07.36 We are still in Utrecht and the Netherlands. The other travellers around us here in dormitory 4 have started waking up. Almost everyone of the 14 beds were occupied tonight by guests of different sexes and nationalities. I wonder what they will be doing today? Christer and I will travel to a new country for him, Belgium. I went there in March 2001.

08.34 I sincerely hope that all my stuff, things and belongings are packed down. We will, as soon as Christer can say the same, check out.

09.10 There are people here! Persons of different sexes, origins, languages and ways of dressing are walking or half running. I am sitting on a bench at the Central station in Utrecht. We will soon get us some tickets.

09.42 The first part of today's travelling has begun. We are going westbound towards Rotterdam. Nothing bad can be said about our home or the city we´ve been in but I have a feeling that I couldn’t stand another day in Utrecht. I guess it is the traveller in me that wants to head on.

10.18 People are blowing in whistles and the wind is blowing around me. We are out in the fresh air. We are sitting on a bench by track 4 at Rotterdam Centraal.

Lots of people on the train from Rotterdam to Antwerp.

11.04 The train to Antwerp arrived and we are standing in the last wagon. We are far from the only ones standing up. The train is packed to say the least. We’ve found a place for our backpacks though. I hope it will get less crowded soon.

BELGIUM

12.21 We had to stand up all the way to Antwerp. For this we paid almost $40! A middle aged lady did her best to get past me to get a place to sit. It didn’t help that I kept telling her that the wagon was full. She pushed and kicked at me. She carried on nagging on the others as I let her pass. They did their best to convince her that it was full and had no space further into the wagon. The "empty space" she thought she saw consisted of the fact that some people were sitting on the floor instead of standing up in the wagon. We’ve now reached Antwerp and the majestic railway station Antwerp Centraal. Here we will rest, get seated and perhaps get us a lunch. There is still some travelling to be made today.

We took a look outside of Antwerpen Centraal to check what Belgium is like.

13.13 Both of us just had a cheese and ham baguette at Délifrance. It isn't the first time this chain has provided us with something to eat. The baguettes had besides cheese and ham; mayo, egg, tomato, cucumber and some sprawling salad.

13.39 We are sitting on yet another platform bench. We are cooling our sweaty faces with the wet wipes we bought in Malaysia last year. We are waiting for the delayed train which will take us to our next home city, Ghent.

14.03 We are about to start the final train trip of today. We are sitting down and it is cool and nice. I guess we will catch a tram when we reach Ghent.

14.43 Our train is standing still. Strange noises can be heard. From above we can hear a knocking/stamping sound. It sounds like someone is sawing further away in the wagon. I guess that the sounds from above come from the ones sitting and standing there. Our train is doubledecked. On the last train we had to stand. This one just stands. Are we waiting for a meeting train perhaps?

15.58 We finally reached Ghent and the Central Station Sint Pieters. We are now in the bilingual Belgium. Ghent is in the Flanders and Flemish is spoken here. Our station is called Sint Pieters instead of Saint Pierre which is the French name. Now we’ve gathered strength and taken aim and direction. We now know where to go to get to our next home on this trip. We skip the trams. We don’t know which to take or where to get off.

A rooster in a park. Surprising things happen all the time!

16.20 We’ve made a stop for a bench break and a map check. We can see a rooster and a hen further away in the park. I rather have the hen in the park than in the traffic.

16.58 After a long walk along a canal we´ve reached our destination. We are onboard our next place of stay. Here we are in room/cabin number 3. The place is called Ecohostel Andromeda (http://www.ecohostel.be) and is a boat/barge. The address/quay is Elyzeese Velden 22/ Bargiekaii 35. I am sweating and want a shower. It is +32°C today!

We found the right canal, Coupure and started to walk along it.

It was really hot in the narrow corridor outside of our room (cabin?).

Our ecological floating home in Ghent, Ecohostel Andromeda.

18.15 Tram tickets, beverages for the room and something to eat are some of the reasons why we have taken to the streets of Ghent. We are resting in a park that is traversed by some tram tracks. I think it is from here that we will head for the railway station tomorrow.

18.59 We’ve walked through the older parts of the city. We started to walk in the wrong direction but got to see some of the area of Prinsenhof and saw a memorial of Emperor Charles V who was born here in the year of 1500. We later passed the medieval castle Gravensteen and here we are at the square called Koren Markt. We are to be precise in front of a ticket booth. This is the very same booth that we will buy our 10-trip card. There are beautiful houses around the square. It is a pity that it is being renovated. Containers, fences and a tractor make it less beautiful.

