Don’t you know much about Romania beyond Dracula? Well, then it’s time to visit my native wonderful country. I can tell you, you are gonna fall in love with its fairytale landscapes, all the small villages stuck in the nostalgic times, its marvelous painted monasteries, fortified churches, and the national obsession for the delicious stuffed grape leaves, sarmale, and mamaliga (a porridge made out of maize flour). Read more
During my basic education years, I learned a few things about what will later become my adopted country, The Netherlands: tulips come from here (let’s face it, we all know in the meanwhile that the tulip comes from Turkey), Rotterdam is the biggest port in Europe (from 1964 until 2004 it was the busiest port in the world even), the Erasmus bridge in Rotterdam named after the Dutch philosopher Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, considered to have been one of the greatest scholars of the Renaissance, Rembrandt and Van Gogh (the second had become over the years my favorite painter), and PSV Eindhoven, Ruud Gulith with his crazy hair and Marco van Basten (my brother was a big fan). Read more
When Etienne Gustave Frédéric, Baron van Zuylen van Nyevelt van de Haar (1860–1934), married Baroness Hélène de Rothschild, of the Rothschild family, he had not yet inherited the De Haar Castle. This marriage was a blessing for the castle, although it will still take five years before the castle benefits from the Rothschild family’s fortune. The Baroness fell in love with the castle and decided to restore it into a modern version. She contracted the famous architect Pierre Cuypers (who was the architect of other two famous buildings: Amsterdam Central Station and Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam). Read more
Vintage stores have something special. At least for me. I always imagine a story behind each product. If you are in Dordrecht, be sure to visit Bluebirds in the Backyard. It’s not just a simple vintage shop, it’s a fairytale place inside a magnificent 18th century building (Huis Roodenburch), which also has a cafe / restaurant where you can relax with a friend for a coffee or lunch (they have biological products). You can take your child with you, there is a very nice playground. You can rent a room for events and recently they opened the garden, so you can enjoy a cappuccino outdoors. Bluebirds in the Backyard is definitely on the list of hotspots in Dordrecht.
I have this amazing girlfriend which lives in Birmingham. We know each other since I was 17. Our children have been a couple of years playing together, sometimes sleeping together by my home or hers, sometimes quarreling and then kissing and hugging. The good part is that now we live close by again since I am living in the Netherlands and her, in the United Kingdom. From time to time I miss her, and because of this reason, and especially for our children’s sake, we boarded an Amsterdam-Birmingham flight. Read more
I’ve been to Morocco. So what? So I wanna go back there for a trip with a backpack, no child and a list of Moroccan towns. At the beginning of her teenage period, my child suddenly became more interested in the swimming pool and less in traveling all day long from one city to another. As the hotel where we stayed had a huge swimming pool, I hardly convinced her to make trips, and even at some point, she abandoned me altogether. Read more