Spent a day exploring Montmartre. First Sacre Coeur, of course.





Turned out the street sellers at the overlook were actually extras in a movie, so we watched them being chased by police for a while.



Had a ride on the very touristy “Little White Train of Montmartre”, the only motorised tour still allowed round the steep, narrow streets. It runs from Place de Tertre to the Moulin Rouge, and back.





Then ended the day at a cafe in the Place de Tertre, watching the portrait painters tout for trade.

More expensive coffee, but a reasonable meal.

It's time we took advantage of being on the continent, so we went to Paris for a couple of days.









Stayed at a quintessentially French hotel just below Sacre Coeur.

The local bus took us on a switchback ride up and down the precipitous Montmartre streets.


Then expensive coffee and a really bad meal at a typical Parisian cafe - little round tables and spindly chairs.



View over Paris roofs from the hotel room

We found our leak - the rubber thingy that connects the raw water from the gear box oil cooler to the main engine heat exchanger.



Now we just have to get a new one.

The Belgian agent for Bowman want €34.

From ASAP it's £16 including delivery.

Not a difficult decision.

My sister and niece have been staying for a few days. Belgian chocolate, ice cream and chips have been a hit. Holly is particularly impressed by the idea of chocolate sandwiches for breakfast, though she feels the bread is an unnecessary complication.



Jo requested art galleries, which is a bit of a problem as there aren't any in Leuven. There isn't even a museum at the moment, thought it's due to re-open in September.

What Leuven does have is a lot of public art, so we hunted out some of the statues, pausing at a cafe every couple of hours to warm up and dry out.

We had hired a car for the weekend, which was fortunate, as we need to check up on Rusty every day until we're sure the leak has stopped.

For Valentine's Day we went to have a look at the countryside around Leuven. It started off well, with a road through ancient forest, then a visit to St Camillus, the Psychiatric branch of Leuven University.



After that it got pretty boring. A lot of newly built housing developments, and neat unpicturesque farmland. There were a few older towns and villages, but I was too nervous to work into the centre. I haven't driven for a year, and that combined with giving way to traffic from the right, and bicycles from anywhere, was giving me a nervous breakdown.

The most interesting part was dipping in and out of French speaking territory, with the associated change in signs and place names.