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Global Citizens

~ a blog for Tourists, Expats and Locals

Global Citizens

Category Archives: Belgium

Interesting and odd things about Belgium, as well as to do’s and places to go.

Bonjour!

25 Sunday Oct 2020

Posted by katti in Belgium, do & go

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

facemask, far west, far west of belgium, hiking in western flanders, mountainbikes, stiltewandeling, the Belgians are the bravest, the French are the nicest, Westouter, what to do when restaurants are closed

Nowadays, all you hear is you can’t do this, you can’t do that. This closes, that is forbidden. Everyone is just so negative.

But why always focus on the things you can’t do? Why not have a look at the million things we are still allowed to do? At least today :-)?

While zipping our Sunday morning coffee we discuss the possibilities. The weather forecast is horrid, but then who still believes that app on his phone? We were supposed to wake up with ‘rain tapping on your windows’, we have been up for a while, but we still haven’t seen or heard a drop.

We decide on going for a walk outside and chose the Far West as destination ; not so long ago I received a tip from a friend and I figure it’s time to explore it.

The Far West isn’t exactly an official region, it’s how I call it, because it’s about as far west as you can possibly go in this small country, and getting there takes us over an hour (100km).

We put on our waterproof walking shoes, take our raincoat -just in case-, a snack, pay a last visit to the bathroom (all restaurants and bars are closed), and we are ready to drive to Westouter, Heuvelland (‘Hill-land’).

The road is exceptionally quiet. It’s still early, the sky is gray, rain is predicted. Belgians rather stay at home.

When we arrive, church service has just started in the small town of Westouter. The church bells ring, the church door is open, the warm welcoming lights are on. The parking lot is full. (With 8 cars or so). Not a soul outside.

We grab our facemask, we leave our wallet (nothing’s open anyway) and we start to walk.

It’s all nature. Trails through or alongside fields, muddy tracks next to tiny rivers or streams, tracks through forests. A few paved walking paths, several wooden paths. It’s not for nothing that the area is called Heuvelland (hilly land), we walk up, we walk down again. It’s magnificent. It’s as if we are in another world. A people-free world.

While walking on a narrow muddy path, a guy on his mountainbike approaches fast. He cheerfully calls ‘bonjour’ ant tells us how many more muddy men are coming. We wait patiently, pushing ourselves just off the track, try not to get splashed with mud. One after the other passes by, yelling bonjour while focussing on the muddy track . One laughing ‘who has ordered all this mud?!’. They all speak French. They are like a bomb of positive energy and cheerfulness passing buy. They make us smile.

It seems like the mountain bikers have woken up. It seems we are in mountain bike land, even though there are signs everywhere that bikes are forbidden on some of these tracks. Every now and then we need to jump aside. We don’t mind.

The mud is everywhere, sometimes deep, sometimes slippery. I am like a little child. I like mud. But I walk carefully, as I don’t want to touch the mud with any other part of my body than my already muddy feet.

The trail continues. We pass by a small town called Zwartberg, Mont Noir, that seems alive. Maybe we can get a take away coffee. We put on our masks and make a detour.

Where are we? Is this Belgium or is this France? We look at the cars in the (only and) main street but can’t figure it out. To our surprise we see a bar open. It must be France. But the waiters speak the typical West Flemish accent. They explain that this side if the street is France (bars open), across the street is Belgium (bars closed). And we are lucky. We can pay with our phone.

The coffee tastes like heaven and gives us energy enough to continue our walk through the mud.

The sun comes out, and with that also the people. Families with kids, couples,… both French and flemish. The French all interrupt the conversation they are in to say ‘bonjour’ to us, some Flemish say ‘bonjour’, probably assuming we are nice French people. But most Flemish don’t say a thing, or give us a short answer when we address them. It’s so easy to see what nationality one is. It’s easy to see who is the friendliest.

13km later we are back at the car. We try to kick the mud off our boots, in order to keep the car relatively clean. We fail. We take the mud home while discussing the difference between the French and the Belgians. It never quite struck us before.

The Belgians might be the bravest, the French are, undoubtedly, the nicest.

