Life’s an ocean with too much commotion

Time for our first real summer trip this year.. I needed it, had too much work and stress lately. We booked a flight with Jetair (cheap one actually) to Las Palmas, rent a car and drove to our hotel: Anfi Club Monte in Patalavaca, Gran Canaria. The advantage of the Canary Islands is that the temperature is overall constant, about 25-30 degrees, even during winter. In combination with some breezes, perfect weather to relax or explore the island.

The first day we went to Maspalomas, a beautiful scenery of sand and dunes. Of course we forgot to smear sunscreen on our back and shoulders, so we were both burned. As a result, the next days we explored the island instead of doing some sun-spotting at the pool. We drove up the mountain, looking for the lake Soria, above San Bartolome. Unfortunately, the clouds were too thick and we couldn’t see a thing once we were at the top of the mountain. The next day we went to explore some ports, one of them was Puerto de Mogan. A very cosy little place, often called little Venice. It’s beautiful to walk through the little streets decorated with flowers in all kinds of colors. A little bit further uphill was Mogan situated, but that was just a normal little town so we drove through it rather quickly. Once driving back on the mountains we arrived at a lake, actually a reservoir, and it was beautiful. I think the temperature dropped to 15 degrees or so, we saw some campers, tables where you could picnic, and lots of quietness. The next day, we decided to explore the other half of the island. We visited Anden Verde, about the most beautiful coastline you could see in Gran Canaria (in the upper west of the island). Close to that, you have Dedo de Dios, a typical rock formation that was destroyed due to a heavy storm some years ago. You could see that the city near Dedo de Dios really lived from its tourists, and is now rather drained. We also visited Cenobio de Valeron, some rock silos where ancient people store their cereals to let them preserve better. The next day, it was time for some sunbathing at the pool. I’ve played some water polo (and I won!), and – of course – we were both burned again . So the next and last day, we decided to stay on our terrace and watch the world championship.

Summarized, it’s the ideal location for a relaxing vacation. You can also do some cool hikings on the mountains, and the temperature is always great. It was worth flying over, and now I’m completely recharged and ready to dive into work again!

We decided to celebrate New Year’s Eve somewhere, so we went looking for a cottage near the Ardennes. It was a real burden to do so as we found out all cottages in and near the Ardennes were fully booked. We looked further and eventually found something in Klotten, near Cochem in Germany. It’s called Ferienhaus Börsch. It’s a great cottage, room for six people and everything in place to cook wonderfully. We’ve made the Peter Goossens Event Menu, it turned out to be a lot of work but everything worked out pretty well, it was delicious.

I like the idea of spending New Year’s Eve on a different location. It allows us to get away from all stress stuff, and nobody needs to sacrifice his home and get all the load for preparing the food and serving dinner.
Here are some pictures shot in Klotten at the Mosel river.

I decided it might be a good idea to log our trip to the USA while it’s still more or less fresh in memory. Our trip exists of various different kind of places, states and attractions.

First we took the plane from Brussels to Seattle, via Atlanta. We booked our flight with Delta Airlines in the end of January via Joker. We departed at 10.30AM (local time) and landed in Atlanta at 2.20PM (EST). From there on, we had a connection to Seattle departing at 4.50PM and arriving at 7.20PM (PST). Ine and kris,

two friends of ours, live in Vancouver and our initial motivation for going to the USA, was to visit them, as they lived for a year there and we miss them of course . We arranged they’d pick us up in Seattle and drive us to Vancouver, where we would spend the weekend. Afterward I realized we should make this visit a little bit longer, as we had to recover from  the Jet Lag. The weekend was over before we realized it. Sunday evening they dropped us off across the USA border in a small town called Bellingham.

From there on, we’ve rent a car and drove to the airport in Seattle (SEATAC). Our flight brings us to Salt Lake City.

What I remember of this first experience with Canada – and Vancouver BC more in particular, is how the lifestyle is very European. You’re not looked after when walking through the city, you can eat/buy most of the things available here, so adapting to it is not that hard as I thought in my opinion. It’s a very nice city, I realize now why Ine and Kris love this city and live here now.

The picture on the left show Tanja, Kris and Grizzly. I normally don’t have any affection with animals, but this one I liked immediatelly!

It was a very nice start of our vacation in the West and we’ll meet Ine and Kris again later .

Everybody who loves taking pictures of abandoned places will have visited the http://www.abandoned-places.com/ site at least once.
One of these places described on that site is located in Aalst (Belgium), the abandoned factory of Bonneterie Bosteels – De Smeth.
This factory was very famous for its knitwear, better known as it’s product line ‘Du Parc’.

I’ve visited that location twice. The first time I took my flash with me, the second time I brought my tripod.
I’ve looked at the pictures on the abandoned-places site and compared them with my pictures. It seems that people stole and broke a lot of things, which makes this factory maybe not that exciting any more.
There was also a big fire in 2006, which burned down most of the offices on the first floor. Apart from that, taking pictures of objects and small corners turned out interesting.

