A Belgian Roadtrip
A short trip through Brussels, Gent, and Bruges, waffles and fries included.
In April 2023 (yes, it’s been a while and I still have some backlog of more places…) it was time for another short roadtrip through Europe, following trips to Luxembourg, San Marino, Slovenia, and a few more places over the years. This time, the German Autobahn took us to Belgium, with a plan to see some of the most well-known cities and sights in this not-so-large country famous for beers, fries, and waffles - what’s not to like (well - beer for me, but the rest is highly appreciated)!
The goal was rather ambitious. In just four days, we wanted to cover three cities and three sights around them. For this reason, I apologise in advance that this blog may lack a bit of a coherent story as I try to capture some essence of all these places…
Sight No. 1
On the way to Brussels we stopped here, at the “Reading Between the Lines” church, or “Doorkijkkerk”, part of an art installation in the area. The structure is made of steel and 10m tall and was completed in 2011.
Seeing Through
The church with the actual church of the nearby town of Borgloon. Whatever the symbolic meaning of this installation is meant to be, I might have rated it higher during sunrise or sunset from a visual point of view, but alas, time was short.
Brussels
We arrived in Brussels - or rather, the City of Brussels in the namesake region - located pretty much in the centre of the country after an (unintentional!) drive along a few very questionable roads, where the windows were glowing red, daylight or not be damned.
The Grand Place
The 15th century gothic town hall on the main square during a quiet early morning. It’s a Unesco World Heritage site. There is a distinct lack of symmetry of the front arches, the tower, and the facade, and legend has it the architect committed suicide after discovering this issue, but the reality was probably rooted in pragmatic choices during the build phases rather than a mistake.
Although the town hall is the only remaining medieval structure of the Grand-Place, its neighbours are equally architecturally interesting - many of these baroque buildings are in fact private houses, while others are guild halls.
Brussels City Museum
Situated opposite the City Hall.
Facade Love
The city intentionally maintains a lot of its older facades while rebuilding and renovating houses, such as here on the one of the major pedestrian squares.
Other than its beautiful facades, Brussels also features more questionable sights - the Little Pissing Man and the counterpart Little Pissing Joan are among those. The former being the original and something of a landmark in Belgium, with countless legends and stories surrounding its 400 year existence. The latter is a 1987 addition, and the artist once - jokingly or not - said it was a matter of gender equality. In 1999, a pissing bronze dog was added in the city as well, I visited and took a photo, but let’s say its artistic value is low and I want to keep this blog at a reasonably length… By now it’s just cats that must feel left out (or stand above such trivial displays of public indecency).
Strange Combinations
Replicas of the famous statue even adore - if one could say that - some of the shops selling another Belgian staple: Waffles. Together with beer and fries, these probably make up the most important local food items on the tourist menu. Indeed, Bruges is home to a fries museum (ask me how I know… 🍟❤️) although claims of the dish’s origin are disputed. French fries might be named this way for a reason, but we will probably never know.
The Black Tower
Another peculiar site is one of the best preserved remains of the first fortifications of Brussels from the 13th century - this tower is now surrounded by modern houses (and a construction site in front, making a good photo difficult).
Brussels is not short of churches, and the gothic / baroque Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula is probably its most impressive, to my untrained eye comparable to Notre Dame in Paris. I did not manage to visit, but here is the choir of the beautiful Church of Our Lady of Victories at the Sablon.
The Atomium
Admittedly the sight I was most excited to visit during this trip (aside from Waffles) was the centrepiece of the 1958 Brussels World's Fair and now the country’s most visited attraction. Although the original plan for the entire 102m structure to rest only on the central column turned out to be optimistic, it is still an impressive piece of architecture. Oddly, it was meant to only last for the period of the World Expo, but due to its popularity the authorities kept delaying its dismantling, finally deciding to retain it - a renovation in the mid 2000s refurbished the entire structure for a longer lifespan.
Six of the spheres are accessible to the public via elevators and escalators and used for exhibitions, audiovisual installations, and events - the ongoing installation had a very cool futuristic vibe and ethereal type music with some techno and trance elements, the composer of which I managed to find after some research.