Trail ‘stiltewandeling’ (walk of silence) in Westouter
You can also find the trail on routeyou (and probably other apps).
Autumn colours were only just starting, so hurry up! Put on your hiking boots and go for that walk!

Normal

04 Sunday Oct 2020

Posted by katti in Belgium, do & go

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Alex potter contratenor, Bach cantates, collegium vocale gent, festival van Vlaanderen gent, google translate, life in times of Covid-19, normal life, philippe Herreweghe

In the beginning, when this all started, some people said that wearing a face mask will become like wearing a seatbelt was decades ago : after a while it will become so normal that nobody talks about it anymore and everybody just wears it.

It couldn’t be more true! Even though I occasionally still forget putting it on, when I stand up from my seat in a restaurant for example, or when I leave a parking lot… but I easily stand corrected when I see ‘the others’ with masks staring at me.

So we grab our mask and are off to Ghent to see a classical music concert by Collegium Vocale. It’s my first concert in more than half a year. Not because there weren’t any, but more because I am always too late in buying tickets, and even this time it’s thanks to my friend that I am here : she always manages to get tickets everywhere.

We wait in line in front of the church, in little groups of 2 or 4, under an umbrella. After almost half a year of dry weather, the gods have decided to finally give us some rain. Nobody dares to complain. Rain was desperately needed and umbrellas do a good job.

The seats are numbered but we are brought inside by stewards on a first come first sit basis. Filling up the 2×2 chairs, with a safe 1m space between you and the next 2 chairs.

Philippe Herreweghe, the conductor, gives us some explanation of what is expected. We should read the lyrics on the page provided on our chair, next to the little bottle of disinfectant gel. Otherwise the concert will be ‘just a series of beautiful sounds’, he says.

The music starts. My barok German is a bit rusty, so I grab my phone and pass the text through google translate. Sin, Satan, ‘I disgust to live more so take me’, and other heavy and depressing words. So I close my eyes and shut of my brain, and let the ‘just great sounds’ enter my soul.

Whenever I hear Alex Potter sing, he gives me the shivers. With his divine voice he sounds as if he descended from heaven, so I’d rather forget he is now singing about hell. Sitting there in our 2×2 chairs, with face masks on, really feels like heaven and for now, sins do not bother me at all.

When it ends, after the applause dies down, we are again escorted outside into the rain, this time on a last come first leave basis.

We walk to a restaurant where we take a seat outside, after first moving the table and chairs around so we all sit under the sunroof that now protects us from the rain. The gas heaters keep us warm.

The food is delicious, as well as the wine and the beer, and we have a fun chat with our friends. Discussing all kinds of topics except corona, the new government ; even Trump isn’t mentioned! And then one says : ”Don’t you agree that everything feels pretty normal?”.

After just a short moment of silence, we all agree, he is right. However bad the news might be, no matter how much (some) people complain, no matter the economy and the numbers of infected, however gloomy some people are : life does feel pretty much like normal.

On this good note, without giving each other a goodbye hug, with our face masks on, we walk back to the car and drive home. We are ready for yet another normal weekend.

Festival van Vlaanderen, Collegium Vocale, Bach, cantate widerstehe doch der Sünde BWV54, cantate Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis BWV21 Sinfonia, cantate Vergnügte Ruh BWV170, sung by Alex Potter Contratenor. Sint Jacobskerk Ghent.

Visit my website if you want to read stories related to photography or if you just want to know more about me.

The 7 Seas

19 Saturday Sep 2020

Posted by katti in Belgium, do & go

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Brussels, capital of belgium, capital of europe, de Noordzee viswinkel, pentagon, vijfhoek, www.kattiborre.com

I have traveled the world and the 7 seas, but I don’t know my own country : I don’t know my own capital city. How bad is that?

Pretty bad I would say! I sometimes go there for a particular shop (the only Apple store in the country to name just one), to a particular restaurant or to meet up within local friends -who then guide us to their favourite restaurants. But that’s about it.

I am pretty embarrassed to admit this, I must say!

