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.
Category: Experience
ICELAND | Seljalandsfoss Waterfall – Skógafoss – Sólheimajökull – Dyrhólaeyjarviti – Reynisfjara – Vík
Iceland in November and December? Really? I saw an Icelandair promotion on Instagram which I couldn’t resist. The catch? It had to be late November to the start of December 2022. But I could – easily – enthuse Oriol to come along for a road trip in the South and West of Iceland.
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’.
ICELAND | Kevlavík – Bridge Between Continents – Reykjanesviti Lighthouse – Reykjanestá – Gunnuhver Hot Springs – Grindavík – Reykjavík
Iceland in November and December? Really? I saw an Icelandair promotion on Instagram which I couldn’t resist. The catch? It had to be late November to the start of December 2022. But I could – easily – enthuse Oriol to come along for a road trip in the South and West of Iceland.
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.
Museum At the Stream opens ‘City at war, Antwerp, 1940-1945’ exhibition on 8 September
On 8 September 2023, a new exhibition at the Museum Aan de Stroom (Museum At the Stream, MAS) about Antwerp during World War II opens at the MAS. Antwerp was particularly hard hit by the war. Nazi terror, persecution of Jews and military violence killed 25,000 city residents. Captivating personal stories make this important part…
RAINBOW EUROPE MAP AND INDEX 2023 | These are the LGBTQIA+ friendly and LGBTQIA+ unfriendly countries in Europe
Trans and intersex rights at the forefront of positive change for LGBTQIA+ people in Europe, the 2023 Rainbow Map and Index by ILGA-Europe finds. Despite intense anti-LGBTQIA+ attacks in several countries, equality is still advancing across Europe.