F is for Fail-safe Trap, Right? Book Sat fly Tues as FF points Deval Belgium, Berlin & Stockholm

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Dinner
Place called La Bonna



Flemish pork stew

Salsify and mash

 

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coughtails at brassiere Appelmans



Forgot to take a photo of the “Summer of Love”.
This place has now been going 15 years
And is popular amongst the Antwerpen crowd, which tonight included me.

 

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The Natur Walk

This about a 3km walk from here



Where are the frogs?


Splat


Boyo boy



Looks like a seat on the Titanic

 

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Haven’t posted a couple of days so hopefully time for catch-up.....

When your coffee haunt is spoiled

Spot the difference







Turns out there’s a provincial (training) barracks around the corner so this part of Antwerp gets a real going over with the awesome foursomes patrolling the close by streets.

It did take me aback (I shall not rant about why this happens in a first world democracy but is this training yea ?

 

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Came across the most gorgeous of cakery

 

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Fossicking amidst city park

David Attenborough would be proud of this guys


And today we find a big Yellow Submarine !
Jokes. Just another city bunker

 

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Some nice building shots



A former military hospital church now re-purposes as a spectacular gastronomy experience
The Jane Antwerp bookings well in advance so that counts me out. The website photos are ‘the bomb’


Lighting inside AG Vespa HQ


PAKT

Russian Orthodox Church although it seems ‘abandoned’


Re-tiling?

 

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Backyards
Life in the semi-rural


Where land is plentiful, there seems to have been bountiful industry and plenty of overgrown greenery. Also, the terrain between Boom and Niel on the verges of the River Rupel was not flat so some interesting house building platforms emerged

 

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Then stumbled upon a lil Zug in Niel. See,s a lot of digging for clay for bricks

 

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And behind the Brick factory

 

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Took the train a few stops

I did like this Graf balcony on the Main Street Hoboken



Nothing to poke a stick at here !

 

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Sometimes cafe just don’t take off.....

 

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Narrow tram streets are normal in the heart of Antwerp

 

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Goodbye to the Flamingos
This is a seriously good and FREE exhibit. I saved 28 Euros by not going in so I visited 4-6 times during my stay





Ducks on the March !



A farewell Flamingo gathering (not for me)
This is now Thursday 26 September with a big trip from
Boom to Berlin on Friday 27

What can go wrong ? With 5 changes of train ?

 

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Well there you go

First change, and I’m stuck


Nice of em to be handing out water bottles but unhelpful in getting to the train on-time.


Out in the middle of nowhere !
With a dead train

Backtracked to Boom and grabbed a 500 bus to Mechelen.

Lovely new station going in



Finally a train to Brussels Nord
And yes, I MISSED the ICE
BUT got an eyeful of luscious ladies rolling into Brussels Nord. Turns out the Red Light window advertising can be seen from the train.

Bonkers I know and no there isn’t any photo.

Brussels Nord is a very fine station


Ticket office just off on the right where a very lovely young guy swapped my ticket over for the next train at 12.34


Ouside entrance to Brussels Nord quite a decadent access point.

And here comes the train


Hang on, the ICE came from The wrong direction and once on board I struck up a conversation with an American lad who told me that all the passangers from Brussels midi had to catch a local train to get to Nord to get the ICE. Talk about leaving late we did nearly 20 minutes

WITH 32 minute connection in Koln, I don’t fancy making the next train on-time!

 

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A sweet journey via Liege


Loved the station canopy awe inspiring


And a cracker of a top speed!!!


And Koln we made, 3 minutes to change platforms

Gah, I stuck behind first class slowbies. Did help a lady get her bag and her husbands wheelchair off the train so it’s a race down the stairs, right, and up the next platform, trains already to go, where’s first class?
Me being snobby I ran Upto the front section and jumped on board and walked down one carriage length before the doors closed. The American lad I mentioned chucked his luggage into the closing door and jumped aboard.

Haha we laughed and it was the Restaurant for us




Before we blinked it was Wuppertal


And a brief shot of the River Wupper suspension railway.
Kind of an overhanging monorail started in 1903!
Another one for the bucket list

 

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Next stop Berlin

My new American friend departed at Hannover so the last 90 minutes back to the seat.

A cracker of a high speed


Renewables energy prevalent



It’s off the ICE
At Hauptbahnhof

And finding the obscure 30 Euros weekly pass as I’m here nearly two weeks


Trying to find this on the self-service ticket machines ugh but eventually did.
It’s barely 4.50 Euro (A$7.40) per day - what a bargain !
To roam all over Berlin via public transport would be amazing VALUE

and a few of the off the beaten track exhibits, none of which I’m likely to do - perhaps the Berlin Story....

 

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Now, it’s Day 5 of my Berlin experience so a pause here as I’m unlikely to get to uploading photos quite yet.

Why, you may ask?
Well the purpose of heading to Berlin was to “have a go” at walking the entire 155km of the Berliner Mauerweg.



That’s a lot of walking at about 20kms per day ugh


There’s a starting point at

With a very fine interpretive display



So this is the starting point




I thought that captured my sentiments and to curate hundreds of photos will take some time and is probably worthy of a separate BERLIN WALL TRAIL thread which I will link up when I create it.

As I mentioned today is Day 5 and my body is well rested but I have noticed hitting physical limits by the end of nearly 25 kms per day.

From an emotional and mental perspective, it’s been liberating and accomplishing. More on that later.

 

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Such awell organised trail

Berlin Wall Trail - Berlin.de

www.berlin.de

So far easy run Upto top from the wall memorial and hard slogged all the way down the LHS past the Klein Glienicke bridge


Bridge of movie fame for spy swaps....


and the DDR exclave (the locals had set up a 30 Jahre Mauer photo exhibition



so my luck was well and truly in)

and finished tonight in the dark at Griebnitzsee S Bahn.

In the remaining time, I fear my feet will struggle with a bit under half to go...

 

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In the remaining time, I fear my feet will struggle with a bit under half to go...

Sadly after 2 Berlin Marathons in 7 days, I “hit the Wall”.....

Yes, I’m fine but my fuss are shot.....

It’s been a journey of aspirations and today concessions. Was a quite off track day which included messy on-the-ground maps that didn’t synch well with directions -lucky for google maps to point me to an S-Bahn after dark even if I didn’t finish the day’s journey....

Tomorrow is another day , but I think I’ll rest up over the weekend.

Disappointing perhaps but there’s also been plenty of moments of spontaneity.
Was good to see a Berlin friend this morning at Frau Behrens before he flies off to Australia tomorrow with a washed pair of Emirates first PJs and the accompanying bag doubling as a laptop holder !

Front window!