But thanks to Covid-19, Europe (and the world) changes into colour zones. Orange zones (test and quarantine advised), red zones (forbidden to go), and a rare amount of green zones (free travel), ánd the colour of a zone can easily switch from orange to red, which means you have to get tested and go into quarantine when you get back. So traveling becomes complicated. One has to be creative if he wants to get away.

view from the Jardin Rooftop bar

So here we are, being creative! We’re spending the weekend in Ste Catherine neighbourhood in our own capital city of Brussels. Less than an hour drive from my home. The car in the parking lot ; we have only our feet to move around town this weekend. We now behave like tourists in our own country. How cool is that?

Ste Catherine is a vibrant part of the city, the middle of the historical center, inside the ‘pentagon’ (inner city) of Brussels. Restaurants, bars, and terraces. Nicely crowded without being overwhelming (in these COVID times), people wear facemasks everywhere, as it is mandatory. But alive nevertheless, alive and kicking.

But not so much alive early in the morning. Before the stores open, Brussels is ours, and ours alone. We walk over the Grand Place, through the Galleries de Saint Hubert as is if we are the only people on the planet. Have a coffee here and there, only accompanied by some locals.

Bit by bit the city comes to life, and before we know it, it’s vibrant again. The terraces fill up. Moms with little kids, older couples getting together. No, or just a few tourists.

The virus is flaring up again, in the whole of Europe, in Belgium, but particularly in Brussels, so I am guessing people stay away.

Still, the area is multinational and multicultural. This is the capital of Europe anyway. I just love it! Different languages, different types of people, many different styles of clothing and hair do’s.

We have lunch at De Noordzee, a fast-food-like fish restaurant, the best place in town, or so we are told. Order at ‘the bar’, and wait at your high table until your name is called or rather shouted, like fish sellers do. It is delicious. The fish is served in a carton bowl. The whole place smells like authenticity.

I think I am liking Brussels, a lot. It is not Buenos Aires, it is not Paris or New York. It is small and walkable, but that is good in these Covid times.

Know your Masters

24 Sunday May 2020

Posted by katti in Belgium, do & go

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Beste fotograaf van Belgie, corona lock down, FOMU, M10 Monochrome, present, Stephan Vanfleteren, tentoonstelling Stephan Vanfleteren

Lockdown seems eternal. We are allowed to go out for some particular reasons, but none of it is much fun. Shopping in crowded cities with masks on, having to wait in line, being attentive not to come too close to others, wiping your hands with gel so often the skin bursts. That’s not really relaxing nor fun.

A guest in FOMU

Whatever we want to do we need to think ‘is that allowed?’. The rules are so complicated and there are so many exceptions and discussions that one would doubt just about anything. Can we take the bike in the car to drop us off somewhere far off (within Belgium, of course)? Can we go for a walk in the city when the stores are closed? Can we go for a ride with no destination without leaving the car? Etc. How on earth do you fill up your Sunday with something fun??

But then we found something!

Stephan Vanfleteren in FOMU

While zipping our coffee this morning we thought that maybe a visit to the museum (=allowed) might be a fun option. We need to make an online reservation and we imagine them all fully booked. But no! Just one look on the website showed us that we are not too late! The first museum I checked still had loads of availability, and a couple of clicks later we have the entry ticket on our phones. We’re off to Antwerp.

Stephan Vanfleteren FOMU

The roads are fuller then before, but still quite empty. So empty you can’t even rely on WAZE anymore. It’s a dark gloomy day, ideal for a visit to the museum.

We parked in front of the FOMU, where the exhibition of Stephan Vanfleteren has been extended, due to Corona. We have seen the exhibition already, last year. It was so popular that we could practically walk on the heads. Too crowded to read the names and info on the little tags next to the photographs. Those were the pre-corona days where tons of people could be packed in 1 room. Thinking about it now already makes me feel dizzy.

Stephan Vanfleteren FOMU

Now it was more than perfect. It was us, and maybe 4 or 6 other people, so we had all the time in the world to look at the work of one of the best Belgian photographers ever, time to enjoy, to reflect, to read, to think.