Peter is writing in his journal. Tram number 4 heading to Gravensteen goes by.

Sint Verlee-Plein, the square next to the castle Gravensteen.

Gravensteen is looking a bit like the medieval castle you could build with "Lego".

19.25 We didn’t buy any card, we realised that our single trips will cost about the same as one card. We’ve bought some soft drinks and candy in the shop called [email protected] at Vlaanderenstraat 1. We finished the soft drinks in a haste. It isn't that strange. It is +30˚C warm as we speak. We’ve taken pictures of Belfort. It is a clocktower that happens to be on a certain world heritage list. Ghent might be a pretty anonymous city today but it was the second largest in Europe in medieval days. Only Paris was bigger.

In Ghent you can find one of the Belgian belfries that´s been listed as a UNESCO World heritage site.

Christer in front of the Jan & Hubert Van Eyck brothers statue in Ghent.

20.20 We are doing our best to find a place to have dinner at. There are plenty of restaurants to choose from but where and what will it be?

20.50 We haven’t found any place with reasonable prices; the dishes and meals are at US$20 and above. We´re sitting by one of the pillars at the square by the castle Gravensteen. Several tables are occupied at the outdoor seatings of the restaurants. How can they afford such prices? We can see young people dine at places where we hardly can afford more than a beer.

Vrijdagmarkt

A nice warm summer evening in Ghent.

21.05 The quest for food goes on. During our hunt we´ve found another nice square, Vrijdagmarkt. This like the others is filled with outdoor restaurants and high prices.

21.19 We’ve surrendered and sat down at McDonalds. No, I am just kidding! We´re at Pizza Hut. Here we will have Spaghetti Bolognese and Tagliatelle Carbonara. To this we will have Maes, a Belgian beer.

22.26 We both had Tagliatelle. They had run out of the spaghetti I had ordered. Now we are having our final bench break of today. We are filling up with fluids before we head home, a home not too far away by now.

23.02 Our cabin mate is from Finland. Before we headed out today our hostess promised that someone from Iceland would come to our room and make it really Nordic. I am looking forward to get some sleep. It would be even better if it could get a bit cooler in the room. We will see if some Icelandic guy will arrive during the night.

People gather along the river Leie in Ghent.

Friday 3rd of July

09.00 We slept in today. It hasn’t been that easy to sleep in the warm room. I woke up several times during the night. I just had a shower and cooled down. Next in line awaits getting dressed and breakfast somewhere out in the city.

09.24 We’ve just had frangipanes, they are some pastries, and had juice. We are sitting on the same bench as last evening. A fresh wind is blowing and out on the canal an old boat called Edguard rocks. Edguard is the neighbour to our home boat.

This is not the most common sight you can see when having your breakfast.

10.20 It is a lazy day today. We remain on the bench. Here some rowers have passed and as in the Netherlands countless of bikers. I don’t think anyone of them wore a helmet. It is clouding up above us. I wonder if it will rain.

10.55 We’ve been home to the boat and gone back. We are on our way again. It is time to get going.

11.09 We´re sitting on the tram on line 4. We left from the park where we sat yesterday. We are going to the St-Pieters station. It is the railway station we arrived at.

11.35 I sure could have had a better start on this travel day. I first managed to press the stop button although we were about to stop at the end station. After that I managed to go to the wrong exit doors. There I stood pressing on the open button while people went out behind me. I sure hope I will be able to board the train to Bruges. I am glad that Christer is with me on the trip.

12.10 The short trip went just fine and I was onboard all the time. We’ve left the railway station and sat down under a tree and on a green bench. We are trying to find out how to walk to get to the central parts of Bruges. It seems to be many tourists here. We’ve heard several languages around us.

The street Oostmeers will lead us to the more central parts of Bruges.

Steenstraat, Bruges.

13.00 We slowly wandered towards the city centre on cobbled streets and passed brick houses. We’ve reached a square in the heart and centre of Bruges. We are at the Grote Markt. I am sitting on a pole intended for locking bikes at.

14.47 We’ve looked around for a place that offers coffee and other things. All the search brought us was hunger and we switched the coffee to lunch. We just had a hamburger meal each at Quick Burger just by the Markt. We are ready for more views and sightseeing.

