Began packing for flight home tomorrow. Bright sunshine this morning was uplifting. Marie introduced me to another very nice restaurant 'Het Spaan Ket' in an area of fish ponds. Then she took me to an area named Bagash. Light supper in her home, Marie served five soft cheeses and a salad.

We spent the morning today recovering from the long drive yesterday but did manage to get out for another great lunch. This time we went into Leuven to a very attractive restaurant named Voltaire. It seemed to cater to college professor types. Occasional rain showers occurred surrounding our solarium dining room. Great fun. The big event of the day was our evening at the Brussels Opera where we had tickets to Cosi fan Tutti. The conductor was none other than Lu...

After a nice breakfast we set out for Marie's home in Belgium. Driving a slightly different route than the one we took south, we were able to see more of the countryside off the Autostrada. Beautiful fields of green were there for the numerous dairy cows as we passed through cheese country. Again traveling through Luxembourg we stopped for a quick lunch before arriving in Blanden in late afternoon. We had encountered scattered light showers on our trip north but ...

Decision was made to just relax today after a full agenda yesterday in Brussels. We went for lunch at Bistro Het Citaat which specializes in great shoestring potato fries. For dinner we went to Brasserie 500. Both of these were in the vicinity of Marie's home. We then made preparation for our trip tomorrow to Switzerland to Marie' chalet.

After breakfast Marie and I went to Mass in her church, Abbey of St. Francis in Blanden. This was to be the penultimate Mass as the church and the Abbey was being closed and the edifice sold to the University. It has a very nice organ and the organist played a very nice postlude. The priest, Father Rik, also a sculptor, was kind enough to show us the art institute next door and his fabulous bronzes and marble figures. He has a vast number of pieces sold not only...