A museum visit we combined with a walk on the shores of the river, (probably not allowed), where in normal circumstances, the cold wind would have chased us into a bar to have a hot chocolate or a coffee. But not today. The new normal send us back to our car to drive home and have our drink there.

One of my favorite works… one you have to see live!

But still, it was great. It was a welcome diversion of what seems to be our new life -for now-. Enjoy our master! This a perfect to do tip!

If you haven’t seen the exhibition yet, you still have time, but now the time is perfect! Buy your tickets here; Extended until September 13. Waalse Kaai 47 in Antwerpen.

The art of keeping busy

20 Monday Apr 2020

Posted by katti in Belgium, blog

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Tags

boredom, covid-19, lock down, lock down in belgium, look at the bright side, make the best of it, reset button, to do lists

What happens when all of a sudden you can no longer do what you are used to, what you are expected to, what you have to? Especially when this ‘all of a sudden’ really didn’t give you time to adapt or prepare!

That’s exactly how it went in Argentina. Now you were in one place and the next you had 4 hours get ready before the country went into total (total!) lockdown.

In Belgium things didn’t move this fast, thanks to the indecisiveness of our government, and the rules aren’t that strict, but still, in just a few days time many, not all, but a vast majority of people, was either working from home or put on technical unemployment, and all of sudden you find yourself at home, day in, day out, together with your closest family.

Day in, day out.

After 2 weeks in complete boredom in Argentina, where we were stuck in the house and couldn’t go out for walks nor to the food stores, where internet through our phones was so bad that it didn’t even allow video calls, where we couldn’t buy anything online to keep us busy, with no TV and no movies we could download, Belgium lock down seemed a treat to us. There is no place like home, where your family is, where your computer is, where work is, where you can find a zillion things to do. Where even spring cleaning seemed like fun!

Even though we work form home, there is still a lot of time to enjoy the situation, as nobody is stuck in traffic, no appointments, no meetings where we must go to. Everything is done from our home.

Time to eat all together -just the family of course-, to go for a walk in streets where for a change cars have been replaced by pedestrians and bikers -all at a safe distance-. There is no longer a rush hour, nobody rushes as even a visit to the supermarket takes time, and there is nothing to do at home anyway. No deadlines to be reached. The speed button of the whole world has been turned down. Life has become slow. Slower than during holidays even, where we want to see things, visit things, do things.

It’s time to reflect. Were we living in the right way? Was that speed necessary? Were these never ending long to do lists really needed? It’s now time to make a different to do list, of fun things that we never thought of because we didn’t have the time anyway. No time to make the list, no time to think of what we would really want to do, and not time to do those things either. Things for now, and for when life goes back to normal.

But, do we want life to become normal again? Do we want to go back to what it was?

It’s as if the reset button has been pushed, and we have to fill in the void. It’s challenging but at the same time it’s fun.

Welcome to a New World

30 Monday Mar 2020

Posted by katti in Argentina (home), Belgium, blog

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

air france repatatriation, charles de gaulle, corona crisis, eze, ezeiza, getting home from lock down argentina, going home, new world, world crisis

This is totally and utterly surreal. When we left our country less than 1 month ago on this photographic trip to Buenos Aires, the world was still how we knew it, the world I grew up in. There had been many changes over the years, but all those changes came slowly and we chose to be part of it (or not). The internet, the cell phone, the smart phone, video calls…. They came slow, and now we can’t imagine how our life was before these inventions.

In just a few weeks time that world has changed. In just a few days time, Argentina went from ‘corona is far away’ to a total lock down, with rules much stricter than even in Italy, where they count up to 1000 dead a day. In Argentina they had (yesterday) a total of 17 dead, over just less than a month.

We realised even more that the world has changed when we got into the airport, after being stopped and checked by the police several times. An airport that was dead and closed. The international airport of Buenos Aires isn’t very big -the national airport is a lot bigger-, and the 500 people of our plane didn’t give the impression it was totally empty, as everyone was keeping a distance. But the announcements before boarding, with detailed instructions on how to behave, the demanding tone of the voice, and especially the people complying without complaining, was surreal.

