Blogs from Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium, Europe - page 7

The drive south from Brussels is on the smoothest of highways as we turn off at exit 18 and continue south on a secondary highway with less traffic for company. It is the beginning of a long weekend, as the National Holiday looms near in a few days. Leaving the frenzy of preparation in Brussels itself, little cars dragging campers or trailers with tents and other paraphernalia, hug the inside lanes and speed towards any number of pleasant sites of relaxation somewhere in Belgium. Rolling hills present green pastures of corn and other crops like barley, the golden hue of ripened wheat fields interspersed between them. Farm houses, their privacy shrouded by tall elms, while small clusters of dense forest spread out over the landscape as far as the eye can see. Soon the large thick ... read more

With the weather switching back to cold, windy and patchy rain we opt for the hop on hop off bus tour. Half way on the first route brings us to the Atomium which was on our list, but hadn't found out where it was. The Atomium was built in 1958 for the Brussels world fair and is made up off 9 spheres with interconnecting tunnels. We leave the bus for a visit and enjoy the structure for a couple of hours. A short ride up in the elevator gets you to the top and a birds eye view of the Brussels skyline. After that you head back down and there is a mix of elevators and stairs connecting the tubes to four other spheres. Each sphere had a different theme and we enjoyed exploring them. Back ... read more

Ok, I know we get hot weather at home, but this is WAY different. Consider it starts to get light about 4am, sunrise proper at 5am, temps at 25+ by 8am, and then the day just drags on and on, until sunset, at 10pm!!! I believe this makes the heat less tolerable than home, that and the fact there's not many retailers with airconditioning, for example Kasey and I went in to a shopping centre, sort of the size of Westfield fig tree, and found most shops didn't have air conditioning. In the British home store they just turned off most of the lights, an interesting way to shop, saying it helped with the heat. Lots of shops seem to do this. So back to the trip, Brussels has been over 30 every day, very stressful ... read more

In the first six days of our European adventure we have experienced so, so much that it is difficult to condense down to a blog entry. Nevertheless, here goes my best attempt to share our discoveries in broad brush text and letting the pictures do the rest of the talking. After leaving from Seattle at midday we flew all night over the southern Artic and Greenland, without ever really seeing the night as we were so far north (Pic of Artic Sea). And then we were welcomed into the "continent" with a bright pink sunrise (winglet on plane). Beautiful countryside as with many small towns and large expanses of woods. I was impressed by how much commercial barge traffic is seen on all rivers. After we spent a quiet day at Horst and Estela's adjusting for ... read more

Few of our family or friends thought that we were really serious about attempting to travel Europe for nearly two months with only knapsacks. Well, they weren't alone. I first really worked hard to convince Jeanette that it was workable. She then decided on a trial run of the idea during an unplanned trip to Florida the month before leaving for Europe and readily agreed after that! I have to give her full marks for being such a trooper. The experiment worked superbly - off the aircraft, through Immigration/Customs and out the door every time. No more waiting at carousels. As far as the train is concerned it was a piece of cake as well - quickly on board and such ease in storing the knapsacks on the overhead shelf while we watched some others sometimes ... read more