nouveau style, and the locomotive that in 1958 pulled the last scheduled steam train. My personal favourite is the Blauwe Engel (‘Blue Angel’), an elegant motor coach built in 1954 for branch-line use. Two attractions that you shouldn’t miss are The Great Discovery, which takes you back in time to the year 1839, when the first railway line in the Netherlands was opened, and Steel Monsters, a ride in the dark that isn’t about anything really, but my children totally loved it anyway. If you like model railways — and who doesn’t — February or March is the time to visit the museum, because that is when the three-day event On TraXS takes place, which is by far the best model railway exhibition in the country.