Until 2015, the Atomium and its copyright society held a controversial policy forbidding even private individuals to show photos of the Atomium to anyone, which was finally overturned with the introduction of the Freedom of Panorama provision in Belgium.
Halle Gate
Brussels’ 14th-century fortified city gate looks like a small castle and houses a museum largely dedicated to its history and armed conflicts.
Although Brussels is home to the European Parliament I didn’t spend any time in the so-called European district other than driving through. Next up, we left towards Gent, with an early morning stop in the famous Hallerbos forest, owing to its carpet of bluebell flowers meant to bloom around this time of the year. Well, supposedly, but it seems they were a little late that year, and the rainy weather also didn’t help with the atmosphere.
Hallerbos Forest
A sea of purple and white flowers, if you’re lucky and find the right spots…
I could definitely see the potential for this to be a beautiful place for photography in the right conditions - or obviously just take a walk in nature. Although the forest was almost empty when we visited, there was parking setup for 100s of cars in the open areas and fields surrounding the trees, which I suspect when filled would make it a less peaceful experience.
Ghent
Although it was only one very rainy single afternoon we got to spend in Ghent, I could imagine this being a very pretty city to visit. Its centre is car-free (a new trend in many European cities), features plenty of well-preserved medieval architecture, a quaint river promenade, and a castle from the 12th century.
Ghent features the tallest belfry in Belgium, seen here in the distance on the right, with Saint Nicholas Church in the foreground.
Gravensteen Castle
The 12th century castle was a central point of the Ghent World Fair of 1913 and hosted its last (not so violent) battle in 1949 when 138 students from the local university occupied the castle over a new tax on beer - unsuccessfully.
All in all, photography here was barely possible and after getting soaked and talking a last walk through the city’s Graffiti-filled Werregarenstraatje, it was time to move on to Bruges after just a few hours, but Genth might be a place to re-visit for a bit longer.
Welcome to
Bruges
The rain cleared soon after we arrived and revealed some of the blue hour beauty of the northern port city’s streets and canals, including its landmark Belfry. The entire city centre is one of the best-preserved medieval towns in Europe, and a UNESCO site.
Facades in an around the “Markt” area, the Bruges’ central square, originally established around the 11th century, when Bruges became the capital of the County of Flanders. Today it’s still the main city of the West Flanders province in the Flemish region of Belgium.
I was unable to find any cats here, but I guess it was to be expected given that it’s a clothing store.
Religious Artifacts
Bruges is also home to a number of coveted religious artifacts, the primary one located in the Basilica of the Holy Blood, seen on the right: It houses the relic of the Holy Blood, brought to the city as part of the crusades in 1150. It’s one of a few such proclaimed relics containing traces of the blood of Jesus, mostly lacking veracity as to their authenticity (either way). The vial seen on the left is shown to the public for a few minutes daily and contains a cloth that shows drops of blood allegedly coming from Jesus Christ.
Following the trail of the relic takes you down a curious path - its home plays a role in the movie “In Bruges”, but the actual filming location in the movie was a private church shown below, resembling the footprint of Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
This church, built by an Italian emigrant from a rich merchant family called Anselm Adornes in the 15th century, contains its own precious Jesus artifact: a piece of wood taken from the cross he was crucified on. Again, one of many around the world, with varying degrees of historical accuracy supporting the claim.
Madonna & Child
Continuing with another piece of historic significant, the gothic Church of Our Lady is home to the only Michelangelo statue taken out of Italy while he was alive: the white marble sculpture of the Madonna and Child created around 1504. Its backstory is quite interesting, as it was twice recovered after being looted by foreign occupiers (the French and the Nazis).
Boniface Bridge
A more touristy landmark is this little bridge, which in fact isn’t particularly noteworthy nor matches the age of the medieval buildings in the city (it’s from the early 1900s) - but the only time you find it this empty is on a very early morning, when this cat was the only visitor.
Windmills
Although the neighboring Netherlands are more famous for windmills, Bruges has a rich history of mills, but only 8 are left today.
