I wanted to visit Sibiu for a long time, yet I never got the chance to spend a few days in this lovely city. However, as this year we decided to attend ARTMania which happens in Sibiu, it was a good time to shoot a few photos in and around the city.
But before the photo gallery – a short notice: I haven’t been taken by aliens, nor fallen in Bermuda Triangle, nothing that dramatic. However, a lot of things happened and the blog got put on a low priority. Hopefully this is going to change.
One of the great things to experience when traveling is eating the local food. It doesn’t matter if eating in a restaurant or having a quick bite on the street, the food from a new city can leave a lasting impression. You can find delicious, tasty food that leaves memories for a long time, and this adds a lot to the whole experience.
A lot of people think about travel in terms of ‘seeing’. yet it is a far more rich experience when you can immerse completely in a new environment. And when ‘seeing’ is replaced by ‘doing’. Whether it’s eating the local food, dancing in the local clubs, diving, trekking, getting lost in the old town – it adds a whole new dimension to a trip.
National Geographic, Discovery Chanel, BBC – all are great ate conveying the look (most often breathtaking!) of a certain place well enough. But it’s impossible to capture the smells, the tastes, the sounds of a certain place.
These are the last photos from Bruxelles, a mix of black & white and color photography. As usual I am way behind in posting the photos from my trip (nothing new here).
I hope you enjoy all these pictures, and maybe even visit Belgium because of this. I have to say that before the trip to Belgium I knew very little – what to expect, what to do, what to see – but Belgium was a series of nice surprises. Of course I was prepared for the onslaught of great beers – I am referring to touristic places to see.
The unfortunate lesson from this trip is that it seems I travel better alone. I do try to experiment – going with a group of friends, joining people on the road, sometimes I sin and go on an organized tour, and other times I go with someone from Romania. Well, when personalities clash and the things that 2 people enjoy are very different traveling can become a chore. While it was not very bad – next time I will surely try to screen better a travel partner. It is very possible that I am so used to be on my own that even small things chafe. C’est la vie – and my vacation is “sacred” 
In contrast with last gallery, here are some color photos for you to enjoy.
And yes, this is an excuse to post this lovely photo with just a few of the possible beers one can enjoy in Belgium.
There is a real culture of beer drinking: large glasses (you can find them in Bucharest where they serve Leffe), countless pubs and beer gardens and supermarkets with more beer types than chocolate ones. And Belgium is a good place for chocolate lovers also, but that pales in comparison.
The thing that really surprised me is that most beers are pretty strong. It doesn’t matter if we are talking about bottled, ‘export’ ones, or ‘monastery’ beers, or even small pub offerings (like Delirium Tremens – white bottle with a pink elephant…). Most are over 8 alcohol or even 9. And this means that after 3 or 4 I got pretty tipsy. 2 more and I became very tipsy.
Some of the beers can be found also here in Romania – classic Leffe, Hoegarden, some Duvel – but for the real variety a visit to Belgium is mandatory.
How to best describe Bruxelles? A tiny gem of a town, old buildings and new people or waffles and beers ? I really liked the few days I spent in Belgium – split between Bruxelles, Bruges and to neighboring Luxembourg. We were very lucky to have clement weather – a bit of rain, a lot of sunshine, some cold winds (which compared to the weather in Romania were very welcome).
Bruxelles is easily visited in 2 or 3 days, but it will probably take weeks if not months to discover all the hidden gems. And drink all the possible beers. And while I am sure one can see everything Bruxelles has to offer, I am not so certain about managing to drink all the possible beers. A lot of cities claim to be the best place to have a certain kind of food, sometimes rightly so but a lot of times it’s just tourist propaganda. However – Belgium and beer is another story. The moment you step inside a Belgian pub you step in another world – a better one, full of tasty, strong beers. I tried a lot of them, and finally settled on La mort subite, Duvel and Chimay bleu, yet I haven’t even scratched the surface of all the possibilities.
Besides beer gardens and pubs, bruxelles has a lot to offer: from impressive Euro buildings (the parliament is a huge multi-building complex that dwarfs you as a little EU citizen), to old quaint neighborhoods, to little Europe and the Atomium, to Grand Place (main square) and so on. Almost every little street and place in the city centre has a magic feel to it.
I started to upload some of the photos from this trip – enjoy this first set, focused on black and white.
Black and white photography can be evocative, touching, even haunting. It is said that the best photographs are those that can cut all the clutter and convey a message, a story, in a minimum of elements. And reducing a photo to only shades of gray can be one way to achieve this. Of course – a bad photo will still look bad in B&W, but people can ‘see’ the message so much better in a B&W.
I found on Google Buzz the link the a very nice collection of B&W photos – http://photo.tutsplus.com/articles/inspiration/100-awe-inspiring-black-white-photographs/ – and this made me to take a look at some of the photos I have shot for a later B&W processing. Below are some fresh results.
Also – a few of my old galleries contain some B&W photos. And browsing those pages I found that while some colour photos no longer appeal to me, the B&W photos “retain” their strength better. What do you think?
I am thinking about this subject for a pretty long time. In a nutshell – is the effort, time, money invested in travel worth it in the end?
A short list that should explain why travel is bad -
I hope this list of things clearly show the folly of traveling.
And now, I’m back to searching for some plane tickets for my next adventure.
Oh, and the necessary disclaimer: the whole article is written with a heavy dose of irony. Except me searching for tickets.
