A roof terrace. Sunny embrace. Quiet morning. The world is hidden beneath a roof-top horizon. Our Moroccan hostess is stepping lightly, caring a tray of food and greeting us generously with a smile: “Bonjour, tout va bien?”. The day begins, not yet inclined to reveal its mysteries, delighted at our eager anticipation, but like a welcoming host as well, it is inviting us to follow with a vivid gesture. And we are ready to follow, wherever the day may lead. Through the colourful souks, through the dusty roads, through the crowds of warm hearted people, through the age old history of the old medina. But before we start, our senses are bathed with sumptuous delights: fresh orange juice, mint tea, Moroccan pancakes, flat bread, eucalyptus honey, orange marmalade, dates, home made yogurt. A heart-warming breakfast for a heart-warmth seeking traveller. Morocco always delights!

There is only one place in our city where we truly love to eat and this is the famous restaurant Baracca in Leuven. Hip and trendy, the atmosphere and the ambiance invites all folks of society into a cheerful Italian big mama hug. You cannot avoid it, you cannot replace it and you are suddenly surprised to find you actually miss it once you exit the door. Slightly dark and mysterious the interior simply draws you in with a promise of a story. What cocktail is on display today? What new dishes grace the menu? The waitress greets us with a smile and the story rushes to unfold.

Designed as food sharing concept, the restaurant draws inspiration from the recent past. When the Italian migrants worked in the coal mines during the day, they couldn’t wait for the evening to fall and share their delicious stories in wooden barracks while they ate and drank together. The restaurant owners wanted to recreate the same spirit of togetherness between the different city generations. In Baracca, there is always something for everyone – classic wood burn oven pizzas, oysters and truffle pasta! The food borders with sublime and the cocktails – daring and merry.

How do we measure and celebrate the passing of time? What is meaningful and what do we treasure? How do we celebrate love? We counted the days, we counted the weeks, then we settled at counting the months… and only when the months became too many did we start counting the years. When someone special enters our life time together starts to exist in a different dimension. Everything is the same, yet all is different. The magic collision of love leaves traces in the universe, making every day a sparkle. We treasure every day. So much so that when we ask each other “How long are we together?” we know that a smile and “Not enough.” are the only real answers.

Looking for a restaurant where we may celebrate the anniversary of that special moment when it all began is easy. With a selection of trendy, Michelin guide restaurants in Leuven, we know that there are plenty of places suiting the occasion. We are looking for a place with elegance and class. A place of delicious perfection that will sparkle with colour and sumptuous culinary tastes as much as our love for one another. A place of subtlety and intimacy, where we could enjoy each other’s company undisturbed by the noisy crowd. To our immense joy and delight Cum Laude, Faculty Club turned out to offer all of that and more.

Belgium could be famous for so many things, yet the ones that are mostly catching the tourist attention, are hardly the things making the Belgians most proud. There are a few exceptions like waffles, chocolate and beer, but underneath the lacy cover of the obvious, there are so many other remarkable things to discover. I don’t know how many people may be considering Belgium the culinary capital of Europe, yet there is a constellation of rising young chef stars, opening trendy restaurants and delighting the eager guests with stunning dishes and modern and fragrant cuisine.

De Kwizien restaurant in Hasselt is one of these creations. Charming, family restaurant with a central open kitchen and surrounding tables hosting no more than 40 guests, the place looks open and bright yet cosy, intimate and embracing. Making a special reservation for a family birthday lunch, we have indeed chosen well, despite taking the risk of selecting an unknown restaurant. Starting with a traditional toast of champaign, enjoying each other’s company and sharing gifts and our love with the birthday quest of honour, could not have been done in a better location or accompanied by better celebratory food. Starting with small bites of various flavours as a compliment of the chef, the main dishes of the season menu placed on our table looked like a piece of art too beautiful to savour. But savour them we did, every bite bursting with flavour and harmonious perfection.

There are some moments in life, when one just wishes to turn a back to the day-to-day reality and drive away to an enchanting castle. Opening a new chapter in our life and embracing a new carrier challenge which may soon require extensive travelling abroad, we decide to spend some time together in a beautiful hotel near Frankfurt am Main. Schlosshotel Kronberg is an unusual place. Build in 1893, it was originally intended as a private royal castle. Owned by the House of Hesse to this very day, stepping into the hotel one feels more like a guest to the royal family rather then a visitor to an average hotel. With a unguarded access to the specious library, the fire-lit, art-decorated medieval living room, the royal banquet hall breakfast and dinning room one can settle easily into the castle and set about to explore the place.

To our delight, there are not many other guests at the hotel. Our imagination is quickly carried away: could we dare to envisage this castle as our own royal get away, or perhaps imagine that we are authors seeking source of inspiration for a historic novel? The clues to any story we may wish to imagine are readily available at our doorstep, making our stay here even more auspicious once we notice Francois’s family initials boldly engraved on the building’s garden facing facade. Could this be possible… Being half German, does he really know his family ancestry? Did I unknowingly marry Prince Charming? For the Prince Charming part, I am pretty certain with or without the castle. Still, the sight of the magically beautiful scenery is giving our hearts a pause.

Schloss Friedrichshof is today one of the most impressive German castles and offers its guests living history to touch and feel. Exclusive furnishings and an impressive collection of antiques and paintings from the private estate of the mother of the last Kaiser convey the authentic ambience of a castle from imperial times.

It is a rear pleasure to walk into a restaurant on a casual Sunday evening and unexpectedly to be delightfully enchanted not only by the delicious food, but by the overall experience. Nothing has prepared us to what may lay ahead when stepping through the open doors of the 6 Zinnen restaurant in Hasselt. Yes, it has been our choice to test what the best rated, number one restaurant in the city has to offer. Looking for the perfect place for a family birthday celebration, we have decided a few days in advance to travel to the city examining if the location, the sphere, the food could eventually be suitable for a big family reunion.

Welcomed by the smiling face of the charming hostess, we were guided into the impeccably designed modern interior of classic turn of the century city house. Intimately arranged into separate dinning areas, the restaurant isn’t large. It reminds of the glory days when a well-to-do family will meet for a Sunday lunch served and catered by a butler and a kitchen staff. Not surprisingly, in this setting it is the young chef himself who suddenly steps out of the kitchen, bending over our tables, offering us a taste of the first exiting meal. What an honour and what fun!