Mim & Ian’s travel blog

It depends on your definition of a city. But I’m counting 5 by my definition. London, Newbury, Amsterdam, The Hague, Paris. If I counted Brussels, that would have made the count 6. But the train only stopped and I didn’t actually get off, so it hardly seemed fair to add it to the count.

I’m on yet another train. The Eurostar from Paris to London this time. How did I get here?

• Tuesday: Train from London to Newbury (1 hour). Taxi from Newbury to London Heathrow Airport (1 hour). Plane from Heathrow to Amsterdam Airport (1.5 hours). Train from Amsterdam Airport to Amsterdam Amstel (30 mins). Taxi from Amsterdam Amstel to Mercure Hotel Amsterdam Aan de Amstel (15 mins).
• Wednesday: Taxi from Mercure Hotel Amsterdam Aan de Amstel to Amsterdam ArenA (15 mins). Taxi from Amsterdam ArenA to Rijswijk (1 hour). Tram from Rijkwijk to The Hague Central Station (30 mins). Train from The Hague to Paris via Brussels (3.5 hours). Taxi from Paris-Nord train station to Hilton Hotel Paris (I almost typed Paris Hilton, but then realised that would have sounded weird – if you don’t know who Paris Hilton is, I suggest you leave your cave) (30 mins).
• Thursday: Taxi from Hilton Hotel Paris to Le Plessis Robinson (45 mins). Taxi from Le Plessis Robinson to La Defense (30 mins). Taxi from La Defense to Paris-Nord train station (30 mins). Eurostar to London (3 hours by the time I get to London).

I think I saw a few customers and did a few presentations in there somewhere, but that got lost in the whole jumble.

Highlights? None in Amsterdam because I’ve been there 3 times in the past 4 weeks. First time to Paris though, so it was nice when I walked out onto my hotel balcony and saw the sparkling Eiffel Tower 100 metres down the road.

My taxi also drove by the Arc de Triomphe on the way to Paris-Nord train station this afternoon.

I didn’t add the requisite number of immigration stamps to my collection though. I got one on the way into Amsterdam and didn’t get another until today when I cleared immigration to get onto the Eurostar. I got 2 in a row actually. One for “leaving France” and another about 5 metres later for “entering the UK”. This was before I even cleared security. Not sure why they do this. I suppose it’s more efficient as they know everyone getting onto the Eurostar from Paris headed west is going to the UK. If I had taken a plane from Amsterdam to Paris, I would have had the 2 stamps for exiting the Netherlands and entering France. But because I took the train, they didn’t bother. No such thing as immigration when travelling on the train between EU countries I guess. About the closest I got were a bunch of officers taking a look at my passport while on the train just before getting to Paris.

That’s about it really. I think I need to go have some food and……….ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Brussels has been, for me, a nice surprise. As we were planning on going there for the weekend (16-17th June), I really thought that there was going to be nothing to do. Well, that was somewhat true, but it was nice to go there and see what Brussels capital of Belgium had to offer.

For those of you who are not familiar with Belgium, let me indulge you in some interesting information. Firstly, Belgium is divided into two main regions – the northern Flanders which speaks Dutch and the southern Wallonia which speaks French and then there’s Brussels in the middle, bilingual with Dutch and French as their official language. Belgium is known for the chocolates, the Belgium lace and for being home to many Belgian comics characters, including The Smurfs, Largo Winch, Tintin and Lucky Luke to name but a few. Some even call Brussels the Comic City.

The weather was beautiful both days we were there. On Saturday we arrived at Charleroi airport around 9am then took a bus (we booked through Terravison) to Brussels South railway station (or Brussel-Zuid). Ian really wanted to visit Ghent so from Brussel-Zuid station we hopped on train to Ghent St Peters (or Gent-Sint-Pieters), we arrived around 12pm. We ran and barely just made it onto a tram going to city centre but only afterwards realised both of us didn’t have any change for tickets. Lucky for us, the tram driver didn’t seem very bothered and we had a free ride.

Ghent is pretty and quaint with canals and cobble-streets, many medieval architectures still very well preserved. We had lunch at one of the cafes before going on a walking tour at 2pm (we bought the tickets from the information centre which was at the back of the Cloth Hall next to the Belfry tower). I regretted drinking the Leffe a bit too quickly before the food came because when we visited the Saint Bavo Cathedral, Saint Nicholas Church, the Gravensteen castle, the Belfry tower and the old Graslei harbour, I was too intoxicated to concentrate. Although I did remember the tour guide said something about Ghent being one of the largest cities of northern Europe back in the Middle Ages, it flourished from its wool industry and Flemish cloths. We found ‘The Waterhouse on the beerside’ which stocks 400 different kinds of Belgian beers and spent the rest of the afternoon in one of the pub/restaurant along the Graslei harbour. Ian tried the Trappist brown beer which was served with some mouldy cheese and I had the Belgium coffee which has some Elixir d’Anvers liqueur in it (at the time I didn’t know what it was and the waitress said it was nice). What can I say…don’t try it, it leaves a strange herbal after taste.

