Friday, September 16, 2022

The rain was

 A bit of a damper. But, not enough to stop us from having a marvelous day. 

After losing a few posts when I accidentally deleted them, I hope this one survives my tired bones, but exhilarated spirit. It was such a great day. Visiting all our favorite haunts, it was like we had never left. 

Seven years is a long time, and something’s had notably changed. For starters Pinocchio, our favorite local Italian was no longer in business. In its place was another Italian restaurant. Rob the humongous store was very much there. I still remember my surprise seeing their wine cellar for the first time. It must have been the size of a regular grocery store in Florida. Then there was the cage, which looked more like a chapel, because of the ornate wrought iron gates that housed wine bottles with visibly displayed price tags of thousands of euros. 

One location of Pizza Saco was also permanently closed. Covid must have extracted it’s toll. Other changes included changing traffic patterns, with increasing padestrian areas, especially near the city Centre areas such as Centraal and the Grand-Place.  A bit of a damper. But not enough to stop us from having a fabulous day. 


The day showed us all four seasons. There was rain when we started, then it became cloudy; followed by sunny, and then rain again. A hail storm quickly followed this! Back to sunshine again, and soon dusk was asserting itself with a coolness in the air when we returned to our hotel. 

We had a great breakfast/ brunch at Le Pain Quotidien, followed by a late lunch at Bia Mara and the walkabout in the abovementioned areas. We went to St. Nicholas Church and spent about 45 minutes there. We were then shopping around the area going to our old favorites. 

We had the best intentions to go to Pizza Saco for dinner, but the Gods had a bigger and better dream dinner in mind for us. For that story, we will have to wait till tomorrow!


Veenu Banga

09-16-2022

11:26 pm. 


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