First trip behind the borders – Lanaken in Belgium

It's sunny Saturday, ideal time for some bike trip to explore the neighbourhood of Maastricht after our first week at SBE at Maastricht University. The one of the closest Belgian town to Maastricht is Lanaken, so let's ride there.

I've been in Maastricht for almost 3 weeks now, but I have a bike only for a week. I wanted to use the first free Saturday with sunny weather for a trip. I convinced my fellow Czech student Zuzka to come with me. Bára had to do some stuff for school, but she said that we should stop by on our way back. Great idea, bike trip and then dinner together when we could discuss our first week at Maastricht University. I was not sure which direction to take, so why not to the nort-west to Belgium? I was curious if I could spot some difference there.

We met at 2 p.m. at my place and with a simple map in hand, we started out first bike trip. Biking in the Netherlands is fun and easy. Traffic is made for that, cyclist have enough space. No the case of Belgium. First difference spotted. But on the other hand the only other thing that signalized that we crossed the border was the sign. Later on the buildings we different too. In Maastricht and general in the Netherlands the architecture of regular houses is very similar and simple with mostly dark colours used. The suburbs of Lanaken were on the other hand were full of large houses and each of them was different to the others. Like as rich people would live there, a bit more similar to the Czech Republic but there you cannot see any trees close by.

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Labels: Beer, Belgium, Bike, Czech people, Erasmus, Sightseening, Weather

Trip to Brugge – popular city full of tourists

It's Saturday, ideal time for some travelling. My friends sugessted that Brugge would be nice place to see, to we agreed on trip to Belgium by train. Brugge showed up to be nice city that attracts a lot of tourists.

And and two of mine czech speaking Erasmus friends agreed to meet at the train station at 8 a.m. We couldn't buy the tickets before, because there train people on strike in Belgium. But in the morning looked everything fine. There is really good offer for young people – younger that 26 years – one day return ticket to Belgium costs only 15€, but because it was bought at the cash desk it cost 50 cents more! I do not know why, but next time I will buy at at the automatic machine.

I also met a friend from Canada – I have the Antitrust course with her, and guess what, she also wanted to go to Brugge! I offered her, that she can join us, as I would be more fun. Now we were group of 4 people going to discover Brugge, we had no exact plan, no map but a nice sunny day and open mind. There is no direct train from Maastricht, we first had to go to Liege and there change the train. It was the first surprise and nice begin of today's trip for me.

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Labels: Belgium, Historical place, Pretty Girls, Sightseening