maynardcase.co.uk linkfest

Trip to Brussels over the weekend was good: went to a beautiful town called Ghent on the Saturday, out for a Thai and to a traditional Belgian cafe, Cafe Cirio for a few beers. Saturday’s booze count:

• Palm
• Hoegaarden Premier Cru
• Two glasses of some rather too sweet Gewurztraminer
• Corona
• Chimay
• A brand of Gueuze, whose name I forget
• I think I had another, but I really can’t remember

Sunday was spent on a wander around the centre of Brussels including the Grand Place (astonishing), a Chimay in the Cafe Metropole, then to the Horta Museum (virtual tour), a gorgeous Art Nouveau house.

We were staying with friends of the gf, whose hospitality was magnificent, including providing wonderful breakfasts and a lovely dinner on Sunday evening before our Eurostar trip back. Thanks!

Had a wander down from London Bridge over the last long weekend, where I took this classic postcard shot of Tower Bridge (okay, the postcards are usually when you’ve got better weather but hey):

The amazing British Museum was the afternoon’s distraction on Sunday. We covered about another 5% of it in the couple of hours we spent wandering around…

The great spectacle however is the roof of the great court, which elegantly joins the outer walls of the quad to the inner cylinder of the old British Library.

This is the famous Lloyds of London building, as seen from St Mary Axe. It’s still a great building and nothing looks anything like it.

This is a view from the base of 30 St Mary Axe, also known as “The Erotic Gherkin“. Wonderful and spectacular building, in my opinion - although there is a “love it or hate it” vibe about the place. The Guardian certainly likes it…

This is the fairly magnificent Admiralty Arch, which is a gateway from the frequently gridlocked Trafalgar Square to the wide open spaces of the Mall, which leads up the the (frankly rather dull) Buckingham Palace. Rather unusually it contains office space, currently being used by the Centre for Management and Policy Studies.

The inscription above the arches reads:

ANNO:DECIMO:EDWARDI:SEPTIMI:REGIS
VICTORI?:REGIN?:CIVES:GRATISSIMI:MDCCCCX:

Which roughly means “In the tenth year of the reign of King Edward VII, to Queen Victoria from a grateful nation, 1910″.

This is John Islip Street, near where I live. Lovely place, and filled with elegant stucco-fronted houses in neat orderly lines.

The British Airways London Eye^TM is, to be fair, a really excellent ferris wheel. It actually has grace and it’s such an audacious idea that you really do have to give the designers credit for their idea.

As seen in the distance from Vauxhall Bridge on my way home this evening.