Ian really wanted to see the old Graslei harbour at night so we bought some potato frites and tried to wait for sunset. By 10pm, we gave up and caught the last train back to Brussels because the sun just refused to set!

We stayed at the Sheraton hotel which we booked through lastminute.com, it was listed as a ‘top-secret hotel’ and we got it for 50 pounds when other hostels were charging the same amount if not more?!

Day 2 we just went exploring walked around the city. Because it was Sunday, everything was closed except for tourist attractions. Our first venture was to see the famous Grand Place (or Grote Markt) which I might add, is beautiful, even for its lack of color. The Grand Place is a square surrounded by the Hotel de Ville, the Musee de Bruxelles, and many restaurants offering traditional Belgian cuisines. We spotted a crowded Belgium Waffles House and had waffles there for breakfast. Here’s also when Ian started drinking espressos, apparently nowadays latte tastes like warm milk to him.

A few blocks down from the Grand Place is Belgium’s famous Mannekin Pis statue. It is a statue/fountain of a little boy peeing. The story apparently goes like this: Brussels was under attack with explosives and this kid extinguished the burning fuse by peeing on it and he saved Brussels. Since then, the statue has been built to honor this boy. At some point in time, the statue was stolen and the thief ended up breaking it. So the current Mannekin Pis is not the original. The statue also has these crazy costumes, dressed by a non-profitable organisation called The Friends of Manneken-Pis. Unfortunately he was wearing a transparent one when we were there.

Next was my highlight, Place du Grand Sablon. This is where the best Belgium chocolatiers are located – Neuhaus, Wittamer and Pierre Marcolini!! Not surprisingly we bought some samples which Ian had to hand-carry. He was a bit annoying because he kept complaining it was bigger than our luggage.

Here’s a box we bought from Marcolini…

After our delightful chocolate tour, we went to have mussels (or moules) for lunch. Ian can’t remember what beer he had but his face was red and his ‘alcohol-indicator’ was really red (his arm had an allergic reaction to a dodgy band-aid once and ever since, he gets this red bar in the shape of a band-aid every time he drinks)

So Brussels checked. Ghent checked.
Of the beers we tried, Leffe and Framboise are nicest.
Of the chocolates we tasted, Marcolini’s the best.
We didn’t see Kim Clijsters or John Claude Van Damme while we were in Brussels but we did see lots of smog.

You can now see our photos here or you can also click on Photos link from the menu at the top of the site.

Alright it’s about time I write something in this blog, seeing it has been a looong while since I’ve made any updates. Apologies for the lack of posts!

As Ian mentioned earlier, in the last 2 months we’ve made a few weekend trips. On the very first trip (26th-28th May) we went with a couple of Lawrence’s friends to visit the beautiful Lisbon, capital of Portugal. We left, still half-asleep at 3:45am, and headed towards Gatwick Airport on a pre-booked mini cab. We checked in at the FlyMonarch counters, airport securities are pretty strict with keeping all hand-carried 100ml liquid bottles in a clear plastic bags when going through security checks. Making sure we were fully charged for Lisbon, we slept through the whole 3 hours flight to Lisbon.

Going through Lisbon airport’s immigration was a pain, there were not enough counters for the amount of people going through during the long weekend. After 50 minutes of queuing we jumped across to a very empty-looking EU counter, our passports were stamped straight away and we saved ourselves probably another 30mins of queuing. We took a public bus towards Baixa (Downtown) and got off at Avenida da Liberdade. As we were trying to locate the hostel, Ian became extremely excited when he saw a building with ‘Tivoli’ on it. Eventually we found the hostel, checked in, dropped our bags then went exploring

Lisbon is the western-most capital in Europe with population of 2.8 million. A bit on the history…Portuguese were amongst the first Europeans to look for colonies and explore around the world. Most of the Portuguese expeditions in the age of discovery left from Lisbon during the 15th-17th centuries. The 16th century marks the Golden age for Lisbon. The city became the European hub of commerce with the Far East, while gold from Brazil also flooded into the city. Colonies were found in Africa (Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Prínci), the Middle East, India (Goa founded by Vasco de Gama for spice trades), East Asia (Macau, Taiwan and Japan), East Indies (Malacca, Timor) and of course Brazil (when Pedro Álvares Cabral’s ship was blown off course on his way to India).

Lisbon is a city full of beautiful architectures. Many buildings, rebuilt after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, are influenced by the Gothic and Renaissance periods.

