Ghent

Truth is, no one really knows how to spell Ghent, I saw Ghent, Ghant, Gent, Gand, Gante and a few others.  Because of this, I was never sure if I was saying the name of the city correctly, but I was not too concerned about that because no one seem to pronounce it in a consistent way.

 Transportation between the city center and main train station is good, but at my first try I took the wrong tram and ended up outside the area I wanted to be.  I had to hop off the tram and walk about 20 minutes back to the city center.

 There are a few castles in the city, this one is most near the city center, it's called the Gravensteen Castle.

 View from the top of the castle looks like a postcard, but it's lots of stairs to get up here.

 Looking down on the Infokantoor tourism center, again looks like a postcard.

 Couple of medieval flags on the roof of the castle.

 The interior of the castle is amazing too, very well preserved.

 If we had old-school castles in the US this would not be allowed.  The walking path around the inside wall of the had a wall on one side and a drop on the other.  US would need some sort of rail around that walking path.

 The center area of Ghent is full of churches, many under renovation.

 This river runs though central Ghent, looking north.

 So when in Belgium you must try Belgium waffles.

 The tour guide in Brussels explained that the key to good waffles is that they cost less than 4 euro's and is made from balls of dough that you see just before they are placed in the waffle iron.

 I did not see balls of dough until I got to Ghent and I confirmed that these are great.  I got a plane waffle, you can also get a tourist waffle that has almost everything imaginable on top of it.  I was not able to take a photo of the finished waffle, I was distracted.

 Another treat unique to Ghent is Cuberdon.  At first I thought these little purple things were Japanese style sweet potato and when I got a bag of them I expected that.

 But it turns out it raspberry flavored gum arabic.  A little surprised at first but very good, I ate a whole bag in about 10 minutes.

 Ghent Sint-Pieters Station, about 1 hour by rail from Brussels.

Brussels Centro

The way it was described, Brussels is kind of like Chicago in terms of tourism.  It's a place some visit but most people fly over, in this case on their way to Paris or somewhere on the other side of Belgium.

 But Brussels is beautiful, like Chicago, it's a great place to visit.

 Brussels is famous for many comic strip characters, it's considered the capitol of comic strips.  Tintin is from Brussels.

 I decided to get a formal tour of a city first time I tried this.  I learned about this free tour at the hotel front desk, the tour basically hit every site I wanted to see as well as others.  Tour guide was great, the guide was a local from the flemish community.  He often described things as X number of years older than the US.

 All over the city are statues.

 This is one of a rabbit on a bike.

 The Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula is Brussels main church.  I'm not sure why it has two names, I could only count one cathedral.

 Stain glass everywhere.

 Many statues too.

Me outside Mont Des Arts, weather was great this weekend (not far from here in southern England was rain and flooding).  

This is one of the most famous tourist attractions,  its a statue of a baby peeing.  It's called Manneken Pis. If you visit, you can pick up a copy to take home, something to put in your garden.

You can see the crowed that forms here.  In Brussels, this is a good place to have your wallet snatched.  The tour guide did not understand why this is so popular.

 This is one of the paths the lead up to Grand Place, the main square of Brussels.

 Karl Marx lived here from 1845-1847 and wrote the Manifesto of the Communist Party in an upper flat.  According to the tour guide, Belgium asked him to leave the country shortly after finishing the manifesto.

 Grand Place is amazing at dusk.  Most of these buildings were built in the mid-1600's.  Many of them were at one time guild's main offices.

Karl Marx lived in the building second from the right.

EuroMaidan Protest, Brussels

EuroMaiden is a wave of demonstrations and civil unrest that started in November of last year in Ukraine and is slowly spreading across Europe's larger cities.  Small groups of people gather together to peacefully but loudly protest against the Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych, his government  Russian President Putin's influence and the European Union for standing around and not really doing anything.  This weekend, my foot tour of Brussels ended at the foot of one of the protest that was happening all over Europe on February 16th.  You can see the protest in the distance, towards the end of Mont Des Arts (hill of the arts).

 The crowd was about 50+ people large, people from the crowd were giving speeches.

 Many were holding signs against Yanukovich and Putin.

 The group of protesters was from all over the place.  This speaker was Canadian and confirmed that the people of Canada stood behind the people of Ukraine.

 Many signs were about freezing or stoping the flow of money, but the signs were not clear of to who's money to freeze and in what direction that freeze should take place.  I kind of got an idea that this was a request to the EU in terms of money flowing to the current government of the Ukraine... But I could have misinterpreted this one.  But that makes sense.

 This was a more serious demonstration during the protest.  I think it's a reenactment of an event that happen in Kiev.

 Keeping track of how many days since the start of civil unrest in Kiev, November 21, 2013.

 'Ukraine is feed up with deep concerns', deep concerns is a phrase commonly used by EU foreign minsters in reference to, what the foreign misters refer to as the 'situation in Kiev.'  Listen for this phrase on CNN.

EU flag.  The white and red flag is a little more difficult to explain.  It is the flag of the Belarusian People's Republic, which was a failed attempt to create a Belarusian state.  This attempt happen in 1918, I think they are trying to keep the memory of this action alive. But this government is also still active and in exile in Toronto, CA.

 This was one of the last speeches before the protest ended.

 Everyone disappeared quickly after this speech.

Treviso

The closest airport to Cortina is Treviso, so regardless of rain, if time permits Treviso is a really nice place to visit.  If you set your TomTom to Treviso Piazza Doumo Parking lot, this is where you end up. Treviso is also near Venice, you can catch a bus to Venice from the airport or city.

 Probably one of the best deli's I have found in Italy.  But since I was flying Ryanair I was not able to purchase anything to take home.  Well, I could purchase anything but Ryanair would mark up the baggage check, so forget about it.

 Treviso has a river that runs around and through the city.

 The level of the river seems really high, I'm concern this area might have an issue as the snow in Cortina melts.

 Once it starts raining in this area, it just keeps raining.

 Rain.

 Rain.

 The main church in Treviso is okay with taking photos as long as you don't use a flash.

 A fresco in the crypt of the church.