CARNIVAL IN NIVELLES - BELGIUM

Each year after Rio and Cologne famous Carnivals have finished their celebrations Nivelles starts its Carnival at the end of February and as it is only 15 km (9 miles) far from Waterloo I took the train instead of my car because that day it's impossible to find a parking space. People are coming from everywhere.

Nivelles' station where the Carnival floats gathered and started their parade. I just arrived in time at 2 pm to take some pictures.




very colorful !

the witches (males and females) attack the spectators with their broom, and twice I was their victime and lost my cap !

Some Arabs tried to fix their "Palm tree"





Pirates






Maybe this was a Carnival princess

people in costumes

Carnival kids

and the famous "Gilles" with their enormous ostrich feather hats coming from the most famous carnival city Binche. (see my post of last year)

Their baskets are filled with oranges

which they throw in the crowd and people try to catch them. After I got nearly one on my glasses and another one hit me at my shoulder, I called my friend Chantal who lives in Nivelles and asked her to get me out of there, which she did and I spent the rest of the afternoon with her outside of all this hurly burly while her sons and friends and girlfriends just left to celebrate the Carnival until early morning.

and the sidewalks show that the Carnival procession had passed by ! It's not snow, but confettis.

THE DOMAIN OF HUIZINGEN IN WINTER

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Last week I went with a friend for a walk through the Domain of Huizingen which is located a little outside of Brussels. I had been there already in 2009, so if you want to know a bit more I wrote about it here Domain of Huizingen in spring.

It was a very cold day - 7 °C (19 F), but warmly dressed it was really worthwhile because the park looked beautiful in its winter dress.

The castle which today is a restaurant.

the lake where usually you can rent little boats was frozen and covered with snow

We were the only once in the whole park which is enormous !

the little river which crosses the park was frozen

as it had been so warm in January, tulips had tried to come out and now they sit in snow and ice.

The employes who take care of the animals had made a hole for the swans to swim

The roots of this tree are growing outside which looks rather strange

The house of the warden

with ducks walking around

The administration buildings.