Legends
Our last activity in Bruges? Attending a game at Club Bruges, the city’s legendary decorated club, founded in 1891.
Caves of Remouchamps
One last stop on the way back was the Caves of Remouchamps in the eastern part of the country, discovered in 1828.
Some sources attribute the longest underground navigable river in the world to the caves, but I suspect there might be some caveats to this, given its competitors in Mexico and the Philippines. Regardless, the many stalagmites and stalactite formations and the boat trip through the narrow 700m long Rubicon river are a worthwhile experience.
And that’s the end of a 5 days roadtrip from the south of Germany through some of the major cities and sights of Belgium.
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Enlaps Tikee Mini - A New Long-Term Timelapse Camera
My thoughts on the new Tikee Mini long term timelapse camera.
Over the years (many years in fact, my first ones were shot in 2011), I’ve enjoyed recording timelapse videos, compressing the progression of time and making resulting changes visible to the human observer.
One of my latest projects uses many different timelapse and recording techniques and combining them into a single video, documenting one of the many small Oktoberfest-like beer festivals in Germany, see below.
Last year I was contacted by Enlaps, maker of a long term imaging solution ecosystem, including timelapse projects for construction, events, nature, weather, and similar scenes that can be interesting to observe, document, and analyze many hours, days, months, or even years.
They asked me if I’d be interested in having a go at using their Tikee 3 Pro + camera, and I have been using it for 12 months on a construction project, see the video below exported straight from their platform. It did an amazing job and I never had to touch it once during the entire period - super reliable.
The Tikee Mini
Just recently Enlaps launched a new addition to their Tikee ecosystem, the Tikee Mini, and asked me if I wanted to try it as well. Below is my video (in German, but the English subtitles are pretty good) or you can read this blog to learn what I thought of this new camera.
A Recap…
Firstly, why did they launch a new camera? Well, there were a few things about the Tikee 3 Pro Plus that were a bit overkill for some use cases. For example, for short timelapse projects where I only run the camera for a few days, I don't necessarily need the built-in solar panel. Or, depending on what I want to capture, two lenses with two sensors are simply not necessary. And these features also drive the price up, which may be justified, but depending on the application, I don't need all these functions.
It’s for this reason that Enlaps introduced a brand new Tikee camera that extends the Tikee range and generally makes long-term timelapse and project monitoring of this kind accessible to more people. It's called the Tikee Mini. Especially in comparison with the Tikee 3 Pro Plus it is indeed much more compact.
Features
This is mainly due to two reasons: it does not have a built-in solar panel, and it has only one lens with one sensor at the front. Apart from these two points, the Mini is actually very, very similar to its big brother in terms of features and even has some advantages. Firstly, it is significantly smaller and lighter, weighing less than 1 kilogram. It has a huge built-in battery with 25,000 mAh. This allows me to take pictures for up to four months at an interval of 10 minutes and send them to the cloud. It has a new ambient light sensor built in, so I can configure the camera to take pictures only at a certain ambient brightness and not in the dark. This extends the battery life even further. The whole thing comes at a much lower price than the Tikee 3 Pro Plus, namely €799 before taxes. This is, of course, a much lower than what was previously necessary to enter the Enlaps ecosystem.
Apart from that, it has many of the features of the Tikee 3 Pro Plus. To summarize: it can be used indoors or outdoors in almost all conditions with an IP66 rating. It is equipped with both WiFi and 4G LTE connection. At the back, I can insert a SIM card and also a micro-SD card with up to 1 TB of storage space so that I can record the pictures locally on the Tikee. It has a Sony sensor with 12 megapixels and the wide-angle lens at the front has a very wide diagonal with a field of view of 149° and an aperture of 2.8. It also has GPS built in, so I can locate the camera anytime, anywhere. And like the Tikee 3, it has recently been equipped with a livestream function so that I can retrieve short videos directly on the Tikee cloud platform. Thus, in terms of features, it is absolutely comparable to the Tikee 3 Pro Plus.
