Brussels Stories

These were constructed around town in the final months of our time in Brussels. They are electric bikes, that you pay for by time, a lot like paying for parking. (another observer) You pick one up where-ever you want and drop it where-ever you want. Seems like a great idea.





After a year in Brussels: what we will miss, and not miss

We will miss Trappist beer,
Owen looks forward to Macdonalds milkshakes

We will miss Belgian fries
We should be eating less fries anyways

We will misss our 4m high apartment ceilings
We will miss alot of Brussels architecture

We will miss the preference granted to pedesrians and cyclists in the streets
We will enjoy the availaility of nature, and mountain bike trails ;)

Mmmm, good fresh baguettes.....
Mmmm, Starbucks.

The train system.
Having a car.

And so on.........

As promised, our holiday photos of Herceg Novi and surrounding area. The first half of the holiday were were joined by friends from Belgrade, Darko, Jelena and their baby Jana. The second week in was just the two of us. First here are a couple pictures fom Herceg Novi:







From the town to the water......... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .........from the water to the town.


We arrived on the same day as a regatta.








Me and our friends Darko, Jelena and the back of baby Jana's head.








Racing another tourist boat back to Herceg Novi at the end of the day.







We made a few day trips, including Budva:

The old town in the background on the right, a nice swimming beach is on the left.


A court yard in the old town. This square happened to have an Irish pub too. One thing you can count on any where you go (as far as we can tell) the Irish pub is the only thing you can count on.






An island in the bay.








Reading chair with a heck of a view, and











Old lady bathing suits, not on old ladies.









Here we are travelling to the bay that hosts Zanjice beach*, Fortress Arza**, and Blue Caves***. This required a 35 minute boat trip out of the mouth of the bay into the open Adriatic. A second short boat trip was required to get to the blue caves.






*








**
We were driven in, then we jumped over board for a swim.







***
Marching to Fortress Arza for inspection.










Kotor, and Kotor Bay:










The fort from the town (far left), and some old steppe pasture land built by the Romans (left).





















A couple pictures of the fort (above), starting from the moat at the bottom going to the flag at the top. The climb up and back took a couple hours at a Leisurely pace. There were several monuments to view on the way up. This fort has been in almost continual use since its construction began many hundreds of years ago. The Montenegran flag marks the top.

and Dubrovnic, Croatia:
















The view of the old town from the non-tourist part of the old town.











The buildings were very nice and there was some very interesting asrcitecture. But in the tourist part of the old town, the building s were identical and lined up in well planned rows. It was like a 1400's suburbia.

We have spent some time doing nothing. Our days have lacked some direction. But we have now made a trip to Dubrovnic, Croatia. We made this trip to see the huge stari grad and it was only a 1 hour drive from Herceg novi. Since Dubrovnik we have made our way back to Brussels.

Here is a sampling of the holiday photos we took while in Montenegro, I will be posting our own photos later.








While in Brussels we are staying/have stayed with our friends Brooke and Stefan for a few days, frantically selling off some belongings to make room for the trip to Canada and packing what we have not sold off.

We will both be in transit for one to two weeks in which time we will spend some time at "home" and looking for a new place to live in Ottawa. This means that this site of stories from Brussels will be coming to a close soon........ after a posting of (1) more holiday pictures, and (2) a summary of the year amongst the French and Flemish. This site will not go anywhere, it will just be retired and left on the web forever. I am sure we will come up with a reason to start a new one soon, Ottawa, we hear, is a nice place.

305, the number of stairs from our place to the beach in Herceg Novi (the town). The town is on a hill slope so you can only go anywhere by climbing stairs, and we are staying way up the hill. Will post pics when I get a chance, trying to otherwise stay away from the computer. (I have almost filled my 512Mb memory card in my camera... so I will have plenty)

So, we flew into Tivat. The weather has been better than we could have hoped. The valley we are in reminds me of Panorama (Resort), but with not such distinct peaks (since I started writing this, I have seen some majestic peaks, so I take that back). I am not enjoying the taste of seawater, but you can see the sea-bottom so I bought a cheap snorkel and goggles. The roof of the castle Forte Mare has a screen they play movies on nightly (we watched DaVinci Code). Kiwi and grape vines grow over all the place, if I liked either I would not go hungry. We have made several day trips by boat, bus, and car. These include: Zanjice beach, a hike to Fortress Arza, boating in the blue caves, Budva, and Kotor.

Budva and Kotor both have very nice "stari grad" (old town):
The stari grad in Budva is really nice with very narrow streets that all lead to something tasty. The drive to Budva avoids the Boka Kotorska (Gulf of Kotor - image) with a ferry at its mouth for a 1.5 hour bus ride along the coast.
The trip to Kotor skirts the Boka Kotoska for almost the Gulf's entirty. Includes a pass through Perast, tiny, quiet and hosts two island Christian churches - one Othodox and the other Catholic. Kotor is another town with a very nice old town within ramparts and includes a wall that zig zags its way up the mountain to monestaries. Each piece of this path was built by each new conqueror of the town (built actually by prisoners - they are so useful).

Coming up is a day long boat tour. Our tans are coming along (I still think I am darker) and we giving into our appetites waaaay too easily.... I am NOT in an internet cafe in an ice cream shop *-) . A couple more days and it is back to Brussels for i. a final holiday update and ii. a couple days to wrap up the Brussels experience.

It is time to pack up our tings and store them away while we go get some R and R. We will be back in Brussels for a couple days mid September then make the final move back to Canada (Ottawa).
(Weather in Tivat)
Later.