Europe Day One - The Grand Place, Brussels

Brussels is relatively easy to walk around if you have a map in hand.

Eglise St-Nicolas, processed in HDR.

The Grand Place, the geographical, historical and commercial heart of the city.

Hotel de Ville, built in the 14th century as the town hall.

The main entrance and the belfry, I keep thinking why the entrance wasn't center aligned with the belfry...

Courtyard of the hotel with nice pavement design.

Entrace to the reception lobby.

The statue and landscape at the courtyard.

Le Renard and Le Cornet.

The Maison Du Roi, built in 1536, now home to the Musee de la Ville. Too many museums in Europe and I decided to skip this one. I went in almost every museum when I visited Paris and lesson learned - just visit the highlight and not to waste the precious time and money.

View of Maison Du Roi from entrance of Hotel De Ville.

With the Sigma 10-20mm wide angle, I can now take pictures of myself without others help or tripod! La Maison Des Ducs De Brabant at the middle of the background and Everard 't Serclaes on the right. Touching the bronze arm of Everard 't Serclaes is said to bring luck but too bad the place is closed for refurbishment during the period.

Godiva chocolatier outlet at the Grand Place, the premium chocolate manufacturer among the uncountable numbers of chocolate shops in Brussels.

Day One in Brussels

I'm still recovering from the 6 days trip in West Europe. Weather were terrible and my skin are badly dry out and cracking. Brought too many lens this trip and I didn't use the Tamron 90mm SP and Jupiter 9 at all. Taken nearly 1,000 pictures this trip and it's gonna take some time to edit all.

On the way in Eurostar from London St Pancras to Brussels Midi on Thursday morning. Managed to grab pair of return tickets from lastminute.com for GBP55, it's always a good source for last minute deal as I couldn't find tickets from Eurostar website.

The bi-lingual city is often confusing with its French Dutch names for places and roads. Initially I thought Brussel Zuid and Bruxelles Midi are two different stations and apparently it's the name of the station in two languages.

The adventure begins with a Belgian cappuccino and pain au chocolat. I had not done much study before the trip, no booking on any accommodation nor intercity train tickets.

The Flying Ceiling (1976) by Pol Bury in Bourse station. Public transport in Europe is relatively cheap when comparing with UK. A day travel card cost 4 euros to be used on all metro, tram and buses. Actually there are no barriers or check on the metro and tram so you can try a few free rides.

La Bourse, Brussels' stock exchange, the stairs is a meeting point for people and also serve as speaker's corner for protests.

First Day In Brussels

Arrived in Brussels Midi Station this morning. Things went smooth and managed to grab the return tickets to Amsterdam tomorrow on a cheaper rate than the one I checked on internet. Had a nice Belgian cappucino and pain chocolat and started the journey in the city, with my 20kg backpack.

Just hang around the central area, the Grand Place and few other tourist spots and it started raining, in fact it's still raining, and it was quite heavy, worst than London! Can't afford the risk my camera under the rain so I started to look for accommodation, the one I plan to stay initially was fully booked.

Luckily found a 3-beds shared private room in another hostel. In fact it's quite crap, no towels, no hangers, no water, nothnig is provided and even have to pay for the internet. There's only another Korean guy there and he's quite friendly. We might head to Amsterdam together tomorrow.

Anyway, weather are not looking good over the weekend. Forecast says it's gonna rain through the weekend :(

Looking forward to explore Amsterdam tomorrow!

Nomadic in Europe 20-25th March

2 cameras, 6 lens, a tripod, few travel guides, few clothes.. I'm going to explore few more cities in Europe for 6 days stretch through Easter holiday.

What's in my hand now is only the return Eurostar train tickets to Brussel. I think I'm brave enough this round, didn't book any accommodation nor connecting trains to other cities, could end up sleeping in the train station.

Brussel and Amsterdam are the two main destination and probably will visit Bruge or Antwerp along the way.

Weather forecast over the weekend will be cloudy and rainy.. wish me luck!

Fontana de Trevi

Located at Tridente district, one of Rome's more surprising sights, easy to stumble upon by accident - the huge and magnificent Fontana de Trevi (Trevi Fountain) was completed in the 17th century. It is the most beautiful fountain I'd ever seen.

Picture taken at 18mm, ISO 100, F22 and 30 secs exposure - the surrounding was packed by tourist and it was really hard to find a spot to set up the tripod.

