ROMANIA – A scenic six hour train journey from Timișoara – including a change in Arad, which I considered visiting as well – took me the 330 kilometers to my next destination, Sibiu, which I liked immediately on arrival, at about eight in the evening (I’m not showing these photos in the order I took…
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ROMANIA – Situated on the plain near the borders with Hungary and Serbia, Timișoara – where I arrived at the airport and spent two nights – is a university town of 320,000. It is called Temesvar in Hungarian, Timisvar in Serbian, and a variation on the theme in various other languages. Pictures made on 2017-07-16….
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BELGIUM – One Sunday, when it was exeptionally nice weather, I decided to cross one more town from my list of Belgian towns I haven’t visited yet: Borgloon. To do this, I cycled north along the N20 from Liège to Tongeren, where I turned west on to the N79 to Sint-Truiden. I didn’t make many…
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BELGIUM – A day trip to Sint-Truiden (FR: Saint-Trond), a town of approximately 20,000 in Belgian Limburg. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised, and that I liked it most of the towns in the region I have visited so far (Aarschot, Tienen, Hoegaarden, Tongeren, Maaseik and Hasselt, all of which I liked…
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GERMANY / LUXEMBOURG – A friend of mine was at a small festival on a campsite in the German Saarland for a weekend in May 2017, and I decided to go there by bike and spend the night. Day 1, 2017-05-26 I took a train to Luxembourg City, and from there headed mostly downhill to…
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GERMANY / POLAND – Most people have heard of Frankfurt am Main, an international center of finance, industry and transport. But there is another Frankfurt, which, even though no one has heard of it, is even more international by virtue of it being in two countries. I’m talking about Frankfurt an der Oder, which is…
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GERMANY – While on holiday in Berlin in December 2015, I borrowed my friends bike and started to explore the part of the former DDR (the former communist East Germany, for those of you who don’t know) just outside the city, starting in Brandenburg an der Havel. It was an interesting experience, due to both…
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GERMANY / THE NETHERLANDS – In the southern province of Limburg, on a narrow strip of land between the Meuse river and German border, lies the part of the Netherlands that somehow feels the least Dutch. I don’t know this region very well, and have gathered the photos of two of my rare visits to…
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BELGIUM/FRANCE – What to do on new year’s day? Party until 11 in the morning and sleep for the rest of the day? Visit family and friends? Go for a walk? Or why not go for a 1300 kilometer drive, along as few as possible motorways, and include as many as possible pointless detours? My…
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BELGIUM – Having explored the south-western suburbs of Liège in the last post, I will take you on an almost circular tour of the north-western ones in this post, starting about a kilometer from where we left off.
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BELGIUM – Situated in the steep-sided valley of the Meuse river, the city of Liège lies at the meeting points of several distinct regions. To the north and west, the craggy landscape surrounding the valley merges with the plateau of the Hesbaye, an empty agricultural region of more gradual hills. The extensive suburbs of Liège…
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BELGIUM – I have long found the region of eastern Belgium just south of the Dutch border, and just west of the German border, to be particularly interesting. So close to the Netherlands, yet so different, this empty land of hills and old villages seems like time stood still, and feels strangely mysterious to me….
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BELGIUM – When I worked as a freelance language teacher in Liège, I sometimes taught adolescents in the village of Dalhem. As it was a good 17 kilometers uphill from my house, I would often go there by bus, and back using my folding bike (which was mostly down hill of course). I made pictures…
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ITALY – Whereas nearby Milan is know for fashion and finance, its neighbour to the east, Turin (IT: Torino), is known as a hard-working industrial city. It is most notably the home of car manufacturer Fiat, and one of the most important economic centers of the country. But it is also much more than that,…
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PORTUGAL – The capital of Portugal is a magnificent city. But having visited it after Portugal’s even more spectacular second city, Porto, I found it much more ordinary and less exotic. I would probably have made many more pictures of Lisbon if I had visited it first. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it,…
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