Vacation

This second blog post is about our discovery of Germany, especially Siegburg, Köln and Düsseldorf.

On the 1st of June, we left Brussels in the cold morning and took an ICE train (which is the German variant of the French TGV). We arrived at Siegburg at 10:45 where Jyotsna, Christina’s best friend, and her husband Dirk welcomed us warmly. Together, after a tasty and copious brunch, we visited the beautiful town of Siegburg, which is near Bonn. We climbed to the Michaelsberg Abbey where Jyotsna and Dirk had got married some twenty years ago. The view was fantastic. We then went to their home where we met their two daughters, Nandita and Johanna.

In the evening, we headed to Köln which is about 35 km from Siegburg. There, we had some Kölsch beer in a Pfaffen brewery. Then, we visited Kölner Dom, a majestic cathedral which is the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe. We had dinner in a traditional German restaurant called Früh. We loved the German food as well as the beer.

The next day, we set for Drachenfels hill. On the way to the top of the hill, we stopped by Drachenfels Castle whose interior was impressive. At the very top, the scenery was magnificent and called for some drinks, including Aperol Spritz and ice-cold beers. We took a mountain cable car to get back down and returned to Siegburg. There, we had a wonderful barbecue and sampled some fantastic drinks.

On 3rd June, we spent the whole day with Dirk, Jyotsna, Nandita and Johanna visiting the Kommern Open Air Museum. According to Wikipedia, it is one of the largest open air museums in Europe, covering an area of over 95 hectares and displaying around 67 historic buildings from the Prussian Rhine Province. Dirk was our guide and explained from which parts of Germany the various buildings originally came from. We returned to Siegburg around 20:00, just in time to watch the DFB-Pokal German football cup final between RB Leipzig and Eintracht Frankfurt. At night, we ate a delicious Mauritian meal courtesy of Jyotsna.

The 4th of June started calmly. We took some bicycles, one of them being an e-bike, and rode into the woods. We enjoyed the view onto a beautiful lake. At 16:00, we had an early dinner so that we could all leave for Düsseldorf at 17:30. We reached the Merkur Spiel-Arena at 19:00 for our first ever Depeche Mode live concert. We met Sandra, a good friend of Jyotsna and Dirk there.

I have been a fan of Depeche Mode for 38 years, since 1985, and, to be able to see Dave Gahan and Martin Gore perform live was one of essential item on my bucket list. Christina discovered Depeche Mode when we met in Réunion in 1994 and has also been a fan since. And, of course, Anya and Kyan were born into fandom. The concert started around 19:30 with Young Fathers, a Scottish band, as support act. Depeche Mode started at 21:00 and performed for two hours. We all loved the concert and the performance was great. At the end of the show, I told Christina that I felt like watching old friends perform. She agreed. We left Düsseldorf quite late in heavy traffic and reached Siegburg around 1:30 in the morning.

Big thanks to Dirk, Jyotsna, Nandita and Johanna for having welcomed us in their home and made us discover how beautiful Germany is.

We would leave for the Netherlands the next day.

The last time we visited Europe was in 2015 for my sister’s wedding. After eight years, Kyan, Christina and I went back for a long trip to Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and, finally, France, where Anya was waiting for us.

During the three weeks we were there, we took thousands of photos with my trusty Canon EOS 6D and a nifty-fifty and our mobile phones. After editing, we retained 2405 of them. I brought my Macbook Air with me during the trip and spent around one hour every night editing the photos taken during the day. This worked really well, especially given that I was already quite proficient with the DxO suite of photo editing software.

This first blog post is about our discovery of Belgium, especially Brussels and Kraainem.

On Saturday 27 May, we dropped our dog, Kiki, in a kennel where she would stay for the next three weeks. We took an Air Belgium flight at 20:20 and we were quite happy with the service and food. In fact, we felt that the cabin crew went an extra mile as they were very nice to everyone on board. The leg space on the Airbus A330 Neo was good and we managed to sleep a bit.

We landed in Brussels the next day at 6:30. My cousin, Kevin, came to fetch us at the airport and we drove to his place in Kraainem. While having breakfast, my other cousin, Dhya, and her husband, Alex, from Aniane near Montpellier, woke up and joined us. The kids woke up shortly afterwards and we all headed for Technopolis, an interesting science center for both children and adults. As expected, Mara, Lea, Kilian and Liam tried everything. We all had a great time. In the evening, Kevin had organised an excellent barbecue with friends, some of whom we had already met in the past.

