A few weeks ago, Michelle and Grant came down from Cambridge to spend a weekend in Brussels. Hayden was very excited to see his marraine again, and we had high hopes of trekking off to Hallebos to see the bluebells. However, the weather was not looking promising so we decided to stay closer to home. Grant acted as our photographer for the weekend and supplied all these photographs.

I kicked off our weekend with some Thermomix buttermilk blueberry pancakes topped with Michelle and Grant’s homemade blackberry jam. We caught the metro to the European Parliament district in Maelbeek valley, and while the sun was out we took a quick stroll through Parc Léopold. The Park contains such treasures as a rare Oriental plane tree, the remains of the fifteenth century Eggevoort castle, as well as the Royal Museum of Natural Science.

Forsaking the Iguanodons this time around, we head over to the Parliamentarium, the new €21 million high-tech EU visitors’ center that opened October 2011. The touch-screen audio devices are available in 23 different languages, and a triggered by placing them within close proximity to your display of interest. For a subject matter that could be quite dry, the curators have managed to bring the history of Europe alive with interactive displays that include a long corridor traversing the history of Europe, a 360 degree film on the parliament, an huge map to explore with trolleys that play short clips about various regions, and an expansive lounge room with interviews of European citizens.

After a lunch of frites and a long afternoon nap, we headed out for Lapin à la gueuz (Rabbit in cherry beer gravy) at Le Forestier, followed by a marionette performance of The Passion at Théâtre de Toone. I had assumed that since I was familliar with the plot, I would be able to follow the story, even though I don’t speak Bruxellois (a dialect mixture of Flemish and French). I was mistaken. The story was told from the perspective of Judas, who was portrayed as a drunk man wandering through the Sablon and the Grand Place, with a cameo by St Michael, the patron saint of Brussels. Hayden loved it, refusing to sleep and staring with wonder at the puppets on the screen. He probably understood more of the Dutch than we did.

We took him back home after intermission and left Grant and Michelle to enjoy the Grand Place.

On Sunday we went to the Midi Markets for a brunch of Moroccan pancakes filled with honey, cheese, and marinated vegetables. Michelle hung out with Hayden and told him a story about a certain caterpillar with a bit of an appetite.

We finished up the weekend with a trip to the Sky Cafe at the Royal Museum of the Army and of Military History. Hayden sat in his first pilot’s seat but looked a little overwhelmed at the responsibility. After a few rounds of bowling, dinner was Ethiopian, which Hayden loved because it meant that everyone was eating with his hands, just like him.

Mum and I managed to meet up in Glasgow for a couple of days to see this little bit of Scotland together.

We saw Tenement House, an Edwardian flat that has been preserved since 1910. I loved reading the letters from Miss Toward discussing the chimney sweep and coal deliveries, it brought the place alive for me. She even wrote about how she had saved up the 25 pounds to have an electric light installed. This move was too modern for the National Trust however, so they retrofitted the lamps back to gas lighting when they adopted the place in the 1990s.

The flat itself was ingeniously designed – a much better use of space than our little apartment. For example, the favourite bed was tucked into a niche in their warmest room – the kitchen. It also had a series of pulleys that permitted two washing lines to be lowered, the sheets to be hung, and then hoisted up towards the ceiling and out of the way. An expert guide stood in each room, answering our questions and pointing out interesting aspects of the flat.

We also took a tour of the Glasgow School of Art. Designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh when he was 29 and completed in 1909, this enormous building is a practical yet whimsical fusion of Art Deco and Art Nouveau architecture. Huge glass windows dominate the studios, while the library is a geometric forest of timber and light. We finished up our explorations with afternoon tea at the Mackintosh-designed Willow tea rooms.

This was a difficult day to plan. The ship was only docked in Civitavecchia for ten hours. In that time, we needed to get to the train station, take a 1.3 hour train into Rome, experience the wonders of this ancient region, and then catch the train back again, leaving enough time for any unexpected delays. I had everything planned out in advance, and we were going to attempt to visit three sovereign entities in one day – Italy, The Knights of Malta, and the Vatican City.

The ship let us off early so that we were able to catch the 8:57 train, getting us to the World Heritage listed Colosseum by 11:00 am. I had pre-purchased tickets on the web, so we were able to smugly walk past the long line of people waiting to buy tickets and get inside reasonably quickly. We had both pre-loaded Rick Steves’ audio guide onto our iPhones, and we listened to it as we walked through this immense structure. I enjoyed this particular commentary of Rick Steves’. Hearing the trumpets blare and his vivid descriptions, I could very easily look down into the centre ring and imagine the horrific theatrics that were played out in the second century CE. The underground passages that served as the backstage were also visible, giving an insight into the mechanics that were required for such a spectacle. To think that right on this spot, wild animals were brutally tortured, or that condemned men were placed in costumes and forced to act in a elaborate plays that would end in their death. This is the place where an estimated million animals and half a million people were put to death for entertainment. Although, having just seen the enormous bull ring in Malaga, I wondered how much has really changed in 1900 years.

