Travelogue: Belgium - Brussels, Antwerp

Belgium is a potpourri of various cultures like Dutch, French and German. Often termed as the "cockpit of Europe", Belgium is the center of government for the European Union and is theoretically the capital of Europe. The capital Brussels is home to several offices and commissionerates of the EU with striking buildings dotting the skyline of present day Brussels.

The lower part of Brussels is well connected with trams and Metro stations from the Gare Centrale (Main Railway Station). The Grand Place square, with Hôtel de Ville and La Maison du Roi is the historical and commercial heart of Brussels and draws huge amount of tourists. La Maison du Roi is now being used to host a museum of paintings, tapestries and a collection of costumes created for the Manneken Pis. The Hôtel de Ville, built in the 15th century, is elaborately donned with ornate columns, sculptures and arcades. There are tours avaiable to view the tapestries and art work decorating the lavish halls of this town hall. Around the city center you would find a lot of shops serving hot waffeln with various delicious toppings. There are several shops selling the world-renowned Belgian chocolates. There is the Tintin official store close by selling souveniers and comic books of this famous character created by Herge.

The Cathédrale Sts-Michel et Gudule is the national church of Belgium. The west door of the cathedral has a magnificent stained glass window depicting scenes from the Last Judgement. The Palais Royal is the official residence of the Belgian Monarchy and has beautifully managed gardens sprawling at its entrance.

On the city outskirts is another popular tourist attraction - the Bruparck. It has the Mini Europe park, which has miniature models of major buildings and monuments from the various countries of the EU. Towering in its backdrop is another distinctive landmark - Atomium building, which represents the atomic structure of Iron. The Atomium has restaurants and viewing platform on its top, which presents panoramic views of the city.

Antwerp is the second major city of Belgium and is famous for its diamond markets. The Grote Markt is located at the center of the old city. At the square is the Brabo fountain with the statue of Silvius Brabo. The ornately decorated facades of the Stadhuis overlook the city square which is always crowded with visitors. Around 70% of the worlds diamonds are cut and polished here. The city has a lot of museums like the Diamond Museum, Plantin-Moretus Museum, Koninklijk Museum etc, displaying an impressive collection of various artworks, paintings of the 16th and 17th century.

Heat wave across Europe

phew! .... its unbearably hot these days. As the heat wave sweeps across European cities, the sun is scorching down over us. Over the last week the temperatures have soared high enough recording maximum measured values at several places. It brings back the memories of Summer of 2003 when the heat was similarly sweltering. Then around 20,000 people had died across Europe, owing to heat-related problems. The governments were not prepared at that time to face such a hot weather, which is quite uncommon to this part of the world. Since then, the officials and the people are more prepared for the scorching summers. There has been record sales in fans, air-conditioners all over the cities. But the increase in air-conditioners forces demand on power consumption which adds to some extra problems to the authorities apart from the environmental hazards the CFCs emitted would cause.

While in school I had given a talk on Global warming and Ozone depletion and the problems that would cause. That was more than a decade ago. Now I seem to experience those problems, about which I had read at that time. If we dont do something serious about the issue of global warming, I fear we could only see some more severe weather conditions in the future. There are constant reports of blackouts in US owing to high consumption demands. If a country like US cannot meet its energy requirements, then we can only surmise about the energy crisis in under-developed nations. Its high time we dealt with this issue seriously.

Travelogue : Brixen, Süd Tirol, Austria-Italy

Last week I had been in Brixen for a Summer school organised by my University. Brixen also called as Bressanone in Italian lies in the SüdTirol region in the border region of Italy and Austria. The region was formerly part of Austrian empire before the World War 1. After the WWII the region was ceded to Italy but the people were more inlined towards Austria, hence it was granted autonomous powers. For more about the history of this region check out this . The people there have their own language, so most of the places you find road signs and other public notices are written in German, Italian and Süd tirolian For more statistics and numbers about the place check out .

The region is a good ski destination in winters and in summers its even more popular among tourists who want to do some trekking in the Alps. Major towns of the region are Bozen/Bolzano, Brixen/Bressannone, Brennero etc. The closest biggest airport is the one on Innsbruck. For more tourism related information see this

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Since most part of the week was raining, I could not take much snaps. However these are some of the good ones, I managed to click in the few hours of sunshine available.

This one is taken in one of the small gardens in the town.

I loved this one, the effect of the clouds and sunshine beaming through was amazing.

I took this one, while going up one of the hills. After speaking to the couple later on, I learnt that the lady was born in 1925 and the man is nearing his 90s. The old people mostly speak German with Austrian dialect, which I felt was close to the Bayerisch spoken in the south of Germany.