I have mentioned the event in several other articles, so you can guess I am enthusiastic about Beaufort on the Belgian coast.
Every 3 years, international artists are commissioned to create a sculpture on that year’s theme, with the sea and the coast in mind. In addition to new work, work from previous editions is also present at the event.
Sometimes we go to the Netherlands to visit family and friends, making it easy to have a detour and enjoy this great event.
Córdoba is about a 4-hour drive from our house if we go in a straight line. There are enough exciting things to do in Cordoba. However, the last time we visited, it took us a week to get there because we first visited several other places.
Including the village of María which has a beautiful botanical garden situated on the slope of a mountain. We also stayed at a campground in the middle of the Cazorla National Park. And visited the beautiful excavations of Cástulo in Linares. I’ll write more about that in another article.
We enjoy this way of travelling so much, getting from one place to another at our leisure and seeing both known and unknown places. I can highly recommend the alternation of camping cabin and hotel stay that we have done.
A joke from my childhood: a bull called Hannibal jumped over the fence and exclaimed that his name was now Hanni because he had lost his balls in the barbed wire. A pretty lame joke, all the more since my schoolmates used to tease me with it.
I knew that Hannibal the army commander (the one from the elephants) was associated with the Spanish city of Cartagena, but only recently I discovered the exact connection in the museum of the Punic Wall.
Apart from the Punic Wall, there are several other exquisite attractions in Cartagena. The city is only an hour’s drive from our house, so we visit this beautiful city often.
If you love ancient Roman history then you must visit Mérida. Spain has many Roman excavations, but rarely as complete as the monuments that can be seen in Mérida.
The first time we visited this city in Extremadura, we stayed with our son. With a journey of 3 hours in the car and an equally long journey back, there was not much time left to visit the city in peace and quiet.
We definitely wanted to come back to see everything at our leisure. That only happened 12 years later, but then we also took the time for it.
In between Madrid in the centre of Spain and Valencia on the East coast lies Cuenca, an eagle’s nest between 2 rivers.
There are just a few tourist highlights in Cuenca to be seen, for instance, the Cathedral and the so-called Hanging Houses, but the old city as a whole is fantastic. It is stuck on a mountaintop, sandwiched between 2 gorges carved out by the rivers Huécar and Júcar.
That and our favourite Spanish museum, Museo de Arte Abstracto Español, make a visit more than valuable for us. All the more now we have heard of yet another touristic highlight: The Enchanted City.
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In the Netherlands, we lived 5 miles from the Belgium border. Crossing the border really meant crossing a frontier, despite that small distance.
As soon as you are in the neighbourhood of the border you can see that the street is different (ask any professional cyclist – Belgian cobblestone roads are famous), the houses are built with materials we don’t use in the Netherlands and on a back road it even shows that nature looks different. In the Netherlands everything is clean-cut, Belgium is cozier.
For Tom and me, Antwerp was closer than Amsterdam, so if we wanted to sniff some culture we usually went there. What to see in Antwerp? There is a lot of variety and the terraces are great!
Years ago my husband and I were finally able to take a day off (we had the worst bosses ever – we were both solo entrepreneurs) and decided we wanted to have a combination of culture, nature, exercise and fun. Preferably all in one place.
We could have gone to Insel Hombroich just across the border of Germany, but another great place where you can have it all is National Park Hoge Veluwe. It’s located in the east of the Netherlands and even on that winter’s day it was beautiful.
Cars are allowed in the park but are strongly discouraged by an additional charge on the entrance fee. If you have no difficulty moving, it is better to park the car at one of the entrances and continue on foot or by bicycle. This way you save nature and you see more details of the park.
When Tom and I still lived in the Netherlands we often visited Belgium. When we were young we were attracted by the cafes and the amazing variety of Belgian beers as much as by the rich history.
Later we mainly visited museums like the Art Museums of Brussels and Antwerp or the Designmuseum in Gent (unfortunately closed until 2026).
As we live in Spain now, we can’t go that often and have to plan a visit to see art in Belgium, yet 2024 will be a time to go. The main reason is the Triennale Beaufort but our visit will also include the Verbeke Foundation and probably Bruges.
Usually, if I write about art (architecture, sculpture, painting), it is about modern art. Medieval churches and Renaissance castles, impressive as they are, are for me less interesting to write about.
I am making an exception for mills. Fueled by the interest of Australian family and American friends, I find the technology and function of mills as fascinating as the design of modern architecture.
Since the Middle Ages, the low countries have fought against the water and Dutch windmills played a major role in this.