More of Belgium the beauty

Our very own wee courtyard at the B&B we were staying at

Antwerpen Grote Markt



Cute wee restaurant
Antwerp Cathedral
Ahhh, the Belgium tradition for drinking! You actually weren't meant to pick the glasses up like I am about to, you were meant to hold the wooden handle and drink, although it became pretty hard towards the bottom!







Antwerpen Train Station

Brussells Grote Markt
Leuven - the home to Stella Artois


Well, what can I say... another opportunity to drink more of the best beer in the world and the best chocolate for a long weekend... who would say no?

We caught the Eurostar over to Brussells on Friday night and then caught a national train directly into Antwerp for three nights. Really easy to get around on their trains, and they are so fast! We stayed at a beautiful B&B bigger than our flat in London which was a really nice base to explore the city.

Went over to Leuven for lunch one day and unfortunately the weather there wasn't too flash, so didn't see too much apart from inside the pubs.

Krakow, Poland

Very common occurrence in Krakow...
Down under in the Salt Mine
Street leading to the main square - Rynek Glowny
So many beautiful horse & carriages like this one in the square...
St. Mary's Cathedral
Ummm, potato and cottage cheese dumplings - a Polish favourite
Menu
One of our local bars that served the deadly wodka
The gate to Auschwitz concentration camp
The wall where thousands were shot dead


Rynek Glowny
Ahhh, one of our lovely Polish meals out. So much food, beer and vodka for less than £20!!!
The Jewish district - Kakimierz


Simon next to Schindler's Factory
Inside St. Mary's Cathedral


We went to Krakow for Easter and we were so stoked with what was there! It was surprisingly pretty, amazingly cheap and full of so much history! I think we could have easily spent another day or two there just exploring...

Our first day we spent at the local Salt Mine - we went down 300 or so meters to see the mine, which was apparently only 1% of what is actually there. It's not used as a real mine anymore, but it was still very interesting...

Our second day was spent at Auschwitz concentration camp. 90km west of Krakow are the three camps very close to each other. We spent hours being guided around and learning all about what actually went on during these awful years.. I won't go into too much detail here as I'm sure you don't really want to hear about it. I'm still glad I went to see it though... was something I think I just had to do....

Our next few days were spent exploring the old town, the Jewish district and anything else that Krakow had to offer. The city itself was soooooo cheap! Probably the cheapest place we have ever been to in this world.... seriously! A pint of beer was around £1, a beautiful Polish meal was under £5, a trip on the local tram or bus was 50p and it just goes on... really cheap :)

We were on the vodka, or known as wodka locally a little bit too much... they do so many flavours and it seems to be the local drink. Rather than going to the pub with friends for a pint or two, you go to the pub for a shot or two of vodka. ewwwwwh!

Definitely recommend Krakow to you travellers out there looking for some history but still fun.

Spa, Belgium

Here is our friend Ken trying to decipher how to put the stickers on his UK car headlights so that they do not blind drivers on the other side of the road in Europe. They fell off in the end anyway!


The view back from the ferry towards Dover.

Ken and his car (Nissan Silvia). This was the beast that was to take us from London to Spa and then around the F1 track.



Some of the competition we were up against.

Ken and Chiz in action.


Still room for a VW amongst all these modern racers!

Mike, there were lots or Porches. Fancy racing yours here??


In amongst the street cars there were also some proper racing teams.


Well my friend Ken managed to persuade me to join him on a trip to Belgium to race his street car (Nissan Silvia) around the F1 track at Spa in Belgium. Well what a sensational time we had. After a quick trip across on the ferry we had an afternoon in Brugge before making it to our final destination just outside Spa. We also picked up our friend Chiz along the way who decided to join us on his motorbike.

After a good night's sleep we were all ready for a day of racing on the Sunday. Unfortunately the weather was not very cooperative and there was heavy fog until about 1pm. However after this it was all on. Ken took me for a few laps as passenger to get me used to the experience. After initally being quite terrifed I quickly got into the swing of things and started to really enjoy the speed. So much so that I had a drive myself and even had a lesson with one of the pros on hand. It was quite an experience driving on the track at the same time as everyone else, especially when Ferrari's and Porsche's were appearing out of nowhere in the rear vision mirror.

The only minor glitch of the weekend happened near the end of the day when Ken, after taking a spectator for a few laps, came into ther pits and announced that the gear box was not sounding very nice and was slipping out of gears. At this point I had visions of an expensive tow truck ride back to London. However, after getting a quick opinion from one of the racing team mechanics he said he thought we could risk the drive back, and we should just go from second to fourth when changing gears. No problem.

After a failed attempt to switch from the ferry to the channel tunnel at 10 pm on Sunday (was way too expensive at 180 Euros) we drove back to the ferry terminal at Dunkirk and got the midnight ferry back to Dover. Climbed into bed at 3am on Monday morning. Needless to say I was a bit tired at work the next day. Well worth it though.