It only took a few days to acclimate to Paris time and after a few bottles of good wine and some baguette it felt like I never left. I usually like to take a day trip or two outside of the city while I’m visiting, and this time was no exception. Paris is a great jumping off point for a number of cities in Europe, Brussels being just an hour and a half train ride on the TGV.

Yes, you read that correctly. An hour and a half! A quick look at Google maps shows that Brussels is about 306 km (~190 miles) from Paris. To put that in perspective — I live 80 miles north of New York City and the train from here to Grand Central takes longer than that. A quick calculation shows that we were moving, on average, about 126 mph. When the train is moving parallel to the highway and the cars that are going 75 mph look like they’re going 30 mph, you know you’re moving fast.

Ok, enough with the math. I had a very specific plan for Brussels that involved waffles, chocolate and beer. All together or separate, it didn’t matter. We arrived around 9:30 am with no map and no sense of where to go really, so we headed east from the train station, towards the Grand Platz and found a touristy waffle place for breakfast. I got a waffle with strawberries and bananas. Check. Eddy got a beer along with his waffle and may have had chocolate too, so he was doing it right from the start.

Why am I taking pictures of watermelon in Brussels? Because we definitely didn’t know where we were going at this point

After our excellent waffles we began looking for chocolate. This isn’t very hard in the Grand Platz, as there are chocolate shops everywhere. We stopped in a few and had some tastes.

It was a rainy morning In Brussels. After gorging ourselves on chocolate (which, apparently at 11 am is 4 pieces for me), we made our way down a Disney World smelling street only to encounter one of the most famous residents of Brussels, Manneken Pis. I don’t think anyone except those who live in Brussels understand why this little guy is so famous. A gift shop within eyeshot sold everything from miniature versions of the little guy to corkscrews where…you get the idea.

After getting showered with Brussels culture, we felt it time to indulge in (honestly) the real reason we came to Brussels. Belgian Beer! We found Delirium. With an extensive beer menu, this place was awesome. The skies cleared after lunch and we spent some time photographing in the Grand Platz and enjoying some more beer.

I don’t have many more Brussels photographs after this point…because, well, Belgian beer is strong. We found our hotel, which was a bar, checked in and headed back out. Some food, drinks and a couple more trips to Delirium and we were done for the night. Besides, we had a 9 am train to catch for Amsterdam in the morning…

After a packed day in Dublin, we arrived in Paris around 10 pm.  This was my fourth time visiting Paris and the third time at Vijay’s apartment in the 16th arrondissement, so it always feels comfy when I get there.   Bryan and I should have gotten to sleep immediately, but the draw of wine, cheese, fresh baguette and friends I haven’t seen in a while won out.

A good night of sleep followed by an excellent Parisian brunch of eggs, pain au chocolat, croissant buerre, honey, jams, baguette and Nepali tea zapped my jet lag and spurred me to get out of the apartment for a walk.  Christie and I went to an area I had never been to before (took line 2 to the Colonel Fabien stop) and spent the day walking down the Canal Saint-Martin talking and taking pictures before stopping in a cafe for an afternoon drink.

Apartments near the Colonel Fabian metro

 Tourist boats navigating the the canal locks and trains as we got off the metro

I’ll do a little “equipment” blog post later, but for this trip I brought my tripod with me as well as borrowing a 10 stop ND filter.  Having a tripod with me was probably one of the best decisions I made, and it allowed me to play around with the ND filter and daytime long exposures.  I did a few in Dublin, but this first walk in Paris I was able to try a bunch more.  These are all on the Canal Saint-Martin.

We ran into these kids on the way home and when I pointed my camera at them they defended themselves quickly, “C’est public!”.  I guess in my older age I look too much like “the man”…when all I wanted to do was get a shot of them 🙂

That night it rained and we ducked into a cozy little Italian restaurant for dinner.  The food and wine were excellent as was my mascarpone créme that I had for dessert.  Christie spent most of the next morning preparing a wonderful Nepali lunch, in which I was made to eat traditionally, with one hand and no utensils :).  After lunch, Christie and I headed over to the Marias to meet some friends and I grabbed a few more shots when I could.  We passed an open air book market and then up to a bridge over the Seine near Île Saint-Louis.

The next morning I got up early and worked out like I did every morning.  I wish I had taken a video of myself doing burpees in front of the Arc de Triomphe.  Eddy arrived that morning and we went out for a decent lunch and walked from Vijay’s place up to the Arc and down the Champs-Élysées, met Vijay for a drink and then continued our photo walk through the Tuileries Gardens and hung out near Concorde messing around with long exposures and time lapses before making our way back home.

Sitting in the middle of the Champs-Élysées trying to take long exposures may not be the safest thing in the world, but I love this shot!

Next up, day trips to Brussels and Amsterdam!