Brussels is absolutely very beautiful, who knew? It is such a puzzling mixture of old and new. We finally figured out the tram system; it could make any American envious of good public transportation! It's cheap, on-time and gets you anywhere you want to go! I'm really cheering its qualities because it allowed us to see virtually everything on our list today, have an interesting, expensive, up-lifting lunch, and still get us back to the apartment in time to rela...

So far, we are fascinated with Brussels. What am I saying? We seem to like every place!! Each destination has its own unique points. We layered up with clothes and exercised this morning with a long walk through a park and then up and down cool streets just getting to know the lay of the land. Then we came back to the apartment, and made a little breakfast and simply relaxed for a while, getting caught up on email, the blog, and trying to figure out how to get a...

The change from Italy to Belgium is like changing continents! After weeks of hot and arid climate, our eyes are adjusting to brilliant green color everywhere. It is really beautiful but vastly different from anything we've ever visited before. I must call on my imagination but I get a sense that we've encountered a mix of French and Dutch influence in architecture with fairly wide streets (particularly in comparison to those of Italy), row houses, and interesting...