I told Adrian that we had no time to stop and eat, so we grabbed a pizza and toasted sandwich to eat while on the metro. Our next stop was a visit to the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, and of Malta. The order ruled over Jerusalem, then Rhodes, then Malta until it was ejected when Napoleon I captured the country in 1798. After the loss of Malta the Order settled permanently in Rome in 1834. The Magistral Villa is located on the Aventine hill, and hosts the Grand Priory of Rome, the Embassy of the Order to the Holy See and the Embassy of the Order to the Italian Republic. The Order still claims sovereignty, and thus the villa has extraterritorial status. I was able to peek through the keyhole and see St Peter’s basilica through the avenue of trees. That was our next destination.

After returning to Italy, it was time to cross another border into the Vatican City, and experience Adrian’s 100th World Heritage site (my count is around 50). The immense granite obelisk towers over the square. Originally carved by the Egyptians to honour the sky god Ra, then stolen by the Romans to venerate Jupiter, it now stands with a tiny cross at its peak to mark the transition from one superstition to another. There was a 100-foot tree nearby that was a gift from Belgium, and when the Pope received it he declared “May the Church in Belgium, and especially the Diocese of Liège, continue to be a land where the seed of the Kingdom, that Christ came to scatter on earth, generously germinates”.

Thanks to the terrible weather, the line into St Peter’s basilica was relatively short, and we were soon inside the church. Once inside, I was very impressed by the vast and ornate interior. The floor looked like a rich carpet, though it was really a pattern constructed in marble. Every surface was gilded or embellished in some way. We listened to Rick Steves’ audio guide, which irked me a little. I didn’t like hearing about his very statements about “Jesus’ message of love”, that “things are much more enjoyable here if you become a temporary Catholic”, and “your time here can be awe inspiring and beautiful if you accept and respect things on Catholic terms”.

However, he did touch upon the financing with indulgences, pillaging of the Pantheon, and torture during the Inquisition. He spoke of how the church betrayed Michelangelo, by promising they would be faithful to his plans and then altering them soon after his death. I learnt that the reason that the bronze statue of St Peter near the alter is wearing a toga is because it was probably originally of a Roman official, and later on the Catholics just replaced the head and placed some keys in his hand.

Suddenly it was 4pm, time to head back to the ship. We discovered that the metro station that google maps claimed was near the San Pietro train station did not actually exist, and thus decided it was best to catch the metro all the way back to the Roma Termini station and catch the train from there. By the time we finally got onto a train it was not going to arrive at Civitavecchia until 5:57pm, giving us only a half hour window for delays and getting back to the ship. Happily, the train moved towards the coast without delay, and we made it back onto the ship with ten minutes to spare.

Due to the change in schedule, we ended up arriving in Málaga a day early to compensate for our missed port. This was a bit of a shock for me, as I had planned a full itinerary of how to spend an afternoon in Gibraltar, but no idea how to spend an extra afternoon in Málaga. We set off from the ship, and it ended up being a very long walk into town. The trouble with so many of these ports is that they are designed for moving cargo, and not for travellers on foot. With the water on one side, and tall fences on the other, there were no shortcuts, and we were feeling footsore even before we reached the main street. It was also raining, and I did not feel like an intrepid explorer.

I convinced Adrian that we could also experience Mediterranean culture inside instead of outside. We found a restaurant nearby and had an early extended dinner of pizza, panini, and paella. The waitress made us some refreshing tinto de verano – a mixture of red wine and Fanta de Limón. After dinner, we slowly strolled through the streets filled with lights above, reflected on the stones below. The rain had cleared, the streets were crowded with people enjoying their evening, and we polished off the night with some very delicious gelato.

It was a little unsettling to wake up the next morning and realise that we were in the same location as the night before. This was the only day of our holiday where the sun was shining and the sky was blue. I really felt myself getting into the holiday spirit, soaking in the sunshine and winding down. Sometimes I tend to get very mission orientated – concentrating on moving from one sight to the next, without taking the time to sit down and tranquilize. It seemed that a warm day in Spain was an excellent way for me to finally unwind.

We very wisely caught a taxi all the way to the top of the Gibralfaro castle at the top of the hill. It was originally built out of limestone by Cordoban emir Abd ar-Rahman I in the 8th-century, later rebuilt in the 11th by Badis, the Ziri king, and again in 14th century when Málaga was the main port for the Emirate of Granada. All of Málaga and its harbour can be seen from the castle, and it was a beautiful walk down the fortifications to the Alcazaba fortress at the base. We gazed out at the old Roman ampitheatre nearby. It is currently being restored, and we discussed the dangers and merits of reconstructing ancient sites. Should we use brand-new materials to make the place look exactly how it did in its heyday, or just preserve as much as we can of the old materials and let ones imagination fill in the rest? On our way back to the ship, I had a truly terrible waffle that reminded me that I was no longer in Belgium.

This ship departed Málaga at 2pm, and we spent the afternoon in one of the hot tubs on the top deck, watching the Sierra Nevada mountains roll past us under the warm Mediterranean sun. I felt well and truly relaxed.