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Belgium- July 07
Ariana and Lachlan Finally we made it to mainland Europe- one of our main motivations for moving to England! We snuck out of work early on Friday and jumped on an international (... well it was more like a domestic) flight to Cologne, Germany.
A great friend of ours from University picked us up from the airport and took us straight into town to try some delicious German sausage (wurst) and see the famous Cologne Cathedral!
After a 2 1/2 hour drive through three countries we arrived in Brussels to get a good nights sleep ready for our European adventure. We marvelled at the novelty of passing through countries like towns and hearing our mobiles go off alerting us to a new phone network every 30 minutes.
Driving around Brussels for the first time on Saturday morning felt like we were whizzing through a movie set- it was so surreal! We had an amazing meal at an outdoor café complete with beer to start and coffee to end. The true European way apparently. Next door we found a Belgium chocolate shop that seemed more like a chocolate museum full of 70%!d(MISSING)ark chocolate made with cocoa beans from all over
the world! The temptation was too much- we had to buy some to bring back to the UK with us.
We visited the Belgium Royal Palace, Grand Plas, Manikin Pis and a fabulous maze of restaurant lined streets in a district known as “Brussels’ Kitchen”!
With some time to spare Ryosuke offered to drive us to Holland- yes please!! We never imagined the windmills would be so big! The wooden blades are so large they almost swipe the ground with each rotation and the base is so round the Dutch actually live in them!
On the way back to Brussels we stopped in Antwerp for dinner. We sat at an outdoor café/restaurant/bar (in Belgium all three are one and the same) on the edge of a picture perfect town square surrounded by exquisite architecture with an ornately carved fountain in the centre. We dined on Belgium beer, Belgium mussels, Belgium coffee (with complimentary Belgium chocolate) and finally Belgium waffles- it was so delicious we thought we’d died and gone to heaven!
Sunday is market day in Belgium so we tried out our limited French (Belgium is divided into French and Dutch speaking areas) by ordering snail
soup from one of the market stalls. The stall holder understood Lachlan’s attempt at French so well he continued the conversation unaware of Lachlan’s limited understanding. We wandered around the market feasting on snail soup and croissants amazed by the huge variety of quiche, cheese, meat, flowers and berries. We couldn’t help thinking how wonderful life in Belgium must be and imagined ourselves taking our huge market feast of wine, cheese and bread to a nearby park every Sunday to fill our tummies and soak up the sun.
On the return journey to Germany we stopped in Luven, a heritage listed city renowned for its historic architecture and large University population. Sitting at yet another outdoor café eating sandwiches and drinking sangria in the bright European sunshine we felt a tiny pang at the thought of returning to chilly grey England.
But all good things must come to an end and we left mainland Europe overwhelmed and inspired to return as soon as possible!
P.S. On landing at East Midlands Airport we were presently surprised to find Nottingham was sunny too- we must have brought it back with us!
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Mel
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Yech!!!
Snail soup guys!!! Eeew!! haha, can't really say that 'cos I haven't tried it. So, you reckon it was delicious hey? What did it taste like? Must've been spinny driving through 3 countries in 2 1/2 hours, just can't fatham it coming from Aust hey? Just amazing!