EURO, 5 Countries in 3 weeks

[natalie8]

Great stuff again, SEA. Nice to see that you ended you trip by winning some candy. Great pics, commentary and links to hwlp us get the big picture. As the others have said, it feels like you're there too, not just looking at pics.

[nigelandjan]

Well done again and thanks for sharing ST ,,, BTW did you manage to be in the church with those fantastic organ pipes when they fired up ? If ever I get lucky on the lottery that would be right up there on the to do list ,, rise up out the pit amidst the dry ice playing morning has broken with those ol pipes shaking the ground .

I see your dear little wife enjoys her icecream ,,, same same

[jizzybloke]

Great thread and piccies Mr and Mrs SEA T, thank you both!

[Eliminator]

Great thread ST and thanks for all the pics.

[SEA Traveler]

Well done again and thanks for sharing ST ,,, BTW did you manage to be in the church with those fantastic organ pipes when they fired up ? If ever I get lucky on the lottery that would be right up there on the to do list ,, rise up out the pit amidst the dry ice playing morning has broken with those ol pipes shaking the ground .

I see your dear little wife enjoys her icecream ,,, same same

It was hard to pass any of the shops that sold ice cream with out making a purchase. The spouse does like her ice cream, as do I but is tastes so much better when out in the open air and walking the streets. We ate our share that is for sure. Same here in Thai, when the coconut ice cream motor cycle passes by the house, we often stop him for a cup or ice cream sandwich....

The church organs were not heard by us during the trip but surely they could belt out some sound.

Glad you enjoyed the thread.

[SEA Traveler]

Great thread and piccies Mr and Mrs SEA T, thank you both!

No problems and no worries Jizzy, glad you enjoyed.

[SEA Traveler]

Great thread ST and thanks for all the pics.

Thanks Elim... where you been hidding? things are well with you and family I hope. U planning on making any trips down this way any time soon? Best to all.

[natalie8]

SEAT, I just found out a few days ago that I'm going to Brussels from March 6-10. I took a look through your thread again to get some good tips on where to go. You gave me lots of good ideas. I know I'm gonna gorge out on chocolate, beer, ice cream and, something that you didn't post about, Belgian fries.

I'm really looking forward to it and I'll do a thread on it too as I'm also going to London. I'm going to fly to London then take the Eurostar to Brussels and back.

[melvin]

SEAT, I just found out a few days ago that I'm going to Brussels from March 6-10. I took a look through your thread again to get some good tips on where to go. You gave me lots of good ideas. I know I'm gonna gorge out on chocolate, beer, ice cream and, something that you didn't post about, Belgian fries.

I'm really looking forward to it and I'll do a thread on it too as I'm also going to London. I'm going to fly to London then take the Eurostar to Brussels and back.

enjoy Brussels,
fairly nice city, actually also a fairly good party place,
some excellent music clubs there,

Brussels is an excellent place for seafood.
SEA traveller sported some pics from Grote Markt/Grand Place,
following that several pics with crap food.
Note, within 5-7 minutes walkin' from Grote Markt there are several
very very good seafood restaurants.

I would guess that the parts of Brussels that most non European travellers
would face will be the French speaking part/areas (at least mostly).
The French food in Brussels is TOP class. TOP CLASS.

[natalie8]

Hey thanks for the info. I wouldn't go so far as to say that SEA's food pics were crap, but hubby and I both love French food and seafood. I'll need to brush up on my French to be able to get around better.

[SEA Traveler]

SEAT, I just found out a few days ago that I'm going to Brussels from March 6-10. I took a look through your thread again to get some good tips on where to go. You gave me lots of good ideas. I know I'm gonna gorge out on chocolate, beer, ice cream and, something that you didn't post about, Belgian fries.

I'm really looking forward to it and I'll do a thread on it too as I'm also going to London. I'm going to fly to London then take the Eurostar to Brussels and back.