As we headed towards Rossio Square, we must have walked past 4 bakeries with Portuguese tarts but they didn’t look very fresh so we all resisted. There was an Information Centre at Rossio Square, we orientated ourselves with some maps/info but then found all of Lawrence’s friends had disappeared. It turned out they had gone into the bakery next door to buy Portuguese tarts! Personally I thought the custard was nice & creamy but the pastry was too chewy. Feeling content, we made our way to Praça do Comércio (Commerce Square). Over the misty smog across the Tagus River, we saw a tiney weeney monument which resembles the Corcovado monument in Rio de Janeiro, it was apparently built after WWII because Portugal was a neutral country during WWII.

After that we took a bus to Belem Tower, which was suppose to be only 10 minutes from the city center but we missed our stop so we did a scenic walking tour through some really nice residential properties, some of which appeared to be embassies. The Tower of Belem commemorates the expeditions of the 16th century and also acts as part of a defence system to the entrance of the Tagus river, to protect Lisbon and the Jerónimos (Hieronymites) Monastery. The Hieronymites Monastery really does amaze with its very intricate ornate Manueline-style carvings. Both the Tower of Belem and the Hieronymites Monastery were classified by the UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1983.

We caught the tram back to Baixa. The tram was relatively new, fast and comfortable. Streets of Baixa are grid-like, filled mostly with shops. There is one really busy shop on this main strip which caught our attention, behind its window was these columns of neatly stacked with fresh Portuguese tarts and some other Portuguese desserts. We looked at each other and we knew we had to make a stop for Portuguese tarts! It was without a doubt the nicest Portuguese tart, the custard was still warm, puff pastry was light with a little bit of caramelised sugary crust around the edges making it just-right crispy and together it just melts sweetly in your mouth…mmmmm!

Our hostel turned out to be quite good, it was central and right next to the metro. We booked it through http://hostelbookers.com. One thing we learnt at dinner that night is that in restaurants, the bread and butter/paté and other things such as olives, smoked ham, cheese served on the table are not free. They are actually starters/entrees on the menu which happen to be on the table. So if you eat one olive, you will have to pay for the whole serving, same goes for sliced cheese, bread, etc…

Following day we decided to visit Sintra, an UNESCO World Heritage Site because of its 19th century Romantic architecture. First we caught the metro to Jardim Zoological station then caught the CP trains to Sintra. The Sintra area actually consists of the Pena Palace, the Castelo dos Mouros, the Sintra-Cascais Natural Park and Palácio Nacional de Sintra (summer residence of the kings of Portugal). Unfortuanately we only had time to visit the Pena Palace.

From the train station we went to the tourist information center where they told us that there’s 5 kms to the Pena Palace. Just after exiting the place we saw a bus that announced ‘Sintra Sightseeing Palace tour’ on its front sign so we hopped on. It was 4 euros for a return ticket! Once reaching the ticket booth at the Pena Palace, luckily the queue wasn’t too long, we had to pay 8 euros each to visit the palace and the gardens. After passing the security gate there’s a little green rip-off tram that charges another 2 euros for a 3-minute ride. It takes 5 minutes walking up a 1 km slope! Ok it did start to rain quite heavily so the walk wouldn’t be very pleasant and there was only 1 umbrella amongst the 7 of us.

Pena Palace is a very colourful moorish castle built in the 19th century. Inside the rooms are decorated extravagantly, with all furnitures and fittings in place, not a detail amissed including the bread! (and yes, that room did smell mouldy) It really looked like a real castle. One thing that really fascinates me was the tiny rooms and low door entrances, it makes me wonder whether the Portuguese are amongst the smallest Europeans!

That night we had a fantastic meal at Ribadouro Restaurant, the boys ordered fresh seafoods including this huge crab with claws the size of my palm. Well fed & satisfied, we made our next stop and watched a Fado (Portugal’s national song) show.

Castle of São Jorge is on the tallest hill of the central city, we caught a bus to get there from Rossio Square. It was definitely a great vantage point to view the entire city of Lisbon from the hilltop, very impressive. We could see the 25 de Abril Bridge (or 25th of April Bridge, the day Carnation Revolution started in 1974) over the Tagus river, it looks a lot like the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, probably because it’s by the same construction company. We did a quick tour of the Castle of São Jorge. Being in the oldest part of Lisbon, the Alfama, it is within easy walk to the ancient fortified Lisbon Cathedral. The Cathedral has many different styles because it has been modified many times and survived many earthquakes.

As we made our way back to the train station, we must have made two more stops for Portuguese tarts ;P

Overall it was great long weekend, met some new friends, saw some beautiful architectures, not to mention ate a lot! Really should start doing some exercise!

A bit surprised we didn’t find any Portuguese yellow chicken curry…maybe it’s a Macanese dish?!