Personal Site & Travel Blog
On the first day of August, Misery Beer Co. opened. It’s a bit hard to get to by public transport, as a lot of places in the Ardennes tend to be, so it was very convenient there was a special bus going from Brussels to the manor of Misery.
Due to the ever changing COVID-19 regulations, the opening party was a bit smaller than envisioned, and spread over two days. Once there, all necessary measures were taken to let us see the brewery and enjoy their beers in safety. And enjoy them, I did!
It was already a while ago since I’ve last taken a train, quite possibly it was my trip to Breda, but finally I found myself in one again, albeit quite an empty train, and masked all the time… But the borders are open again, even for tourism, so I decided to go to Rotterdam again, where a new BrewDog bar opened, quite courageously in the middle of the corona crisis.
Under normal circumstances, at this exact moment, I would have been on a Eurostar leaving Brussels, and after dinner at the Great Nepalese Restaurant, I would board the Caledonian Sleeper in London later this evening, which would take me to Scotland overnight…
As we all know, circumstances are far from normal right now, and I had to cancel or change all the arrangements I made, some already a year ago! I must say though, even if it was quite a bit of work, I can’t complain how all affected companies handled my requests! Everything has either been rebooked—Travelodge, easyHotel Glasgow, hub by Premier Inn, and even the BrewDog brewery tour—or refunded—Caledonian Sleeper and ScotRail. The odd one out here was Eurostar, where the only option was a voucher… Luckily I can use that for the postponed trip anyway, but I feel sorry for the people who had to cancel their trip altogether.
The only thing I couldn’t cancel, were the days off I had requested… I held up hope for so long, the work planning for May was already final by the time it was clear no international travels would be allowed this month. Luckily I still have some days off later this year, but I’ll be using those for a trip I had already planned to a completely different destination.
So, sadly no Scotland for me this year, but early 2021, I’ll be heading for the—then probably slightly colder—Highlands again!
After some cleaning up, now all posts have titles, and photos should display properly. Since all blog posts before 2020 are imported from two different Tumblr blogs, you might still see some weird links—especially in reblogs—and posts that embedded information from other sites, might be missing that part now.
I’ve also taken the opportunity to add some photos that used to be on the previous version of this site: my very first trip to Scotland, some cycle tours, and a couple of Dutch Work Party outings.
You’ll find the ‘new’ additions here below, but in the complete chronological trip overview as well, of course.
So a combination of the Belgian railways Happy Ticket offer, and a poster advertising the Dacia Felix exhibit in the Gallo-Roman museum of Tongeren, lead to me heading to Limburg—both the Belgian and the Dutch version—this Sunday.