Setup
Setting up the camera is super easy, just like with the Tikee 3 Pro Plus. After charging, you connect via Bluetooth with your smartphone and the Tikee Remote App, which is available for iOS and Android. You configure the settings there, such as the WiFi network or the SIM card, and set up your first timelapse sequence. And that's basically it. The camera then starts taking pictures and sends them directly to the Tikee cloud, or you can, of course, save them directly on the SD card. For the installation itself, there are many options: I can simply screw the camera onto a standard tripod. Enlaps also offers its own metal arm, which I used for the Tikee 3 Pro Plus. This is available separately, but also with a Tikee Mini pack that includes various other accessories, such as the SD card, charging cable, lock, and a practical case in one package.
MyTikee Cloud
Once it is running, the Tikee Mini supports the cloud platform, just like the Tikee 3. This platform is called myTikee and offers a free basic version where I can at least use some functions and still monitor. For the more advanced functions, I need to take out a subscription. In the past, I have heard people complain about needing a subscription when they have already paid for the hardware. And yes, you can edit the photos in other timelapse software. That's all correct, and you can also simply save the photos on the SD card and then process them yourself. However, based on my almost decade-long experience with timelapse videos and several long-term timelapse projects, I can say that it is really very difficult to find a solution at the same price and, above all, with the same simplicity that can compete with MyTikee. The simplicity, such as automatic exposure correction, video stabilization, automatic selection of photos based on weekdays or weather conditions, are all things that otherwise require a lot of manual time, some experience, and software from other manufacturers, which is also not free. Therefore, I can say that depending on the application and preference, the Tikee cloud platform is worth its money. It also offers some other functions, such as monitoring and remote maintenance of the Tikee camera or the AI solution for monitoring construction projects, etc. You should definitely take a look at it and consider how you want to use the Tikee and which type of subscription makes sense.
Comparison of standard unedited video and the automated output of the myTikee platform.
A few thoughts…
Based on my initial tests and my experience and expectations of how the Mini could be used in the future, I can say that Enlaps has, I believe, achieved its goal of making long-term timelapse and project monitoring even easier, more accessible, and more affordable. I have a few small points that could be improved: I can imagine that dust and rain on the lens could be a problem, and some kind of protection would be useful here. I wish you could adjust the distortion of the wide-angle lens in the MyTikee platform. Because the perspective is close to a fisheye, you don't always get straight lines, which is important for construction sites in architecture. Apart from that, as with the Tikee 3, I would like the timelapse sequences to be more flexible, such as being able to run multiple sequences simultaneously. Hopefully, these are things that can be made possible with software updates in the future. The last point is that the Tikee is, of course, battery-powered. It has limits of, say, three to four months. You can power it with an external battery via USB-C or connect a solar panel. Enlaps offers an option for this, which is relatively large and not so cheap. This makes the whole thing a bit heavier and more expensive again, but the option exists if you have projects that require monitoring or recording for longer than, say, three months.
Summary
Even though I have a few small suggestions for improvement, I can say that the Mini is really a welcome addition to the Tikee product line. It strengthens Enlaps' position as a leading provider of an ecosystem for long-term timelapse recordings or project monitoring. There is really not much comparable. You can achieve such results by combining products from other manufacturers, software and hardware, and trying to build something yourself. This is doable, I believe, but much more complicated, less reliable in my opinion, and probably not cheaper. Thus, the camera is perfect for anyone who wants to document a project like construction work or an event for a few days or weeks in an easy and relatively affordable way, and then use it for social media, internal purposes, or for monitoring construction sites, etc.
Bohol - Happy Hills & Tiny Tarsiers
This less well known island of the Philippines is home to some of its more interesting unusual sights.
As part of my trip through the Philippines (see also my blog about Palawan), I didn’t really have Bohol and its surrounding areas on the list of regions to visit. It was only through a rather spontaneous decision to fly to Cebu and continue from there that this island appeared on my radar. And what a lucky decision it was, given that its landscapes turned out to be one of my favorite photographic sceneries. Although I stayed in Cebu city on the namesake island, I didn’t venture out beyond having some traditional Lechon - I was more interested in exploring the nearby fishing islands I had spotted during the descent from the plane, and visit its neighboring Bohol. Indeed, after an initial day trip, I returned to Bohol a second time for three days to explore more of what it has to offer.
