Travel Journal
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[review] 5-star hotel Capella Hanoi (Vietnam) – an unforgettable experience
We’re in April 2022. After two years of the covid crisis, tourists are just starting to be able to return to Vietnam. One day, my Vietnamese travel agency posts photos on their Zalo profile of a 5-star hotel that just opened in Hanoi with a very attractive offer (200 euros instead of 450 euros/night). Since our friend A. has to come back to Hanoi for a few days, I suggest he spend two nights there: it’s central and cheaper than the Sofitel Metropole Hanoi. He accepts and offers to come with us. We tell him we already have our Airbnb but we’ll spend one night there to see what it’s…
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Santiago, Pucón and the Surroundings (Chile)
It’s March 2024. After spending a month in Buenos Aires and a week on Easter Island, we have to find a place to stay before our road trip in Japan with my parents. We choose to spend a few days in Santiago before heading quickly to the lake region. Santiago Santiago has never been a remarkable city for us. Despite passing through several times (often to get to another region of Chile or Argentina), we’ve always struggled to appreciate it. This time, we opt for a hostel right in the city center, in an old house (that could have looked like a museum, Casa Marina Huérfanos, Booking link). But we…
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2023 Rare Book and Graphic Arts Fair in Paris
It’s September 2023: For once, I receive invitations to the Rare Book and Graphic Arts Fair, after buying a second-hand book that reeks of smoke on a site for book lovers. Tickets cost 10 euros each, but thanks to these invitations, I can go for free with my girlfriend M., which makes up a bit for the smelly book I put in the “books to swap” box outside the metro. My friend M. is curious and interested in everything, so she’s already been to the gem and jewelry show with me, and now to the rare book fair even though she’s not a bibliophile. I am (a bit) bibliophilic for…
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Train road trip: Bruges, Liège, Namur, Brussels (Belgium)
From Antwerp where we’re staying for a month, we do round trips to Bruges and Brussels, then visit Namur – Liège. The train is our favorite way to get around in Belgium. City centers are often close to the station, and Belgian trains are cheap and on time. They’re not as fast as the TGV, but given the short distances between cities, it’s a good way to get around. Bruges Of these cities, Bruges is the only one I’ve visited without JB. Italked about it in detail in another article. So I’ll just share some new photos. Since we had sunshine, they’re prettier than the ones I took in the…
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Antwerp, the city of diamonds (Belgium) – 2023 travel journal
After the Netherlands, JB is still hoping to hear about our apartment in Nice so we decide to stay in Europe for a few more months. Not knowing where to go, I suggest Belgium, which I’d crossed in express mode with my friend M. and her son just before Covid. We choose Antwerp as our base because I loved (1) the fact that most diamonds pass through Antwerp (2) its printing museum. JB books us a nice Airbnb a 10-minute bike ride from the cathedral, and it’s only when we get there that we discover this Airbnb is inside a retirement home. We eye the dining hall longingly and ask…
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Discovering Kosovo: Pristina, Prizren, monasteries, and a ski resort
Despite the workload, we still aim to visit the highlights of Kosovo, while working, in two and a half weeks, and renting a car for 3 days. Our HQ is in Pristina, a capital without much charm, covered in snow in April 2023. Here, as elsewhere in the Balkans, the locals are super friendly and the heating is more than effective. We like the food in Kosovo a bit more than in Serbia, since most of the population is of Albanian origin and their cuisine is delicious (very Mediterranean). We hesitated a lot between North Macedonia and the Kosovo, but from Serbia, it’s more practical to take a direct bus…
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Road trip in Serbia: Danube, Novi Sad, Subotica
Despite my intense laziness, we still manage to go on a mini road trip in Serbia to get a rough idea of what the country looks like. Because my dream is to see the Danubeagain. When I was little, my grandfather’s favorite piece was “The Blue Danube” and he would ask me to play it over and over, so in my head, the Danube is definitely blue. It wasn’t blue in Vienna and I blame pollution, but here, it must be blue, right? I need to go see it ASAP. Smederevo Fortress The fortress of Smederevo is one of the most important and best-preserved medieval fortifications in Serbia. It is…
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First visit to Belgrade (Serbia)
We are in March 2023. Since Rome, we’re flying to Belgrade. It always feels good to get into a lounge and have something to snack on before the flight, especially when lounge access is free (included with JB’s Amex card). Belgrade is a magic word. It’s a city name that sounds so exotic to me that I can’t even imagine what it could look like. If I saw an elephant in Belgrade, I wouldn’t even be surprised, because that’s how exotic this name sounds to me! Like in “In Search of Lost Time,” sometimes the names of places paint a completely different picture in our minds. For JB, Belgrade brings…
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Naples, way too much going on (Italy)
We take the train from Pompeii to Naples. We decide not to spend the night in Naples because we find our hotel in Pompeii very nice and very quiet—it’s better to do the round trip Pompeii – Naples than to drag our suitcases all the way to Naples, and then from Naples to Rome. What a wise decision, because this city feels like pure chaos to me, a city swallowed by mass tourism and the incompetence of those in charge of keeping it clean. It’s crowded everywhere, absolutely everywhere, and the streets are disgustingly dirty, especially in tourist spots. I was shocked to see such a touristy city so poorly…
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Pompeii, a gigantic site (Italy)
After Sicily, we fly to Naples and Pompeii. An Italian friend who specializes in volcanoes told us that the present danger isn’t Vesuvius but Naples: the Naples region is itself inside a volcano. And from the plane, it does look like that, indeed. Specialists see danger everywhere, but I hope he’s just being overly cautious. We land in Naples first and immediately take a shuttle, which is 5 minutes from the airport, to Pompeii. The driver drops us right at a gate of the archaeological park. Unfortunately, our hotel isn’t near this gate but near the other gate. We walk along the park, can’t see what’s inside, and after 15…