The theatrical design incorporated the entire Neoclassical facade of Palazzo Poli as the background and containing a figure of Nepture in the centre.

No way to set up tripod in front of the fountain. Picture taken hand held at 18mm, ISO 800, F3.5, 1/5 sec exposure. The A100 built-in anti-shake works perfectly well and the noise level at ISO 800 is not too bad!

People surrounding the fountain - 18mm, ISO 400, F3.5, 1/4 sec exposure.

There's a rooted tradition - if you throw a coin over your shoulder into the fountain before you leave the city it'll bring good luck and ensure your return.

The Colosseum Part II

The interior of the Colosseum - the arena. HDR technique is used as the sunlight was too strong to capture the details on the top part of the picture.

The substructures beneath the arena (hypogeum) provided space for the mechanism by which scenery and other apparatus was hoisted into the arena and lifting caged animals to the surface for release. It makes me want to watch the Gladiator starring Russell Crowe again.

It could probably hold more than 50,000 spectators.

View of the Arch of Constantine from Colosseum.

It's hard to imagine how it was built nearly 2,000 years ago.

One of my favourite picture taken inside the building. It was near evening when most visitors have left.

I appreciated the moment of quietness where no tourists can be seen in a clean picture.

Back to the real world, the area outside Colosseum is crowded with tour groups, souvenir stalls and noisy Roman 'gladiators' who keep persuading tourists to take pictures with them.

It's Italy, they have super cool Alfa Romeo 159 as police cars! (As Malaysian have the not-so-cool Waja). I like new Alfa's head lamps! FYI Carabinieri are the military police in Italy.

The Arch of Constantine, the triumphal arch which was erected in AD 315 and located right next to the Colosseum.

What is a triumph? The original triumph was once stipulated that you have to kill 5,000 of the enemy in a victory to bring a war to an end.

A couple taking the wedding photos around the area.

Another view from lower Palatine Hill.

See the moon?

The journey in Rome has just begun.

I wandered around the area until late and took this picture at 35mm, ISO 80, F22, 30 secs exposure.

The Colosseum

Anyone who goes to Rome can't miss The Colosseum - the emblem of Rome, and the largest amphitheatre ever built by the Romans.

It's located right in the middle of the city, Colosseo station on metro blue line.

It's one of the most colorful train I'd seen among the Europe metro/underground, covered with graffiti arts.

Exterior view of one of the best preserved section.

One of the many pictures I took at the Colosseum, processed in HDR.

Santa Maria Maggiore

Located near to Stazione Termini, Santa Maria Maggiore is one of the city's great basilicas, the largest in Rome dedicated to Virgin Mary.

I thought this is the front view but apparently it's not. Not many people on the street as the temperature reached 42.5 degree Celcius.

It has one of the Rome's best preserved Byzantine interiors, and the ceiling is quite impressive.

The confessio, and some nice mosaic works on the altar.

The kneeling statue of Pius IX under the confessio.

The front view of the basilica.

The Marches

I spent my first day in the east coast of Italy - The Marches.

Ancona airport is a real quiet one, I was the only passenger on the bus to Ancona centre.

I was kind of lost in Ancona, Sonia has given me a few options but it was quite difficult to check for direction as most of the local doesn't speak English. I found a Chinese shop and the lady was really kind and directed me to Passetto, a nice seaside.

Monumento ai Caduti - the memorial to the victims of the 1st World War.

It's heaven and it has the Summer that never came to London.

The color and the texture of the sea is just lovely.

As I had extra time before heading south to meet Sonia's Aunt Ada at Civitanova Marche, I stopped by at Loreto as I was told there's a nice church there. I thought it was within walking distance but apparently it's not possible when I checked with a young man, he was kind enough to give me a free lift to the church. However I regretted soon after arriving as I only had half an hour to catch the last train and it's not possible to walk back by foot! Luckily another kind man gave me a lift back to the station on time. I'd met some nice people even though there were some language barriers.

Ada picked me up the station and we had dinner at her son's place at Civitanova Marche, luckily her little daughter Lavenia speaks a bit of English so we could communicate a bit. We drove to San Benedetto Del Tronto to spend a night there at her new apartment. Everything is nice except there was no water supply being connected yet. What a day as I'd been sweating the whole day and couldn't take shower...

I took the coach to Rome early next morning, it was a 3 hours journey to the west coast.

Took some pictures when the bus stopped by mid way for a break, and I nearly missed the bus for this.