The Chocolate Hills
The primary reason I did so were these hills - and their name only played a small part, I promise. This landscape is geological formation consisting of over 1200 hills spread over an area of more than 50 square kilometers made of limestone covered in grass, which turns brown in the dry season, giving them their cocoa-related appearance (and name).
Cloudy Days
My visit in January didn’t quite coincide with the height of the brown dry season, and the first day was a wet affair, as the rainless period was just about to start around this time of the year. As a result, low clouds hovered around the hills, which were characterized by a mixed brown and green tone.
The hills vary in height, with the tallest reaching about 120 meters - most of them are literally impossible to climb due to the very thick vegetation and wet steep surface (trust me, I tried), but a couple have been set up with stairs for visitors to enjoy the views.
The reason I came back for the second time was to explore more of the rather large island, and the huge area covered with the whimsical hills during better weather conditions. My drone had to fly overtime during these few days.
Aside from flying, walking through the area on foot was also very enjoyable, with local farms dotted in between the mounds.
The hills have been subject of a few local legends, with popular stories suggesting that the hills are the result of a battle between two giants who hurled boulders at each other over the flat landscape, or the solidified tears of a heartbroken giant who wept over the loss of his beloved.
Science tells the story a little differently. The hills were formed through the weathering of marine limestone, originated from coral reefs when the area was submerged under the sea over 2 million years ago.
Tales of the Tarsier
Bohol is also one of the few islands home to the Philippine Tarsier, endemic to the southeastern part of the archipelago. It is a threatened species, and several organizations operate sanctuaries on the island. I visited two of them - the Philippines Tarsier Sanctuary, and the Bohol Tarsier Conservation Area. In the end, they are both tourist destinations and it shows to some extent, but the former is run by the Philippine Tarsier Foundation and felt like a much more pleasant and natural experience, I’d recommend it.
Either is better than seeing and supporting places that cage them or make them cling on a stick in a market.
Tarsiers suffer from loss of habitat and pet trade, as they don’t do well in captivity - their lifespan shortens drastically.
Their eyes are disproportionately sized with the largest eye-to-body weight ratio of all mammals. They are fixed in its skull and cannot move in their sockets, instead the tarsier rotates its head up to 180° to look around.
Tarsiers are shy and nocturnal and spend their days hiding in darker areas under leaves or hollows of tree trunks. Indigenous tribes leave the Philippine tarsiers in the wild because they fear that these animals could bring bad luck - maybe humans should consider this as well and let them chill, like the one on the left here.
There are a few more interesting sights to be found around Bohol, such as its themed public transport buses, and the ship-shaped restaurant. It is also home to a number of beautiful caves - I visited the small Hinagdanan Cave on neighboring Panglao island, where you are even allowed to go for a swim. River cruises and the Bamboo forests are other popular sights.
The Cebu Strait
The Cebu Strait with its channels is home to a number of islands and their fishing villages, which I had initially discovered during the approach to Mactan-Cebu airport. Can’t resist a nice aerial photo of interesting human settlements, so I rented a small boat one early morning with an itinerary based on promising Apple Maps screenshots...
Cuaming Island
This interestingly shaped island includes a small cemetery on the very tip to the right of the image.
Pandanon Island
Pandaon island is home to a small sandbank used for drying the daily catch. Its market house on the small harbour was heavily damaged during Super Typhoon Odette in December 2021.
Nasingin Island
My favorite of the villages here was Nasingin island in the municipality of Getafe, owing to its unique shape and position south of a mangrove forest, planted as part of the National Greening Program since 2013.
Because it essentially doesn’t have any actual land as part of its boundaries - just 0.04 km2 - it is one of the most densely populated towns in the world, given that it is home to over 2000 people.
Need Wi-Fi? Buy a voucher at this vending machines - but the kids were happy nonetheless!
And that’s it for this blog, but more of the Philippines to come from Manila and Siargao…