Weekend trip to Champagne

First stop -  Moet & Chandon visit. Reservations recommended. About 30 mins of guided tour (watched a video & toured their IMPRESSIVE caves) followed by tasting. First step to getting to know champagne a little better!

Next stops - the smaller houses which are mainly family-run business passed down for generations. One of our favorites is M. Hostomme (Grand Cru). Love their Blanc de Blancs. So we drove to their vineyards just a few mins away and took some photos (& tasted some grapes :p) nestled in the vines. Other Grand Crus that we visited include Champagne Jean Milan in Oger and Champagne Mailly. Great scenic drive to the Jean Milan.

Stayed at this B&B (marneweb.com) that was highly rated on Tripadvisor. Well, I must say that the ratings all go to the interesting hosts instead of the house (or rooms), although it does look nice on the outside. So it's old plain rooms vs hosts with character. Your choice, really. Nonetheless we adored the restaurant that they recommended, which serves one of the best trouts ever! This is a must.

Name: Le Vieux Moulin

Location: 12 Rue de Reims, 51700 Verneuil, France
Expenditure: 67€

Before heading back to Paris, we dropped by Reims to visit the Notre-Dame de Reims & had some lunch.

Last by not least, it was S' new car's maiden trip!

London 13-16Aug10

Booked this trip long ago since the Eurostar prices were so irresistible. 88€ return! The promotion looks like it's on-going, but you gotta book about 2 months in advance. We're already planning our next trip teehee.

For the both of us, London serves one and only purpose: food, food, and more food! Much thanks to S' friend Joan, we stayed at the Royal Garden Hotel. Love the Garden Room with an awesome view of the Hyde Park. Due to my goldfish memory, I forgot to take a nice picture of it. Oh wells, grabbed one from the website which looks exactly like it. On right: Dabao-ed dinner from C&R and Gold Mine. Roasted pork, oyster egg omelette, crab, fried tofu, sambal kang kong. Why don't we have any of that in Paris? :(

[source: http://www.royalgardenhotel.co.uk/Explore-Hotel/Photo-Gallery]

Next day, dim sum lunch at Royal China at Bayswater. We had A LOT of food actually but they came one after another so couldn't get a photo of them together. Crispy duck was not bad. Dim sum and duck tongue.. superb!

Visited The Monument but we were too weak (lazy) to walk up the 300+ steps! Apparently you can get a great view of London from up there. Maybe next time. People were even given a cert of some sort for completing the (two-way) climb.. no lifts this time to get back to ground zero!

Crossed the London Bridge and walked all the way to Tate Modern, where we visited an exhibition called 'Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera.' Check it out here: http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/exposure/default.shtm. Rather interesting. Then, we experienced some serious tube disruptions and had to walk SO much as a result. Quite frustrating. Nonetheless, we ended up at Trafalgar Square, had a light dinner at Chinatown, and watched Chicago. Not bad :)

Shopped the whole of Sunday at Bicester Village (outlet shopping). About 1+ hr drive from London. Go early before all the good buys and sizes run out. Last meal of the trip was at Nobu. We concluded that this was the highlight of all! (as you can so see from the photo) :D Shared the 2 set meals & the authentic sake in frozen bamboo. YUMS.

Name: Nobu Restaurant

Location: 15 Berkeley Street, London W1J 8DY

Expenditure: 105£

Belgium Day 3 - Brussels

Belgium Day 3 - Brussels

Arrived in the evening and left in the following afternoon, so didn't have much time in Brussels. Fortunately our hotel (Marriott too but the rooms are a little old) was just a 2 mins' walk to the Grand Place.

Touristy yes, but at least we can now say we've been there! A pity we were 3 days too early for the 14th Brussels' Flower Carpet, which was to be held on 13th-15th August. Otherwise it would have looked like this:

[source: http://www.planetware.com/picture/brussels-grand-place-grote-markt-b-be003.htm]

Up side of a touristy area (esp if you haven't done much research on your destination) is that you just might discover something interesting simply by following the tourists! So yeah, we spotted a group walking excitedly to somewhere.. Since they walked with such purpose, we decided to follow suit. This is what we found:

 ?!?! Haven't anyone seen this before?? Why in the world were they searching for this? Turns out it is the Manneken Pis, a famous Brussels landmark, a peeing boy. Go read the history/legends; it's quite funny. So ok, to their credit, we found something "great". Heh.

Lastly, dinner at a reasonably priced Japanese place just across the street from the hotel. Nice "Japanese-style carpaccio" as they call it & rather fresh sashimi.

