Antwerp

Made a pit stop in Antwerp to say hello to old collegues and to visit some of the sites which I had never taken the time to see the few times in the past when I had travelled on business to Antwerp. What a beautiful city, and the mega-rennovation of the Central station is now complete and a beautiful success. It was a real thrill to visit the office and see the Antwerp team again. We enjoyed a great lunch with Etienne, Eddy and Anja, after which we started on the 1.5 hour historical walking tour of the old city. We made it about half-way when, by pure coincidence we met Valerie on her bicycle. Michele had wanted to take a closer look at a small stone quasi-bridge near the Steen chateau on the bank of the Schelde, and while we were on top of it, Valerie rolled up on her bicycle on her way to have a look at the river. It's a small world. Per Valerie's request, I have added a photo for Paul's benefit as evidence of the single spire next to the catherdral (which as a side note according to Etienne is not officially part of the cathedral). Before heading back to the hotel, we followed Etienne's suggestion by visiting "The Eleventh Commandment" pub where they serve a delicious Bollika. We ended our day with a wonderful dinner with John and Sylvia at the Pump House.

Paris

The fellow at the train station in Sarlat who reserved our train tickets to Antwerp and Amsterdam suggested that we go through Paris and take an extended connection between trains in order to visit Paris for 7 hours...sounded like a good suggestion, so that is how we booked it. We used the Metro to transfer from the TGV station to the Grands Lignes station which was fairly easy although we had to ask a local where track 2 was..."we're on it" she told us..."so, why does the sign there say 5-A?" we asked..."oh, it's the same thing" she replied. "Oh, yes, of course". Placed our packsacks into a locker and then took the city bus to the Eiffel tower. Upon arrival, we discovered 4 very long lines of people waiting to buy tickets. None of the lines were moving very quickly, and then beyond that were other long lines of people waiting to climb the stairs or take the elevator. Too long for us to wait, so we took some pics from the base. After that we walked back to la rue des Champs d'Elysees and up to the Arch de Triomphe. It was a hot afternoon (the hottest of our entire trip opined Michele several times on our walk back towards the train station), so we stopped a few times for refreshments...milkshakes, water, and best of all big tall beers. It was an unexpected diversion on our trip to Antwerp, but well worth the stop.

Le Village Bories

Since Malta, we have have seen a lot of stone villages from the neolithic period, but Le Village des Borie is most remarkable for three reasons, (1) the stones used to build these dwellings were much smaller than the megaliths used in the south, (2) the stone roofs are intact and (3) they were inhabited up until the 19th century. Restoration was started in the 20th century and collectively they are very impressive. It is also worth noting that the thick walls keep the heat out, so entering the various dwelling there is a refreshing experience on a hot day.