BELGIUM – 20.07-22.07.2008
BRUSSELS
All around this country you’ll find an oppressive and annoying silent. Beside this, Belgium is a beautiful country and here I’ve seen for the first time a forest in the city. Yes, that’s right. In Brussels you have a forest.
In Romania the beers is revered but wait to see the Belgium, especially the Delirium Bar (address: Impasse De La Fidélité 4 A Brussels, 1000). Here you can have an incredible beer experience;… and ask for the menu: you’ll get a bushy book with 2004 kinds of beer (probably at least a couple hundred are no longer present in their cellar).
Manneken Pis it’s a small bronze fountain sculpture depicting a naked little boy urinating into the fountain’s basin. There are several legends behind this statue, one of them goes like this: In the 14th century; Brussels was under siege by a foreign power. The city had held their ground for quite some time. The attackers had thought of a plan to place explosive charges at the city walls. A little boy named Juliaanske from Brussels happened to be spying on them as they were preparing. He urinated on the burning fuse and thus saved the city.
BRUGES
This medieval city is absolutely astonishing. I came here after I’ve seen the „In Bruges” movie. You better see this place with your own eyes. Don’t miss the boat trip. If you ever get here and you love the quality chocolate go to The Chocolate Line store. Moreover everywhere in Belgium you’ll find sweets stores.
PARIS – 22.07 – 27.07 2008
Paris, sweet Paris. After all the waiting time finally I get to Paris. And I made the promise to this gorgeous city that i’ll come back. I hope… very soon. 🙂
I booked at Hôtel Résidence Foch (https://www.foch.com/). It is a 40-room 3-star hotel located in the Champs-Elysées area. The room was very charming and the personal very friendly. The breakfast was tasty and most important for internet addicted, you have wireless in the room free of charge.
For more usefull information about Paris (places to visit, what is worthing or not) visit https://www.travelingprofessor.com/
COTE D’AZUR 27.07-29.07.2008
NICE
To be onest, I was a little bit (a lot 😛 ) disappointed. We all know the Nice is the perl of Cote D’Azur. But all I’ve seen was dirty streets and nothing to enjoy the eyes. The only thing I was exulted to see was their Blue train, or something like that, a sort of „Sageata” that crosses the Nice.
I booked at Comte De Nice Hotel. And surprise: we knew this is a 3-start hotel but when we arrived we have the big revelation: Comte de Nice is a 2-star hotel 🙁 . After all, the breakfast was ok, the room clean but very hot inside, no AC, only one helpless ventilator. Instead the bathtub was awful.
MONACO-MONTE CARLO
Well… Monaco, yes… is another world. Not but that, is pretty saddening to be surrounded by so many rich people and Ferrari cars. You could pay 50 euros and go for a ride with a red Ferrari or pay 85 euros and drive the „wild beast”. Cristi didn’ had the driving license so we missed this part, we enjoyed walking on foot on F1 range.
CORSICA – 29.07-4.08.2008
The island of Napoleon Bonaparte and Cristofor Columb. This patch of ground (actually a big one) is very savage, half of it is natural reservation. Regarding the hotel’s services don’t make to much expectations because you’ll be…. exactly, disappointed 🙂 . We booked at Hotel Les Aloes, a 3-star hotel. The breafast is awful and is continental. For two persons it consist of: 2 white loafs, 1 doughnut, 1 croissant, cofee, tea, 2 butter cubes, jam and 2 small grasses of orange juice.
But you’ll forget about the hotel and the breakast when you’ll see the beauty and the wildness of this island.
The views are incredible. And the water is so … i don’t have words to describe. Just look to the pictures:
Corsica is mountainous and its highest point is Monte Cintu at 2710 metres. It has twenty other mountains of over two thousand metres and the average altitude is 560m. Corsica has the highest mountains and the most rivers of any Mediterranean island. It is no wonder that the island is often known as the Mountain in the Sea. All the main mountain massifs are within the Regional Park (Parc Naturel Régional de la Corse – www.parc-naturel-corse.com).
The biodiversity of Corsica – arising from its long isolation from the continental land mass – is the subject of a high degree of conservation, not least through the Regional Natural Park that covers 822 thousand acres (about a third of the island), an UNESCO World Heritage site (Fangu), 5 nature reserves including Scandola that is a World Natural Heritage site, 23 flora & fauna areas of special interest and the growing acreage (now 27 thousand acres) owned by the Conservatoire du Littoral, as well as a growing list of protected species.
Below you can see a picture with the Fangu (Fango) river. The road towards the river has beautiful panoramas. This road is considered, by many cyclists, as one of the most beautiful of Europe.
A must for visitors to Corsica who want to see (and smell) native Corsican plants in a park environment is the Parc de Saleccia near Ile Rousse; it’s full of Corsican specimens, that of course you can see in the wild, but here, they are more accessible and you can learn from the description available, or on guided tours.
