The Centre of Europe? Brussels is situated in a very central part of Western Europe. It has an easy access to the coast both in Belgium, Holland and France. In addition, it is no more than three hours’ drive to reach the wine districts.
Brussels in Europe
In the week I made a business trip to Holland and stayed over in Scheveningen, only 2½ hours’ drive from Brussels.
Scheveningen
This is a modern beach resort outside Haag which is reached by a 15 minutes tram ride. I found a small family hotel (Strandhotel) in an old villa with a beautiful view over the deserted beaches. Just outside is the Oostduinen, sand dunes that goes almost all the way up to Amsterdam. This is a nice area if you like to walk or run in the morning or why not rent a bike. Like many places here in Holland it is completely flat.
The summer is gone
This weekend we had plans to go down to France and visit the Champagne district but we decided after some deliberations to take a rain check. This due to the long weekend in Belgium/France (Halloween:-)) with a lot of people taking a longer break and travelling around in these parts. Instead we took a 2½ hours’ drive into Germany where we stayed over in Traben-Trarbach in the Mosel district (Hotel Trabener Hof).
Traben-Trarbach
Here we took time for some wine tasting at a local Weingut Kaess (Weingut-Kaess ), bicycle excursion to the nearby Bernkastel-Kues and back along the flat riverside. Bernkastel is quite touristic but has a lot of beautiful old buildings in the centre.
Bernkastel-Kues
On the way back we also stumbled into the Oktoberfest (the last days) at the Brauhaus Kloster Machern (Brauhaus Kloster Machern) with all the typical ingredients like food with a maes (Machern bier of course) and typical music umpa umpa!
Brauhaus Kloster Machern
The monastery known to brew a decent German bier (hell, dunkel and hefeweizen). The bike got quite full with the samples.
Walk along Mosel
In addition there was also time for a long 16K walk on the hills above the Mosel river.
It all added up to a very nice and relaxing weekend, not too much people or traffic, good food and beautiful autumn scenery, what more can you wish for?
Riesel Hochgewächs
The beer this week is also a triple like last week Corsendonk Agnus Tripel 7,5% from Corsendonk Brewery.
Corsendonk Agnes Triple
It is a hoppy blond Abbey beer with a bitter and a bit dry but strong taste. This was also a quite good tripel.
Coming weeks:
- EU continued
- In search for the best beer (an on-going quest for the perfect pint)
- More seafood
- Cheese
- Parks
- Culture, Comics
- Markets
- Politics
Facts of the week;
Drink; Corsendonk Agnus Tripel 7,5%
Location : The Mosel valley in Germany (250km east of Brussels)
POI : Bernkastel-Kuis (Germany)
