Belgium’s national railway operator, NMBS / SNCB, will stop selling tickets on board its trains from 1 July 2026. The decision, NMBS / SNCB’s leadership argues, follows a sharp rise in aggression towards staff, with 2,602 incidents recorded in 2025 – an average of seven per day – up from 2,103 in 2024. Will the…
Tag: Iberia
RAIL BALTICA | Tallinn – Valga / Valka – Riga – Vilnius by train
August 2025. We’re travelling to the Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and more specifically their respective capitals Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius. Are they interconnected by rail? Yes, but not in the most straightforward or userfriendly way possible. The Rail Baltica project should remedy this. Unsurprisingly though, this megaproject faces political and budgetary hurdles. It…
NMBS / SNCB sees popularity increase of international train travel
Year after year, Belgian railway operator NMBS / SNCB is seeing growing interest in international train travel during the summer months. Since 2019, the number of bookings via NMBS / SNCB International has increased by more than 50 per cent, the operator says in a press release.
Madrid – Lisbon night train set to return in 2025 ahead of AVE
The governments of Spain and Portugal are advancing negotiations to reactivate the Lusitânia night train, which will reconnect capitals Madrid and Lisbon before the long-awaited AVE high-speed rail.
Spain – Andorra – Catalonia – Occitania – Andalusia 2023
In 2023 I ‘rediscovered’ the for Belgians traditional holiday destinations of France and Spain. And in France, I mostly stayed in what was traditionally more Latin or Iberian than the France which we associate with Paris, Bordeaux, Nice, Brittany, Normandy or the Champagne. In 2023, I explored areas with a more or less fiercely independent…
REVIEW | Restaurante Matiz, Málaga
Six days. Five overnight stays in five cities in Spain. Lunch in Paris. Stopover in Barcelona. Then Córdoba, Seville, Granada and Málaga. An Andalusia Whirlwind Tour where we visit the Mezquita and the Alhambra. We’re touring Andalusia in October 2023 to follow the trend of travelling to hot spots outside summer, as we did with…
ANDALUSIA | Seville Cathedral or Catedral de Santa María de la Sede de Sevilla
Six days. Five overnight stays in five cities in Spain. Lunch in Paris. Stopover in Barcelona. Then Córdoba, Seville, Granada and Málaga. An Andalusia Whirlwind Tour where we visit the Mezquita and the Alhambra. We’re touring Andalusia in October 2023 to follow the trend of travelling to hot spots outside summer, as we did with…
REVIEW | Feels Like Home (FLH) Restauradores Elegant Place, Lisbon apartment
Easter Holiday 2024. Danny and Sam visited Porto in February, I visited the capital, Lisbon, in April with Steve, Philippe and Nicolas. I had my free week during a school holiday and as the boys work in education, I made the best of it. We chose Portugal for its convenience and our hope for fair…
Visiting Gibraltar
Six days. Five overnight stays in five cities in Spain. Lunch in Paris. Stopover in Barcelona. Then Córdoba, Seville, Granada and Málaga. An Andalusia Whirlwind Tour where we visit the Mezquita and the Alhambra. We’re touring Andalusia in October 2023 to follow the trend of travelling to hot spots outside summer, as we did with…
Andorra la Vella & Escaldes–Engordany
September 2023. Oriol and I are flying to Toulouse for a road trip in Occitania and (French) Catalonia. We include the Principality of Andorra, which I can finally tick off the bucket list, and Llívia, Spain‘s exclave in France. Besides Toulouse we visit Mont-Louis, Villefranche-de-Conflent, Perpignan and Carcassonne.