Have you ever stood on a railway station concourse and stared longingly at destinations on the Departures Board that were not printed on your tickets? Have you ever found yourself on the road somewhere and found that the you were travelling along one of the world’s more famous long distance routes and felt the urge to keep on going? Have you ever stood at the bottom of a valley and felt an irresistible pull towards the summit high up above? I suffer from all of these afflictions and then some.
Long distance footpaths can also be found there in the mix saying “Come on! I dare you to walk me and find out where I go through and end up”. My gaze is always arrested by the waymark stickers for the Camino de Santiago and get I exited just by seeing the white and red horizontal bars signifying a GR (Grand Randonée – a European long distance trail). These markers are as valuable as SatNav for anyone hiking on these trails. Perhaps I’ll post again to explain how they’re used for navigation and how they vary across Europe. I’ll certainly post extracts from some of my hikes on these walking routes.
So when I’m out shopping in Brussels and come across a litter bin with a white and red bar painted on it, I stop and sometimes even take a photograph, but each time I’m wondering where the trail leads. In fact the one in this photograph is for GR126, which starts in Brussels, crosses GR12 in Grand Place then heads off south through Namur, Dinant and finishes at Membre-sur-Semois by the border of the French and Belgian Ardennes, where it joins GR16, which in turn has followed the River Semois from by Arlon in South East Belgium. This then rejoins GR12 on its way from Amsterdam to Paris via Brussels.
It is amazing where two painted bars on a litter bin can lead.
One of the added bonuses of a Chamonix Season Lift Pass, is the chance to discover three other winter resorts in Haute-Savoie, so decided I’d like to explore Evasion Mont Blanc, a series of linked resorts including St Gervais, Megeve, Combloux and La Giettaz. In all 445 km of pistes. [...]
A photo essay of the Udal Peninsula on North Uist, Western Isles, Scotland.
While walking the streets of Brussels, I am often aware that I am following in the footsteps of Georges Rémi, better known as Hergé, creator of Tintin. From where I type this article, I can see both of the schools he attended in his youth. He left his mark in the form [...]
It is the overhead snippets of conversation, that tells me that Winter Wonders or Plaisirs d’Hiver in French, is popular with visitors. “I was like…” the repeated “like” in twenty something females’ conversations. The oral version of a Facebook Wall. Or “I am lucky, as I can catch a train [...]
The theme for the photo sharing day on Twitter on Friday 18 November 2011 was Flags. If you look at my Twitter profile you will see that I tend to spend time between three locations. In this piece, I will include photos, including flags from each of these places. Wales [...]
There are a lot of widely held views built on hearsay and misinformation. The deeper I look, the more complicated the story seems to get. One of my aims is to educate myself on travel environmental issues. Then to share my findings on this site and hopefully start a discussion [...]
#FriFotos is the weekly photo sharing day on Twitter. On Friday November 11, the theme is “Fall”, but as is usual, it is open to interpretation. Fall is the term used for Autumn in North America. However, the eleventh of November is Armistice Day and a Public Holiday in much [...]
The abbey of Val-Dieu was founded in 1216 by Cistercian monks. Surviving wars, floods and moral crises, it was temporarily dissolved by the French Revolution. Then in 1844 with the aid of the church and the last surviving monk, it was re-established and flourished again for another 150 years. The [...]
Have you ever stood on a railway station concourse and stared longingly at destinations on the Departures Board that were not printed on your tickets? Have you ever found yourself on the road somewhere and found that the you were travelling along one of the world’s more famous long distance [...]
Street art Last week I visited the Ixelles Museum here in Brussels before their exhibition on Street Art closed and is replaced by a Dubuffet exhibition. Bonom was featured heavily, with insights into how he plans his pieces. The photo above shows a spider on a concrete building by Chapelle [...]
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