My Alphabe-Thursday (5th), the letter "B" — Some places I've been starting with "B"

"B" is for some places, countries and cities starting with the letter "B" where I have traveled:
Countries:
Bahamas, The
Barbados
Belgium
Belize
Bulgaria

and the cities of Barcelona (Spain), Benton Harbor (Michigan)**, Berlin (Germany), Boston, (Massachusetts), Bruges (Belgium), Budapest (Hungary), and lots more cities and towns of course.  These six are memorable.

Blog posts:
Barcelona, Spain -- After we flew in from Texas, with a short layover at Paris, we rented a car in Barcelona and promptly left town for Southern France where we stayed four or five days.  We had our youngest son, Tim, who was in his 40's with us.
 
After the stay in France we came back and stayed in Barcelona to finish our week out.  We stayed on the Los Ramblas Boulevard (link), where all the ACTION IS.  Probably all the Mimes I enjoyed the most, although just strolling, eating, seeing (the sites) and watching (people) .  The Red hop-on hop-off bus tour was great, our longest 'off' was at the Gaudi Cathedral. 

We turned in the car when we got there, that wasn't needed, and stayed at the old Continental Hotel on Los Ramblas Boulevard (link 1)(link 2).  I would stay there again, they are not terribly expensive, in the lower $100's a night.  Best get off the Los Ramblas after 10ish or by 11PM or so as the drug pushers, pimps, and hookers take over the street scene.  Drug dealers will be carrying a six-pack of soft drinks, claiming to be selling those.

 

Lots of motorscooters and motorcycles.  Not like in the U.S.

This may have been a paella mostly eaten, I am not sure 

[click on a picture for larger view size]

 

We had 'free' entertainment with our meal.  We ate in the patio out back.

Mrs. Jim catching up on here reading from our balcony while we watched out at Los Ramblas.

 

We saw these little yellow rental buggies all over town.  We declined.

Here is the restaurant patio.  Our son, Tim, is sitting by the post

while we joined in the entertainment outside.

 

Barbados -- (click this) Our son, Mitch, and DIL, Carmen, had a May wedding there.  I had just had back surgery two weeks before but made it fine.  The next day Mrs. Jim and I rented a Taxi for a close-up look around the Barbados island.  Most memorable were the banana groves with bananas hanging in plastic bags to keep the birds away from the fruit (our driver got us each a banana from a tree), the many orchid gardens, and of course the wedding at an old plantation where we had the reception dinner in the plantation house. 

Bruges, Belgium (click this)-- Very enjoyable here, a fun place to stay.  We drove up from Paris with out son, Tim, after leaving Barcelona and a few days in Paris.  We had rented a B&B in Bruges for three nights but when we got there, they had no room for us. 

It turned out we were a day earlier than our initial plan so we stayed the first night at a hotel, on the canal that night.  Our plan was to run over to Normandy after leaving Honfleur (France, two nights there in an old main street hotel), near Le Havre.  But Tim didn't have much interest in Normandy and WWII things and since we had been there three other times, we skipped it (and made us the day early). 

Our favorite activity in Bruges was walking around visiting here (shops) and there (buildings and historical stuff), doing the canal boat round trip, and EATING (Belgium waffles, French hot dogs (mmm !!!) and chocolate really good).

Belize (click this) -- Actually this is for the future, we have a January cruise and will stop here.  Never been to Belize before.

Budapest -- No pictures, taken before we had a digital camera, but I would recommend going there.  We spent two nights and most of two days playing and exploring.


 - Jenny is starting in now on her tenth series of Alphabe thursday.  With 52 weeks in a year and 26 letters in the alphabet she is now in her fifth year.  I am linked to her blog, GO HERE for more participants and their offerings. 

 - I am in my fifth series of Alphabe Thusday.  I intend to put on some pictures of my travels when I can find a few.  I have some on in an album of Budapest.