Visiting Marlinspike Hall

Though it’s said that the manor does not really exist, except modeled after the Château deCheverny in France, I experienced the wonderful time in visiting the luxury house in Brussels.

Well, at first before going further, you should familiar with Herge and all of his cartoon characters, right? OK, here is the top of the manor at the back and all the characters attached to Herge at the forefront.

Two weeks ago, it’s was a series of meeting head of me in Europe, started in Brussels Belgium and ended in Bonn Germany. After my early arrival in Brussels, I did manage my tight schedule to visit the Center of Comics in the city, instead of Herge museum that a bit out of the city, just to see group of comic characters. I loved from my childhood.

At first I thought this place is just a mini of Herge museum that made for Herge, one of the notorious Belgian cartoonist, with focus on his famous character: Tintin, Snowy, Captain Haddock and all Tintin’s companions. Yet that place is actually beyond my expectation, that's a place for imaginative characters for all Belgium-French famous cartoonists, including Morris, Goschinny and Uderso, awesome!!! 

So if you don't have enough time for fun in Brussels (just like me) but wanna see Herge's works, just visit this place instead of Herge's museum. It's close to the city center.

Look, I really love this following picture that represents a guy threw a box with all cartoon characters in it, and all those characters run as fast as they can to the same direction. To me, it’s seem those all characters run to the stage and welcoming their fans all over the world, including me.

OK, now let’s get into the manor itself. Marlinspike Hall is the mansion of Captain Haddock in the series of “the adventure of Tintin”. The house bought by Professor Calculus to Captain Haddock after the series of Red Rackham’s treasure, as a gift as it illustrates in the story that this house has been built by Captain’s ancestor: Sir Francis Haddock. Since then, Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus live there, while Tintin and Snowy visited them some times. Here is me mimicking entering the manor complex, with the owner: Captain Haddock, and Tintin, plus Snowy.

At first while enjoying the comic center and all the attached characters, I did not realize that the interior adopted a specific interior of Marlinspike Hall: 'the main stairs'.

That’s the beautiful stairs that always seen in most of the adventures scenes taken at the mansion. A place that gives a special fun where the second stair-case from the bottom had broken, and everybody who rush up/down the stairs always fell down, including Tintin, the poor Nestor, Captain himself (see the following picture), professor Calculus, Thomson and Thompson (for sure), as well as Snowy (while he chases Thaike, the cat of Marlinspike Hall).

Have a look the following picture: on the left is the real stairs to the second level of the comic center, and the right is what we’ve seen in the Marlinspike of “the adventure of Tintin”, with Thaike and Snowy in the left-down side (inset). 

Actually, in the adventure, the cat has no name. Yet coincidentally Herge owned similar-look Siamese cat who named Thaike, so that is how I called the cat of Marlinspike. It's said that in reality Herge's cat 'Thaike' creates so much troubles, just like Thaike the Marlinspike's cat. Especially when he teases Snowy, and those two running around the manor. Along the adventure, Thaike never left the mansion and sometimes without any reason, he can befriend with Snowy (see the Emerald of Castafiore).

Talked about Bianca, I always love her, with the verse from the Jewel song from Charles Gounod’s opera Faust, which she sang at any time along the adventure: “Ah, my beauty past compare, these jewels bright I wear".

Bianca Castafiore, who’s famous as the "Milanese Nightingale", likes Captain Haddock very much, though the Captain feels totally a different way. She often visits the Captain at his mansion.

And what I love about those two is a fact that Bianca always call Captain Haddock in different name, except his real name: 'Haddock' (hahahaha). I did expect to see her in the comic center, and that’s what I found: a scene of her and Captain Haddock (and me) at the park of the mansion. What a lovely picture.

That day was a good day for me, I found many of my favorite comic characters, which I will soon tell in other stories. Here, my story is just what is related to the Marlinspike. Yes, I found Thomson and Thompson too, as well as Nestor and others. Yet for now, this is enough.

Later the week, after the meeting on global monitoring based-on remote sensing, I prepared myself to go to Amsterdam over the weekend, before fly to Bonn on Monday morning. So I started my journey from the Brussels Midi train-station, and here is the mural I found at the station. It gives clear sign that we are in Tintin’s city and about to leave it.

Well, enough for "The adventure of Tintin" and all of his companion. I'm glad to have this experience.

Thanks guys and see you someday, hopefully in Herge's museum.