For my last weekend in Europe I met up with my Swedish friend Carolin Olsson in Italy. She had been holidaying down on Lago Maggiore with her family around the Swiss town of Locarno, so I flew into Milano and we met up in Verbania on the Italian side of the lake.
On Saturday morning we took a ferry to the islands in the middle of the lake. Our destination was the island of Isola Bella, which consists of a tiny, cramped village on one side and a huge palace on the other with its beautiful (and a little bit quirky) gardens. We had a quick walk through the palace but the impressive bit is definitely the gardens.
On the way back to the airport, we even had a few hours to kill in Milan and went clothes shopping through some of the arcades (see photo above).
It’d been ages since I’d last seen my old pal Seren Macleod from Melbourne (she lives in Edinburgh these days), so when she suggested we meet up over a weekend while I was working in Germany, Brussels seemed like the ideal "let’s meet halfway" place. I’ve been to Belgium a few times before to see the sights and play rugby and I’ve always had a good time there, so I was looking forward to getting back again.
We met up in Brussels and toured the city to "see the sights" (it doesn’t take long…), and then decided to head to Antwerp to see what was there (answer: not that much, it’s not nearly as nice as Bruges!). We did however find the strangest statue ever – what are the two little men doing looking at the giant’s tackle?
I like the food in Belgium and Seren and I had great please taking apart a pot of mussels one night. We then washed them down with many different Belgium beers at my favourite beer cafe – Mort Subite. Their fruit beers are to die for!! 😉
Brussel’s baroque main square. Yummy.
Eh??? Seren likes.
Over the summer of 2005 I spent 10 weeks in Bonn, Germany working as an intern for Deutsche Post World Net (DPWN), the parent company of logistics giant DHL. I was placed in the Corporate Development department and worked on a great project to develop a global climate change strategy for the company.
The beautiful University of Bonn
The incredible view north over Bonn and the Rhine River from my 36th floor office window!