Have a great visit to Belgium natalie and enjoy the food... what ever and wherever it is you decide to eat. We had some fries but just considered them normal and routine. The waffles with strawberries and chocolate were to die for.

Enjoy! looking forward to seeing some of your photos from the trip.

[natalie8]

Thanks for the post and for the green, or should I say vert? I'm off to a slow start this morning and I plan to get out in the next hour, which will be noon here.

[hallelujah]

For everything that SE Asia has to offer, pics like this remind you just how good it is to be back home in Europe sometimes.

Sometimes.

[Looper]

OK, now before you slide down to this last picture, let me give you some background. Let me tell you, and this is true for many things in life other than photography, "IT IS ALL ABOUT BEING AT THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME".

We had been walking for 3 hours around this Bokrijk open air museum... and so were a lot of other people but it had started to clear our about 1900. Anyway, we were probably as far back in the grounds of this place and it was a long walk to the exit. We saw a Belgium couple who seemed and looked as if they knew where they were going to exit from the back side. The 4 of us in our group followed them. We all got the the exit gate but is was secured and it became obvious that it was an employee exit. The 4 of us and the other couple looked at each other. The other young couple did not hesitate, they started walking toward the fence and it became clear that they planned on climbing the fence and jumping over to the over side. I could see their point as it would have save about 3 or 4 kilo in walking distance to the authorized exit, but, we had two women with us and two out of shape middle aged and old fart guys. That my friend and myself. We decided to take the long walk out. But I turned around just in time to see the young local guy helping and pushing his girlfriend over the fence. I knew what was comming so I got my camera ready. I took 2 quick shots and this is what I captured with the 2nd of the 2 shots. I think it was a great action picture. Not posed and not planned. "Just being at the right place at the right time".

Good timing!

[Paddy Whackery]

Kind of a catch-22. How's public transport there? Do they have an underground? I would guess that being an old city, the streets are narrow and not designed for all the traffic that exists today.

Yes, they actually have TWO underground systems. The metro and the RER (Reseaux Express Regional) which is like a more upscale subway. (i think Brussels has two systems also, come to think of it).

[Paddy Whackery]

Wow...the pictures of Brussels really bring me back. I got to spend three months there in 1987 - living in Leuven and commuting to Brussels. It was the best three months of my life. It's a great place if you like food and drink - especially beer. The Belgians are great beer drinkers and there was even a bar on the train platform in Leuven where people would have a glass on their way to work. (Even the cinema in Leuven had a bar, no breaking your arse to get a drink after the movie). There was a bar in one corner of the Grand Place where a rhythm and blues band played once in a while. I recall live music was fairly rare for some reason...There used to be a bar in the GP called 'La Chaloupe d'Or (or the Golden Bowl). They served a litre of beer in a kind of spherical glass like a big round beaker and it came with it's own wooden stand. Trappist, Duvel and Stella Artois. Stella used to be brewed in Leuven and was about 25 cents a glass if i recall. By God we made use of it...

Leuven being more of a student town had several basement clubs in the grote market where live bands played. Again - r and b guitar music a la Steve Ray Vaughan or Rory Gallagher was the staple music on offer. They tended to adhere to the German model where bands would do half hour sets and then the crowd would move on the next place...

Brugge was another good spot. There was a really quaint little bar overlooking a canal and the water was almost close enough to reach out and touch it...We happened to hit town when the mayor was opening some festival or other, where all the dignitaries basically go on the mother-of-all pub crawls and we just tagged along.

I returned on vacation several times after that and we did the descent de la Lesse, a 40 km canoe trip. There was some great scenery which really took me by surprise cos you tend to think of Belgium as being cities and commuter towns...I was the only one in our group who didn't capsize.

Your pix really brought all the memories back...i wish to fuck i had stayed there instead of going to America. But que cera cera, as they say.

[terry57]

Really good Bump. I had not seen this thread before. Interesting.

I must say that if SEAT continued to eat all that sort of food he would be weighing in at 300 Kilo by now.