Botanique

Brussels Skyline 2

A cold winter's morning, but at least the rain seems to have stopped. This is taken from Hotel Bloom, overlooking Botanique, where I've been photographing artists engaged in decorating the hotel bedrooms.

I'm off there again this morning to get some more shots and on Friday to when the works should be complete.

It's an interesting experiment and inspires me to get out of my lovely warm bed on a morning like this.

Brussels Centre

brussels4

It's hard to get good cityscapes of Brussels as I haven't found any good and free vantage points. Until I nipped into the Tax office - in a truly horrible office block down from Sablon. Whilst I was sorting out handing over a large sum of cash, I asked is I could take some photos of the view. Go ahead they said.

The bureaucracy in Belgium is legendary, but I really should say that the civil servants, especially in the tax office have always been friendly and very helpful indeed.

No. Really, they have. It's one of the main reasons I'm still a free man.

Sunset over Sterrebeek

Sunset over Sterrebeek
Originally uploaded by zoeinbrussels

Summer is definitely over and I love the way that the sky captures this sunset.

Sunset

sunset

After the rain, the sky cleared up and this lovely shepherd's sunset appeared.

Tramlines

Brussels tramlines

Living on the East, I'm fortunate to have a lovely route and a large part of the route is either along tree lined avenues, just before Stockel, or with great views as it pulls up to Montgomery.

Recently the trams have got a lot quieter - does anyone know why that is? I miss the rattling sound they made and, with their bland grey and beige colouring, it's hard to see or hear an oncoming tram.

Still, at least it means I run to the tramstops less often.

Parc Royale

statue-altered

This park in the centre of Brussels is both highly formal and forested. Cutting off one of the main paths I saw this statue surrounded by greenery.

For more information about the Parc click here.

Meteor Shower of Aircraft

Meteor Shower of Aircraft

I live near Brussels' Airport, previously known as Zaventen. We've got another airport, Charleroi, that calls itself "Brussels South". Personally I think it would be more accurate to call it Luxembourg north.

There is a fair bit of noise - especially from a 6am cargo flight that drones over us. The worst is on the summer afternoons when we'll get a flight every 15 minutes going over for a couple of hours.

There's a long running saga between those who work at the airport and people under the flightpath over the noise. As expected there is a constant fudge and the issue isn't really resolved, but a rough temporary compromise wins the day.