MANCHESTER | Imperial War Museum North (IWM North)

Inspired by the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest, we travelled by train to England in March. Combining ESC host city Liverpool with the industrial heritage of Manchester. Manchester to Liverpool was also the first steam railway line ever. A perfect pretext to travel to The North.

Discovering Liverpool

Inspired by the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest, we travelled by train to England in March. Combining ESC host city Liverpool with the industrial heritage of Manchester. Manchester to Liverpool was also the first steam railway line ever. A perfect pretext to travel to The North.

REVIEW | Restaurant Le Train Blue at Paris-Gare-de-Lyon

October 2022. As we wanted to test Trenitalia‘s Frecciarossa 1000 service from Paris to Milan, we planned a rail trip around it. From Antwerp to Paris with Thalys, the ‘Red Arrow’ to Milan and once in Italy continuing to Trieste and Bologna. The return trip took us to Basel in Switzerland to enjoy SBB‘s panoramic…

Antwerp designs future of Scheldt Left Bank riverside

Commissioned by the City of Antwerp, the design team Bureau Bas Smets completed the master plan for the Scheldt banks on the Left Bank or Linkeroever and translated it into a first sketch design for the entire area. 

Will Belgium win the Eurovision Song Contest ever again?

In the aftermath of the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool I wrote an op-ed for Songfestival.be, a Flemish fan medium. This is a translation and slight adaptation, as the original was written fit for the Songfestival.be audience. Belgium won the ESC only once, in 1986 with Sandra Kim singing ‘J’aime la vie’.

LIMBURG | Bokrijk, an open-air museum of folk buildings heritage

On sunny October 2022 Tuesday, Jeroen and I visited Bokrijk, an open-air folk heritage museum near Genk in the province of Limburg. The Netherlands have the Nederlands Openluchtmuseum in Arnhem, Sweden has Skansen in Stockholm and Belgium has Bokrijk.