All posts filed under: Europe

Dinant Belgium - Collegiale Notre-Dame & Citadel / Citadelle

Belgium Has More To Offer Than The World-Famous Spa-Francorchamps Racetrack!

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Belgium… what do you know about this country that sits right beside France and Germany? We knew very little, but we were going there for a race at the world-famous Spa-Francorchamps racetrack. Since we’d never been to Belgium before, we thought we’d spend some time after the race doing a quick tour of the area. With only about 2 ½ days before we were scheduled to be in Germany, we took in as much as we could in that short period of time… and nobody does speed-touring like us!

Tübingen, TravelBloggers.ca, Iain Shankland, Gail Shankland

Day Trip To Tübingen

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From our base just outside of Speyer/Hockenheim in Germany, we did a number of day trips that are easy to get to and worth the time and effort. Our trip to Tübingen – just outside Stuttgart, was just over an hour-and-a-half south of our base. We combined the trip to Tübingen with a visit to beautiful Lichtenstein Castle which is close by – about 40 minutes by car, making it an ideal double adventure easily done in one day.

Lichtenstein Castle (Schloß Lichtenstein), TravelBloggers.ca, Iain Shankland, Gail Shankland

Day Trip To Lichtenstein Castle (Schloß Lichtenstein)

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From our base just outside of Speyer/Hockenheim in Germany, we did a number of day trips that are easy to get to and worth the time and effort. Our trip to Lichtenstein Castle (which also include the town of Tübingen) was just over an hour-an-a-half south of our base, and just outside Stuttgart. We combined the trip to Tübingen and Lichtenstein Castle, making it an ideal double adventure for one day.

The Citadel of Dinant, TravelBloggers.ca

Belgium – Part Trois. Sax In The City

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Well this article started out as one, but has turned into four! We hope you’re still with us. This is the last installment of our 2016 visit to Belgium (part 4 is Germany). If you missed our other installments here’s a link to each of them… Belgium – Home of Chocolate, Waffles… And Beer and Belgium – Part Deux. Airbnb, Towning, Waterfalls And Motor Racing Dinant (Pronounced Dinon) We said goodbye to terrific Airbnb host Phillippe, and set off for our next destination for the night: Dinant. Not only do we visit a unique cave system, but right just down the road a wee bit is a beer museum (see previous articles) and a really cool looking city right on the Meuse River that is birthplace of the saxophone.

Spa-Francorchamps, European LeMans Series, ELMS, Auto Racing

Belgium – Part Deux. Airbnb, Towning, Waterfalls And Motor Racing

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Welcome to part two of our journey. If you missed part one here’s a link: Belgium – Home of Chocolate, Waffles… And Beer. Our Belgian holiday was going way better than expected. We arrived not really knowing very much about Belgium, and scouring the internet before leaving home just to find something to do in the Ardennes Region didn’t result in anything that seemed too exciting or even interesting – unless you love to hike and/or camp. After arriving we found Belgium beautiful and charming – definitely worth taking the time to visit whether on your way to or from another destination in Europe… or even as a destination of its own – just don’t rely on Belgian Tourism to help you along the way. Use TripAdvisor… or travel bloggers like us. Airbnb Before we even got to Belgium we needed to find a place to stay. Since we knew very little about the area, we had no idea if any of the hotels were any good – and how would we begin to sort …

Leffe Beer, TravelBloggers.ca

Belgium – Home of Chocolate, Waffles… And Beer

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When we decided to go to Belgium and Germany this year – first and foremost on our to-do list was to sample real authentic Belgian Chocolate – not the store-bought stuff, it HAD to be from a chocolatier. Second on the list was to try the beer and hopefully get a tour as well. Hoegaarden is one of the best beers you can buy, so drinking that while in Belgium would be a slam-dunk – right? Wrong, more on that later. Google is a wonderful thing because Belgian Tourism (country, town or region) has a long way to go when it comes to marketing to tourists – they don’t even have a Twitter account!! Every time we found something interesting and thought about finding more information, it was a dead-end as far as any tourism office website was involved. Thankfully Google and TripAdvisor filled in the requisite information satisfactorily and made it a wonderful trip.

Germany Welcomes A Record Number Of Visitor In 2014, But The Netherlands Remains At Number 1

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The Netherlands leads the way even though Germany welcomes record visitor numbers in 2014 The number of overnight stays from abroad to Germany increased to 58.8 million for the period from January to September 2014 according to latest figures from the Federal Statistical Office of Germany. Some 2.9 million extra nights, in accommodation establishments with ten or more beds, were registered compared to the same period last year, an overall increase of 5.1 per cent. “This dynamic growth in inbound figures clearly provides German tourism with yet further momentum and impetus. “The increase of more than five percent at the end of the third quarter 2014 is again well above the equally satisfying growth rates recorded for January to September 2013 (up 3.8 per cent). “Looking at these intermediate results, we are optimistic that the annual balance of our predictions for overnight stays for 2014 will be achieved,” explains Petra Hedorfer, chief executive of the German National Tourist Board. Poland for the first time among the top ten markets With an increase of 12.2 per cent …