The next day, we all headed towards the Brussels city centre where we met Thishaan, another cousin. We visited the Parc du Cinquantenaire, the Grand Place, St Michael Cathedral, the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert and the Town Hall. Brussels is a beautiful city, very refined and clean. According to Kevin, we were luckly to have gorgeous weather as it had been raining before. We then headed to Delirium Café to sample some of their famous beers. The café holds the Guiness World Record for the number of different beers it offers for purchase, more than 2000. After that, we went to see the (tiny) Manneken Pis and ate some delicacies and Belgian chips. The evening ended with a superb dinner masterfully prepared by Kevin and drinks…

On Tuesday morning, Thishaan, Dhya, Alex and the boys left. Kyan, Christina and I took the metro to visit the Musée des Instruments de Musique in Brussels. The museum is in an historical building and holds 1200 different musical instruments over four floors. We had a great time there reading and listening to myriad of instruments from different eras and cultures (with an emphasis on European instruments). After the visit, we walked through the Parc de Bruxelles which contains cool sculptures of Le Chat by Geluck. In the evening, we celebrated Roxana’s birthday at The New Inn. The food was superb.

On our fourth day in Brussels, after having some Chinese food for lunch, we visited the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium where there was a special exhibition dedicated to René Magritte. We spent a long time there, really enjoying the art. After Magritte, we went to see the Dutch School paintings and other artwork. As usual, the dinner prepared by Kevin was fantastic. He is really a fine gourmet. And I have to admit that, since visiting Belgium, I have developed a taste for full bodied golden Belgian ale like the Affligem.

Big thanks to Kevin for hosting us and for taking excellent care of us.

We headed towards Germany the following day.

3-4 May 2018: Arriving in Athens

We have traveled quite a lot but we didn’t expect to visit Greece and Turkey this year. It so happened that Christina got an opportunity to conduct a class in Panteion University in Athens on an Erasmus exchange programme and I decided to accompany her. We went to a travel agent who advised us to take a direct Turkish Airline flight to Istanbul then transit to Athens. Naturally, we decided, on our way back, to stay a few days in Istanbul too.

We left Mauritius on 3 May and arrived at the Athens International Airport at around 10:00 in the morning on the next day. We took the metro to arrive in the center of Athens, Syntagma Square, about 40 minutes later. We reached our hotel, Hotel Nefeli, at 11:00 where we left our luggage to go out for lunch. We went to Cafe Antonis where we had our first taste of Greek Souvlaki, small pieces of meat grilled on a skewer served with pita bread, french fries and dips. We returned to the hotel to sleep a bit.

In the evening, we went to a tiny restaurant called Aspro Alogo where Christina had a moussaka and I had yet another but bigger souvlaki. We also had our first taste of Greek beer, Vergina, and it was good. At the end, the very friendly owner offered us, courtesy of the house: desert, Mastika liqueur, juice and bottles of water! I wonder when I’ll witness something similar here in Mauritius…

After dinner, we took the metro to Acropolis station (and, in retrospect, we could have walked) to look at the illuminated Parthenon at night. We also saw a number of other architectural masterpieces. On our way back to our hotel, we kept reflecting on how a common history helps in creating an identity and a cohesive society. Athenians are proud of their ancient history.

5 May 2018: The Acropolis and the Parthenon

6 May 2018: The island of Aegina

7 May 2018: Walking in Athens

8 May 2018: Discovering Panteion University

9 May 2018: Exploring Athens

10 May 2018: Leaving Athens and arriving in Istanbul

11 May 2018: Topkapi Palace and Hagia Sophia museums

12 May 2018: The Grand Bazaar and Forum Istanbul

13 May 2018: Cruise on the Bosphorus

14-15 May 2018: Leaving Istanbul and back to Mauritius

Istanbul was a marvel too. There were so many beautiful places to visit, really excellent food and we loved the energy there during the day: people were always on the move. But, as soon as night fell and the muezzin called for prayer, the atmosphere and the colours changed completely. We’ll definitely go back to Istanbul (and Athens too) another time.

Until then, we’ll cherish all the memories we have gathered.