Dan's Business Trip to Europe

So I just got back from a business trip around Europe. I went to Italy, Belgium and ended in Ireland. It was a whirlwind tour, but the business part was successful and the time that I had to see some of the sights was also a lot of fun. Even better, the food was great.

Our first stop was Milan, Italy. The area where Ferraris are manufactured is fairly near so they functioned as quite the tourist attraction. This was set out in front of the Ferrari Store for rent to drive around the large block for $150.

This is the center "duomo" or cathedral in Milan. It was pretty magnificent inside and just enormous. The most interesting thing was the preserved cardinals that are set out for all to see. Let's just say they weren't preserved perfectly.

Another shot in front of the Duomo

This is Lake Como - Bellagio is at the further end, where George Clooney has a house. It is a beautiful area. Definitely worth visiting instead of Milan in my opinion.
We had some time afterone of our audits and decided to drive through the countryside. Very small towns surrounded by rice fields. The interesting thing going through these small towns was that each had a very old and huge church in the middle. This is our rental car - Lancia Muso - don't ever rent it. Piece of junk.

In Beerse, Belgium Johnson & Johnson has a huge R&D campus. We went their to audit one of our own companies. While there we noticed that due to the size of the campus their are bicycles parked outside all the buildings that you can just pick up and ride to your next meeting if you want. We decided to pick them up and ride around the campus it being a beautiful day and all.

In Belgium we rented an awesome ride (after the disaster of the Lancia), Audi A1. Apparently they are not in the States, but man it was sure fun to drive.

We decided to stop right across the border to France for dinner. You see before you a pot of Muscles that I had with curry sauce. Not too bad actually.

Here is a salad with some sort of beef. It was good, but the meat was a little rare for me. You can see how decorated the dish was. King Godfrey of Buillon. This statue is in the center of Brussels. He was the Lord of the castle that we visited below.

You can see some of the tunnel ways inside the castle.
The view of the top of the castle and the surrounding area.

One of the halls deep inside the castle

This is a view from the front of the castle looking out on the valley

A view from the front.

You can see how steep the hill would have been for invaders. Though you can't them, there are slits throughout the front of the castle where archers could view the valley below and have clear shots on incoming invaders. Also highlighted were the areas where hot oil was dumped on those trying to scale the castle walls.