Name: Anata

Location: Boulevard Anspach, 74, Brussels 1000, Belgium

Expenditure: 50€

Ended our trip at a low. Story goes like this: Man walked near the car. He suddenly bent down. S heard/felt a slight bump. She shrugged and drove off. 1 second later, tyre punctured! Man no. 2 suddenly appeared and offered help to change tyre. !!! What a ploy :( Thank goodness S rejected since she was near the hotel already. Sigh. Had to change to spare tyre (half the size of the normal one). Afraid that it won't be able to take the road well, we had to drive back to Paris at 80km/h instead of the usual 130! Took us a good 6 hours instead of 3+ to get home. How can some people be so evvviiilllllll....

Belgium Day 2 - Bruges

Belgium Day 2 - Bruges

Started the day at 10am and drove to Bruges which took us about an hr cos of some traffic. Another World Heritage Site (which everyone said is a must-go), we were excited about what would await us... Quaint as well with those pebbled roads, but didn't expect that most of them are still accessible by cars (albeit the numerous bikes commuting around).

Street view of the entrance to the historical city centre, with the Sint-Salvator Cathedral as background + entrance of a museum:

Strolled along the small streets and alleys and settled down at this restaurant for lunch. Very reasonably-priced set menu at just 20€! Not to be missed especially since the food was quite good. Had paté, grilled scampi, ice-cream, coffee. Mussels nothing impressive.

Name: Belle Epoque
Location: Zuidzandstraat 43 - 8000 Brugge
Expenditure: 50€

The one and only must-do on our list was the Church of Our Lady, because it houses the original Madonna and Child by Michelangelo! Also the 2nd tallest brickwork tower in the world. Outside of the church was under renovation. Thank goodness they still opened part of it.

Satisfied, we decided to r&r instead of rushing to see all the cathedrals and stuff. Not really our thing anyway. We always tell ourselves that we're on a holiday to relax, not to stress over what we've visited and what we hv not! What more, we can always drive back again ;)

Popped in this beer bar called 't Brugs Beertje that's highly rated on the net. Cool thing is that they have over 300 types of beer, and we actually overheard pple hvg serious discussions on beer-tasting! They also have special beer glasses for each type of beer.

Headed back to Ghent to have dinner at a cozy Italian restaurant right at the doorstep of Marriott. Antipasto was super good value for money; "for one" is enough to share. Pasta and baked swordfish were superb too. A pity we aren't fans of pizzas. Almost everyone else had 1 large pizza in front of them! Certainly a keeper.

Name: Il Folletto

Location: Drabstraat 30, 9000 Ghent, Belgique

Expenditure: 60€ 

Took a night stroll and saw some people placing lanterns in the river. Thereafter we realized they were commemorating the 65th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki on 9th August 1945.

Belgium Day 1 - Ghent

Belgium Day 1 - Ghent

3 hours' drive from Paris. Beautiful little quaint place. One of the many World Heritage Sites; touted as the largest pedestrianized area in Belgium. And as always, I'll let the pictures do most of the talking...

At the heart of Ghent's city centre. The famous Korenlei and Graslei area separated by a river.

What I love about this place is as quoted:" All that remains of some of the original buildings is the outer walls! Behind them is a brand new hotel." True enough, our Marriott hotel is one of those. Excellently located among the quaint facades, it is no wonder why it's the top hotel around here. Talking abt location (and since Ghent is such a compact and walkable city), we set off for a walk and unexpectedly "visited" a few attractions:

A PLAYMOBIL-like castle that got S a bit excited :) It's called the Castle of the Counts.

The Belfry. Dating from 1313, proudest symbol of their independence.

See the squarish "windows" below the gold clock? We climbed the 366 steps just to get up there! But look what we were rewarded with..

Steep, small, treacherous steps. Some of them hardly had enough space for half a shoe! Took the lift down as it was clearly too dangerous to climb downward. The golden thing at the top of the Belfry is supposed to be like that: a dragon (not a rooster!) hehe.

St Michael's Bridge. Slowly turn through 360° and soak it all in.. "the only place in Ghent to get a decent view of the three towers in a row".

Belgian beer by the river. Just gotta have it. Pleasant dinner by the river too. But best bet is to try their local Flemish stew.

And end the day with a good night's sleep at Marriott! What a contrasting modern design. (P.S. Look out for promotions on their website. You might be able to get a room at less than half the normal rate. Serious. ;) )