We got on a ‘special plane’, this was a repatriation plane, and the crew volunteered to pick us up. They got a full round of applause even before we took off! The food was limited, and everything was brought in one round. Aperitif, food and coffee, just to limit the contact between crew and passengers. We were not allowed to move around the plane except when necessary.

Even Paris seemed asleep. Our plane was the only one in that terminal. There were only French and other Europeans in the plane so the pasport controls were fast and we were out of the airport in no time. Nicely keeping the 1,5m distance, as voices through the speakers kept on repeating.

Getting to Belgium was another problem to tackle, as the French-Belgian borders are closed, and to move around in France you need special documents, just like in Argentina. There are hardly any trains riding. Our TGV was canceled.

We were lucky to have our son pick us up : family members are allowed to pick each other up. Armed with a whole file, including copies of our passports, our flight tickets, proof of residence, proof of relationship, he set off to Paris.

But just we had read on the embassy website, the police is tolerant for Belgians picking up relatives in Charles de Gaulle airport, and our pick up seemed a piece of cake. Only the Belgian police at the border wanted to know where we came from and wanted to see proof of relationship.

The Belgian roads (in contrast to the French and Argentine) are still rather busy, at least during the day, nevertheless the trip home was fast.

Finally home we have a zillion things to do. What a difference to the complete boredom in Argentina! We are now in quarantine, the 3 of us ; for 2 weeks we are dependent on the goodwill of my sister in law and my nephew to do the shopping. We will have to make up for that later, once life turns back to normal.

When will that be? Will the old normal ever come back? What will the new normal look like? Or is this new normal? We will just have to wait and see about that!

TDF (also known as Tour de France)

06 Saturday Jul 2019

Posted by katti in Belgium, blog

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11 grand tours, 500000 fans, amount of people watching the tour, bike mania, brussels capital of belgium, eddy merckx, mid life crisis, mont ventoux, TDF, tour de france, worldcup

Disliking bike races in the way that I do, is probably a sign that I am no real Belgian. (I should have a serious talk with my mother about this.)

Much worse then what I called ‘Football Mania’ when I was living in Argentina, is this “Bike Mania” here in Belgium.

What a day this was indeed! The photographer in me thinks that maybe I should have gone to Brussels today, together with the 500.000 fans that have been counted to be present at the big start , the “grand départ”, of the Tour de France. Just like I went to the Grand Place last year to shoot the Red Devils who had made it to the world cup semi finals. But then again, no!

You read me well! The Tour de France, which literally translates into ‘tour of France’, in case you didn’t get that, the tour (race) on bicycles (bikes) around France has taken off in Brussels this year. For those people that are not so good at geography : Brussels, the Capital of Belgium, which, as far as I know, is still an independent country and certainly no part of France.

Every other minute some kind of newsflash vibrates on my watch. News alerts from both newspapers and tv stations alike, about the amount of people present, how the city of Brussels had become totally inaccessible, tips on how to get there if you happen to be desperate, an article on why it is important that it started in Brussels, an article on how it is the most polluting event on the world (this in an era of global climate awareness 🤔) and a couple of dozen other newsflashes that I didn’t even read. On the radio music and normal shows have been canceled for constant live covering. Even my husband -who wouldn’t even watch the world cup if it weren’t for me- sits next me watching the tour, live on his phone ;”They are sprinting” he tells me, apologetically.

It will not be missed, it can not be ignored. The tour 2019 is on again. I remember my astonishment when I was living in argentina, where they cover the complete race live on TV, in many -if not all- coffee shops and restaurants. At the time I thought that was insane, and we even googled the amount of people watching the tour in comparison to the -in my opinion- much more fun to watch and follow World Cup.

Well, if you google it you find out we were not the only one to wonder, a lot has been written about that. 3,3 Billion people seem to watch the tour, and a mere 3,5 billion watch the World Cup.

The amount of 3,3 billion viewers sounds insane, especially if you know there are only 11,5 million Belgians. Who else is watching?