You can enter the factory by crossing the gate, right of the main original entrance. If you want to access Du Parc from the city park, you can enter some small doors of the factory as well.
It’s best to stay out of the surrounding (abandoned) houses near the factory, as there are still people illegally occupying them.
The factory is really huge, it took us two times more than three hours to walk through it (of course including the necessary stops to take pictures).

In the center of the factory, there is a little garden with lots of bushes and trees. Through some of the windows, nature was already giving its best in infiltrating in the factory.
Most of the objects on the ground floor are stolen or gone, except for hundreds of cotton spindles, which are placed around the factory in a very weird way (you’ll notice it immediately when you’re there).
On the first floor, you can still see some knitwear, clothes, and the machines used for assembling and creating them. The first floor is much more interesting than the ground floor.

I’ve made a very small selection of the pictures taken in the factory, I hope you like them. If you have visited Du parc to take some pictures as well, I’m very interesting in seeing them, especially pictures taken before the fire in 2006.

This weekend I went to Puyenbroeck (in Wachtebeke, Belgium). It’s a provincial domain with a huge kids play-yard, a lake full of pedal boats, a golf terrain and lots of green. My friend and I wanted to take some pictures of the snowy landscape and found Puyenbroeck the most ideal location.

In my opinion, taking lots of pictures of snowy landscapes gets bored after a while. The color spectrum of a snowy landscape does not have much difference with a black and white picture, and it’s more difficult to introduce contrasting and interesting elements when you can’t play with color. Therefore, accentuating the color of this unusual snowy landscape element had a very good result.

Of course I took pictures of the beautiful landscape as well:

When you live near or in Belgium, you know the Ardennen from in to out and left to right… Yet, if you drive a little bit further to Luxemburg, more specifically in the region of Echternach, you’ll find some places you don’t find in the Ardennen.

I made benefit of the location and situation to take some close-up macro pictures. It worked out pretty well! If you walk for a couple of days through the forests, you don’t mind the little details. Bringing your camera with you can be a real burden to carry with you, but it forces you to mind the little details nature has to offer you

It’s a yearly habit of me to visit the Ardennen or Luxemburg with the family of my girlfriend, especially if you can combine it with some trappist (Rochefort, Chimay, …) and some good meat! As finalizer, a portert picture of my girlfriend with her brother.

On a cold winter day in december, me and Jeroen Van Aken decided to drive to Doel to take some pictures of a city that is going to be completely demolished. This to make room for a new dock for Flanders Port.

When we arrived, we surprisingly noticed that there are still people living in Doel. However, most of the houses are empty and ruined. Fragments of glass, trash and broken walls are filling the picture of Doel. The few people that still live there, live near to each other.

Taking pictures in Doel only gets interesting if you can go into left houses. However, most houses are so loaded with trash that it’s often difficult to enter them. When you finally manage to go in them, you often hear noises or people moving, because there are crackers living in these houses. We managed however to enter the former restaurant of Saeftinghe,  which has been left in it’s original abandoned state.

I think Doel was once a very cosy town with a tight community, where neighbours still knew each other. The only thing that reminds us of the livingness of the city, is the “De Lijn” bus that has some halts in this city and still drives through it.

I also noticed that there is a certain smell hovering in the city. I don’t know if it’s caused by the Schelde that passes the town or from the nuclear powerplant.

I’m looking forward to see the increased turnover for Flanders port now that a new dock is ready to be build, when all you hear is stories about too high energy costs for boat transport.

Ah well, at least it was a well-spent day and I managed to take some pictures…

On our trip to Presqu’île de Rhuys, in May this year, we noticed that we were only on a 100km trip from Nantes (South side of Bretagne). That period, Nantes was something fresh in our mind because of Beirut’s song.
So we jumped in our car and drove to Nantes! Once there, the city overwhelmed us with festivities, warmth, beautiful sights and cool-dressed people (cfr. picture).

The picture with the brass band above really represents what the atmosphere in this city was. It was really like walking through the video clip of Beirut.

Hi Koen,

I am delighted to let you know that your submitted photo
has been selected for inclusion in the newly released
second edition of our Schmap Spain Guide.

The Schmap Spain guide can be viewed here.

I took this picture on a lousy sunday afternoon, in a small village near Aalter, Poeke. This castle is named after the village it’s located in: The Castle of Poeke .
It’s a castle which had many owners during the centuries. It’s originally built in the 16th century, but it’s shape as you see it on the picture dates from 1660. It has three entries, two at each side of the castle and one below the bridge, which you can see at the right side of this picture.

It’s built in the Barok styl, with it’s pink colour and it’s many white big windows, it’s one of the most beautiful castles in Belgium I’ve seen, and only a 30 minutes ride from my door The surrounding water gives a nice reflection on the castle. I took several other pictures that include this reflecting element, but I still have to find some time processing them.