It happens every other year, and for 2008 the timing is right….

August 14-17, 2008 is this year’s celebration of gorgeous, colorful flowers.

They are mostly begonias, laid out in a carpet-like pattern on the magnificent Grand Place in Brussels.

It would be difficult to find a more dramatic, elegant backdrop anywhere in Europe.

It’s free to walk around and admire the carpet, or for three Euro, you can climb up to a balcony on the first floor of the Town Hall, to see the intricate pattern from above.

If you have a choice, see it on one of the first days, while the colors are at their brightest.

Related posts:

• Sure, Belgian chocolate, but which one?

Belgium is famous for great beer, mussels and Belgian chocolate (amongst many other delights) but which chocolate is the best?

Never mind the rather recent obsession over dark chocolate….I’m not really a connoisseur, apparently, since I prefer milk chocolate.

I’m not crazy enough to make any definitive brand declarations — as visitors stroll through Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp or Bruges, there are plenty of choices.

Goodness knows, you shouldn’t miss the chance for a chocolate tour, demonstration or tasting.

Godiva and Leonidas are easy to find across most of Europe; I’d rather try something lesser-known.

Neuhaus, Pierre Marcolini, Moeder Babelutte, Wittamer and Manon have their aficionados, and their shop displays are gorgeously imaginative, but for a less-expensive box “to go,” I like Guylian, particularly their sea shell-shaped milk chocolates.

Imagine my delight as I found a box last week at Central Market here in Austin. Obviously, the chocolates that are shipped for export won’t be as fresh as those purchased next to a Bruges canal, but I don’t care; I was just delighted to find one of my favorite Belgian indulgences only a few miles from my house.

Aren’t you proud of me? I didn’t eat any until I had time to take a photo for this post. :)

This week’s reading included two articles that featured some of my favorite things - coffee, walking, and writing.

USAToday’s article on 10 great places to take a literary hike had me wishing I could just put on my walking shoes and hit the trail. Created by Joni Rendon, author of Novel Destinations, the list highlighted literary places such as Bronte’s Yorkshire Moors, Thoreau’s Walden Pond, and Jack London’s Beauty Ranch Trail.

And then I came across a post at TripHow that focused on current day literary cafes in Los Angeles and San Francisco, as well as a brief look at the tradition of literary cafes in Europe. Turns out you can get a book, The Grand Literary Cafés of Europe by Noel Riley Fitch, profiling 40 historic literary cafes in Europe (all of which are still in business). Cafes such as Le Procope in Paris that first opened it’s doors in 1686. And Café De Oriente in Madrid where Salvador Dali and Federico Garcia Lorca would meet.

Coffee, walking, and writing - sounds like a perfect way to travel.

This is a frequent sight around neighborhoods in the Netherlands this time of year.

Hanging from the front of the house, usually somehow connected with a Dutch flag, is a backpack.

The really clever ones have artfully connected and arranged papers and books spilling out of them.

What is it?

A way to demonstrate that someone in that household has finished school.

Let the summer begin!

Welcome to Rome’s most interesting sight. No, it’s not the Colosseum, nor the Pantheon, nor the completely overrun and overcrowded Spanish Steps. These ruins are crowded by low-impact residents and humans are only allowed in once a day.

The Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary has got to be one of the coolest ideas I’ve ever heard of. Excavation in the early 1900s uncovered ruins of a sacred temple or two (who needs to be exact in Rome, the city that has pretty much stopped building anything because projects so frequently unearth ruins in need of protecting?), structures dating back to about 200 BC. These are the Sacred Ruins, supposedly the temple where Brutus stabbed Caesar.

Now they host an even older sacred being: the Cat Sanctuary is home to about 250 abandoned or ill cats who are fed, fixed, healed, and often sent out for adoption by two pretty visionary women. After all, it takes a lot to stand up to Rome’s stubborn government and demand that ruins be cut off from tourists and made to do something useful.

You can troop down the steps to visit the actual underground sanctuary any time during working hours, but you can only have a guided tour of the ruins once a day. The rest of the time, you can only look on enviously as some pretty happy cats enjoy sleeping on Caesar’s glories.

(Photos copyright Antonia Malchik 2008)