Saorrento

Six weeks, seven countries and twelve cities later, our tour to Russia the long way round has finally drawn to a close. It has been the most incredible experience and I am very glad to say there isn’t any one thing that stands out well beyond the others, there were so many magical moments of our trip: seeing snow and wild Elk in Golden Colorado and dining out with Jon and Julie who we both had a fantastic time with; the neon extravaganza of both Las Vegas and Times Square in New York City; the climb to the observation deck of the Empire State Building; seeing Phantom of the Opera on Broadway; my first rail trip in England going out to Bristol and the Eurostar voyage to Belgium; pub crawls and luxury dining in Belgium; hiking through the snow in St Petersburg to various World War II monuments; getting up close to Soviet and German war machines and other various relics of the Cold War at a number of Museum exhibits; travelling from St Petersburg to Moscow by second class rail, with snowy landscapes out the window; cruising down the Rhine river in Frankfurt past the many vineyards, medieval styled castles and villages. These are just a few of the highlights, simply put; ‘The Long Way to Russia’ has been an EPIC adventure!

What’s next? Well this trip has wet our appetites for so much more travel; I personally would love to see a great deal more of Colorado during the ski season as well as re-visit Frankfurt and spend time touring about Germany. Things like a Route 66 road trip in the United States, a month long stay in Germany and other Euro Road trips are just some of the ideas buzzing through my head for the near future.

Of course then there are also new exotic locations such as the likes of Egypt, Antarctica and Dubai which are pretty high up on the list of new places too. So if nothing else, WATCH THIS SPACE!

After our brief two night stay in Antwerp we caught the train back to Brussels. A sure sign we were nearing the city of Brussels we passed the red neon glow of the red light district. The girls barely covered in their seductive lace outfits, in a little room, the windows facing the street of onlookers. Some girls just seemed to pace their window while others sat in the corner. Some even interacting and teasing potential clientele through the glass. I found the whole experience not to dissimilar to that of a puppy attempting to impress a shopper through a pet store window.

We arrived at the station both fatigued and full of adrenaline. This trip has been pretty much go go go for me, and my prior work stop in Antwerp was no exception.

We shuffled our heavy suitcases off the train onto the platform. I looked about for any indication of an exit. There were no shortage of signs, the problem was I couldn’t read any of them. To make matters more frustrating the signs most of which seemed to be in French obviously use similar alpha characters to English; walking briskly past signs my eyes would often catch partial glimpses of the text, my mind then if for no better reason because it was bored at the lack of information stimuli would re arrange the letters into something more meaningful and I started to catch myself doing double-takes at signs just to be sure. Quickly I gave up on the text and just focused on the symbols. Identifying the taxi symbol I followed the logo out of the train station.

Belgium at a glance is not disabled access friendly, and the capital being Brussels was no exception to this. My palms grew sore from lifting the heavy cases up the stairs, having yo be especially careful either them too due to the structural weakness of the wheels since London.

We arrived at our hotel; The Moon. The entrance of which was little more than a doorway along a facade of shops and restaurants facing out into a square. Immediately after entering the doorway was a staircase, reception was on level one. Fortunately the reservation process was simple and our room was available and with that proceeded to carry both cases up a further two flights of stairs to our shoe box of a room.

The room itself was adequate with a window, bed, shower and toilet. It was just cozy. When in the shower for instance one had to be mindful of turning around as your back will quite often hit the tap either dramatically altering the pressure or worse the temperature.

Brussels is beautiful, the building architecture in the various squares is all gothic, dating back well beyond the 1300’s. The shops and restaurants extending out from the squares were old English style, the streets all cobble stone.

When it came to dinner the only problem was choosing where to eat. There was no possibility we were going to die of hunger, we were located right in the middle of the dining district.

A lot of the eateries were French and Italian influenced. Quite to our surprise pizza, lasagna or spaghetti could be ordered from practically anywhere. When it came to dinner time the waiters would be out thru front of their establishment ready to greet you as you walked by. One was even so confident that he greeted us saying ‘ah good you made it, I have your table as you requested.’ we walked passed that one and finally surrendered ourselves to a restaurant that offered us a free drink of our choosing (although We were convinced this was worked into the price). We both settled for a Duvel beer - my Belgium contact introduced both Michelle and I to it, its a local beer 8% - salad and spaghetti, with a thin slice of cake for desert. For €12 you couldn’t argue. Tho it did make me miss home style spaghetti!