15.11 The carillon in the clocktower at the Grote Markt is playing for everyone there. We can also hear it as we sit on a bench at the Burg Square. Here they are constructing and building a stage and a platform. A man with a camera with a telephoto lens just slammed the trunk of his Alfa Romeo. He turned and drove away as he was done.

The provincial court building at Grote Markt in Bruges.

Beautiful buildings at the medieval square Grote Markt in Bruges.

The 83 metres high clocktower from 1423 is an impressive sight when you come to Grote Markt.

15.37 We saw some newly weds before we left the Burg. Now we are sitting on a wall along a canal. Above and beyond us are several linden trees. I think I might write a postcard.

16.13 We are sitting on a bench having some candy from Belgium. I’ve bought some Belgian chocolate in a small shop. Christer has bought some fruit candy. His candy is shaped just like Manneken Pis, the famous statue in Brussels. In front of us in the park there are a lot of birds among them swans. Bruges is a very cosy and beautiful city. All you have to do is to sit down and inhale and digest the impressions.

Tourists taking a look at Bruges from the city canal water.

Belgian chocolate! A British gentleman in his 90´s looked at this with a smile on his face.

Buildings in the beautiful city Bruges.

16.50 We’ve slowed down and enjoyed our vacation by the lake called Minnewater. We’ve read from the books we brought with us. A man who just walked by us said hello. I wonder who he was.

17.25 We’ve just been at Begijnhof and have seen the Benedictine sisters’ monastery ”De Wijngaard”/Ten Wijgaerde at Begijnhof 24-30. It was calm and peaceful there. As so many things and places we´ve seen through the years it is on UNESCO:s World heritage list.

17.32 It will soon be coffee and gaufre/waffle. If they are even remotely as tasty as the one I had I Brussels 2001 it will be a feast. I wonder if it might be Bruges coffee.

The monastery "De Wijngaard", a peaceful oasis in Bruges.

Peter eating Belgian waffles in a café without a name.

18.25 It was ever so great with a waffle. We searched in vain for the name of the café but didn´t find one. The man taking our orders was the spitting image of our study friend Magnus. We spent much time with him during the years in Umeå. We are now on a square where a man stands as a statue. His name is, according to the text on the base, Simon Stevin. He was a Dutch mathematician, born here in the city (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Stevin). It also reads S.P.Q.B 1846 on the base. Is S.P.Q.B a travesty of S.P.Q.R which was used by the Romans?

18.53 After some problems we managed to find a grocery store we´ve seen earlier. It was found ten minutes prior to closing time at 19.00. But we weren’t allowed to shop at Proxy Delhaize due to the fact that they were about to close. They only got themselves to blame for saying no to our euros.

19.10 Some Spanish tourists were also denied entrance but a local man was welcome. Now we are at Cambrinus. Here we can choose from around 400 different kinds of beer. Here goes, I’ve ordered Popperings Hommel Bier and Christer has ordered Slaapmutske Blond. Now we´ve only got around 398 different beers left to try.

A special plate where VL stands for Vlaanderen (Flanders).

Christer visiting the beer paradise Cambrinus in Bruges.

20.33 It was two delicious beers from two different breweries. Now we are back on a train. It will take us two (gent) lemen back to Gent. We met some British guys on our way to the station. They were looking for a particular street. We didn’t know where it was but donated our city map to them and became really popular. The gang wandered on after some merry "cheers!”

21.43 We returned to Ghent, went to a machine and bought our tickets. The tram went past us during our purchase. Now we’ve walked a couple of stops and we sat down at the stop Bijlokehof. Some cheerful young ladies are in the stop opposite from us. They are going towards the station. We are going home. Our home stop is just a couple of stops away. Nothing can go wrong here.

22.03 We decided to go straight to the centre for dinner and are now going through parts of Ghent that we haven’t seen before. Are we really on the right way?

22.18 We got off at the end of the line. It wasn’t that far from Gravensteen. From there we went to Pizza Hut to get something to eat. It didn’t go that well, they had just closed for the day/evening. We are now seated outside of Orient Pita Snack-Grill. Here we will have kebab-dinner.

23.13 We are home and onboard again. We’ve bought juice and more frangipanes. It will be our breakfast. It is time to sum up the day. Our cabin colleagues, the Finnish man and, according to our hostess, a man from Iceland, are up on the deck.

23.30 I am sitting on the deck cooling down before I go to bed. The temperature is more pleasant this evening.

Our boat, our home.