Home -> Europe -> Belgium -> Travelogue 2005 -> Sunday 18 December

To the European Space Center

When we drive away from our cottage we notice the engine of our car has problems. It goes off and the temperature of the water is rising too high. Probably part of the cooling water has frozen and indeed, we have to fill the water with more than one liter. We knew there was something with the water system but we don't know exactly what, the garage couldn't find any leakage. So we buy some extra coolant and hope we will make it back home next week. It hasn't frozen much last night since there is less snow here than yesterday night.

But when we drive south we enter a snowy world where the woods are still totally covered in white. It is beautiful to see and we have to get out to walk a bit through the woods and take photographs. We even turn around at the end of the road and drive it again, since we like it so much.

Strangely enough the roads are totally clean while there isn't much traffic and we haven't seen any machines to remove the snow. Only on the very small roads it is a bit icy. We love the scenery, this is how winter should be, without causing to much problems.

Near Transinne we visit the European Space Center. First there is a tour of an hour with films and explanations, but it is rather chaotic and we think a documentary on television about the ESA will tell you more than paying € 11 here. There is also a lot of information on signs but the tour doesn't leave you enough time to read them.

We spend about two hours inside, and, although the subject is very interesting, somebody is really needed to improve the presentation of all the information. After our tour there is not much information left in our memory and we were only in a small group of 7 people, so no distractions. We hope the ESA itself isn't as chaotic as this touristic attraction.

Near Transinne is also a hotel where we sit down for a coffee although hundreds of bottles of wine are waiting behind us to be bought. But we stick to the coffee.

Outside it is getting dark again, the day has passed too soon. It is too late to do anything else, so we slowly drive back through the beautiful white woods. When we get near Barvaux there is almost no snow left, even around our cottage it has melted away. But the clouds still look like it can start snowing any minute. We hope so!

Travel through Europe and Africa

with Elisabeth and Teije