In Belgium biking is big. We are supposed to have many good bikers, we have a biking tradition. Every Belgian man in his midlife crisis feels the need to bike up that “Mont Ventoux” in France (much better than getting a much young mistress I would say). And not to be forgotten : the best biker of all times was our own (Belgian) Eddy Merckx. He won the TDF 5 times (actually he won 11 “grand tours” to name but a few of his victories, but his list of accomplishments is too long to copy here), and the first time he did so was 50 years ago, so it’s in honour of this half god as we Belgians see him, that the tour started in our capital this year. 3,3 billion people have seen it. He deserved it.

The TDF will be omnipresent for the next 3 weeks.

I need some diversion. Maybe I can go biking somewhere? 😄 Any ideas?

PS photo was taken last year during the homecoming of our football team the red devils.

The Sorrow of Belgium

20 Thursday Jun 2019

Posted by katti in Belgium, blog

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belfort, belfry, code oranje, cool guy, Flemish, Gent, het verdriet van belgie, johan opdebeek, languageproblems, podcast clara, stormchaser, the sorrow of belgium, thunderstorms, Walloons

The best thing about summer temperatures is that they are generally followed by thunderstorms. And that’s exactly my favourite kind of weather. As much as Belgians fear temperatures above 25 degrees, they also fear thunderstorms. The country even gets ‘codes’ when there might be thunderstorms coming. Code yellow, code orange, code red… depending on how ‘dangerous’ the coming storms might be.

Yesterday was code orange so I got my gear out and drove to Gent. I have been wanting to go up the belfry for a while now so I thought this was the right time.

This 90 meter high watchtower dating from the 14th century is a great place to see thunderstorms coming. It’s a not very comfortable narrow passageway, constantly ‘invaded’ by tourists, but nevertheless a great photographic spot.

Belfry

So I was waiting for the storm (that didn’t really come), watching the clouds, watching the tourists passing me. Brits, Americans, Dutch, Scandinavians, Germans, a lot of Spanish speaking and many many Chinese. The Chinese, probably the most avid selfie-takers.

Then a group of French speaking ‘cool guys’ came up. You know the type 16-something, impeccably dressed, loud, showing off… This one guy saw me and automatically said “Bonjour madame!”. I answer back in French and he said, startled, “Mais vous parlez français!”, you speak French! “Of course!” I told him, “I am Belgian!”. ‘Oh, where are you from then?’, he asked. Obviously expecting me to name some south Belgian city as he seemed genuinely surprised when he found out I’m Flemish. Without thinking I ask him the rhetorical question, “but you can speak Flemish, can’t you?” and to my surprise his answer was “oh no! I don’t!” And added an apologetic “but I am from Brussels”, as if to say ‘they don’t speak Flemish there’.

By then the group had moved on and our conversation ended as rapidly as it had started. I was a bit annoyed. Don’t they learn Flemish anymore in our bilingual Belgian capital? Are we (Flemish) the only ones who remember that Brussels is -officially- bilingual? Do they really expect us to speak French, all the time?

The usual Flemish thoughts.

I had nothing on my mind except thinking, as the clouds weren’t really coming, so started thinking about that particular delicate Belgian issue : 2 different people, the French speaking Walloons in the south and the Flemish speaking in the north, ‘stuck’ together in a country called Belgium. Both languages equal, theoretically, but practically it’s always the Flemish that must adapt to the French. Or so it feels to us.

As far as I remember it has always been an issue. Language was one of the reasons Belgium came to exist, it was an important issue in the desire for independency. Back then it was the French speaking elite who were afraid they would lose power to the Flemish ‘people’. It took the Flemish a long time to become ‘equal’ as a language, with the university of Leuven (Flemish town) changing from French to Flemish only in 1968!

When I was in school French was one of the main subjects, next to Maths and Flemish, and generally Flemish was taught in the Walloon schools. Nowadays English is more and more taking the place of Flemish/French as a second language in schools on both sides of the language border.

Thus making the language tensions no longer an issue. There are no longer losers in the battle between Flemish and Walloons on what language they will speak to each other. They just speak English. That’s what I usually do anyway.

So Mr. Cool Guy’s lack of knowledge of my native language is forgiven. -I do hope he speaks English though- ;-).

This is as bad as the clouds got …

“Verdriet van Belgie”, the sorrow of Belgium, a podcast on the Belgian independence by Johan Opdebeek. Only in Flemish I am afraid. Highly recommended.

The language battle I mention here is only in unofficial matters. In political matters and official matters what language is spoken is subject to many strict rules. The prime minister for example will give all speeches half in Flemish half in French.

The panorama photo is taken with my cell phone. The other photos with my camera. check out http://www.kattiborre.com for more of my work.

The experience is real!

13 Thursday Jun 2019

Posted by katti in Belgium

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airbnb experience, Gent, Ghent, historicalgent, historicalghent, medeavalgent, photographic tour in gent, photographictour, photographictourghent, photoimmersiongent, phototour

As I mentioned in my previous post, should one embrace tourism or try to stop it?

Well, I guess what you will read here is kind of my answer to it!

You all know Gent, right? Ghent, Gand, Gante, or whatever you call it in your language?

It is a beautiful medeaval city, a lot (yes, a lot!) more beautiful than Brugge (Bruges, Brujas), believe me! It’s about half an hour drive from Brussels, and easily reachable by train, and when you are visiting Belgium, it is a place not to be missed. Small but vibrant, historical and modern. Good restaurants and bars. There are a thousand reasons to go to Gent, but now there is a new one :

playing with a fish eye lens

From now on you can book me for an “Airbnb experience” on a photographic tour through Gent!

As Airbnb states it so beautifully, Airbnb Experiences are “one of kind activities hosted by locals”. In this I am the local, using my love for the city and my photographic skills to assist the tourist, expat and local!

As a photographer I will guide you through the beautiful medeaval city of Gent, showing you a variety of photographic spots, and assisting you with your camera when needed.

traditional view

It will be an exceptional experience in an exceptional town where the camera and taking great pictures is the main goal. If that is not what you look for then this is not the right experience for you!

Apart from a camera all you will need are good walking shoes -we do everything on foot- !

So check it out! Gent, photografic tour, me, that’s the right combination!

Try me! Book me! Spread the news!! The experience is real!

Be sure to check my website and to follow the news regarding my photographic work

Back in the game…?

13 Thursday Jun 2019

Posted by katti in Belgium, blog, General

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Belgium, espat, grand hotel europa, ilia Leonard pfeiffer, local, mass tourism, tourist

Has this blog become dormant? Maybe it looks like it, but well, it isn’t anymore! We are now 3 years further in the 21st century and here I am again. A tourist, no longer an expat and always a local. Yes guys, I guess I have officially moved out of Argentina!

For years I have been wondering, together with my readers, why I had moved to that beautiful country in the Southern Hemisphere, and being back in Europe I truly wonder why I didn’t stay there.

But well, I didn’t. Life changes.

A blog for tourists, expats and locals. Doesn’t that sound exciting? Who of the 3 are you? Where do you live? Where are you from? Where are you going to? Don’t we all wonder about that? Aren’t we all moving from and towards something (more or less) interesting?

I will now start to focus on life here in Europe. That continent more or less the same size of the USA, but with 740 million people living in 44 different countries and speaking 24 different languages. Where cultural differences are significant and which makes it all just more interesting. A continent that is so rich in history that it’s considered an open air museum to the rest of the world.

I will start exploring, together with you ! I have been away for a significant time (8 years) so this might become an interesting ride!

Like, tourism. Did you know that in 2018 Europe received 713 million international tourists, that’s about half of all the tourists in the world!? (source UNWTO)

Should we embrace tourism? Or try to stop it? If it weren’t for Ilja Leonard Pfeiffer ‘s book “Grand Hotel Europa”, I wouldn’t have thought much about it. Now I do. Think about it.

Check out my next post to find how I cooperate in tourism, and a lot lot more!

PS also check out my news section in my website to and follow what I do in relation to my work as a photographer

PS foto : Gent, Belgium, taken with my fish eye lens.

Pa

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