Yes I know, these short trips in Belgium are sometimes boring ... but I always try to make it worth the effort by visiting some small places of interest along the way! So after another 2 days working at Ostend-Bruges Airport (OST), I stopped at my favourite place in the area, the lighthouse of Oostende where you can also find the anchor of the Belgica, the famous Belgian expedition ship. After stopping at 2 local thrift stores I made my way back home, however by the time I wa

It's December 2025 and I have to work in Oostende again, so I decided to go there a day in advance and pass by Ghent first to see what remains of the Astoria, being broken up there. See more about this here ! The conditions were good so I flew the drone near the Astoria at the scrapyard. The next day after work I had permission to fly the drone around the cruise terminal area in Zeebrugge with the Naval base right behind it, both Queen Anne and Aurora were tied up in Zeebrugg

(partially written with the help of Google Gemini AI) Another comparison between 1957 and today ... well ... 2021 at least! In June 1957, National Geographic published this article about the American military cemeteries in the world, memorials to World War 2. I have visited a number of them for Operation Benjamin in the last 6 years but not all of them and in this article they only highlighted a few of them, only one of these have been on my visits and it's probably one of th

Partially written with the help of Google Gemini AI When I went through my collection of National Geographic magazines and viewed the May 1957 issue, I noticed a long article about the Balearic islands. Since I had recently visited one of them ... Mallorca, I was especially interested in the photo comparisons between 1957 and what I saw myself. (National Geographic - May 1957) The first photo I noticed in the article is this one from Palma de Mallorca, you can clearly see the

In 2024 I had another assignment to do at 3 American Military Cemeteries in France, so I organised a road trip in the area. We took a hotel room not far from the first 2 cemeteries and made it our base for 2 days, passing by the third cemetery on the last day on our way home. Our hotel base was in Château-Thierry. First on the list was the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, the assignment took us about 3 hours and after this, we strolled around a bit to see the chapel and the mon

We are March 1957, National Geographic magazine publishes an article about MATS: America's Long Arm of the Air. There are some stunning pictures of aircraft in those pages and it reminds me of something I have seen before! About MATS: (partially written with Gemini AI) In the history of military logistics, few organizations have played as pivotal a role in shaping modern airlift capabilities as the Military Air Transport Service (MATS). Established in the uncertain dawn of t

January 2026 and Louy had booked a cruise on the Ambition, one of the ports of call was Amsterdam, not too far for me to drive so Onno, Vadym and myself went to meet him in Amsterdam. We had a small lunch in the Bakkerij Westers in the Hotel Jakarta right opposite the cruise berth at the Javakade. This place has some nice models of the Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, Oranje and Banda. When it was time to say goodbye to Louy we remained near the cruise terminal to see the ship leave

I have recently added a small gadget to my equipment. The Kodak Charmera was created as a nostalgic gadget that mimics the low quality photos we used to get out of disposable cameras in the years when I was a kid, mainly the 1980's and early 1990's. This camera is digital and not disposable but permanent, however it is small enough to hang on your keychain and this makes it a fun little gadget, it has about 1.5 MP. I had to be in Brussels on Friday in one of the offices of my

This article is about a ship, an old ship this is! She started life as the Stockholm, launched in 1946 at the Götaverken shipyard in Gothenburg, Sweden. She was built for the Swedish American Line (SAL) to replace the aging Drottningholm of 1904. As such she made her maiden voyage from Gothenburg to New York in February 1948. She ran along with her fleetmate Gripsholm and in 1953 received a refit to accommodate more passengers as she had just been joined by the new Kungsholm.

A road and ferry trip again! - April 2025 Click here for the full photo album Travel tips! ETA! - What is that? The UK has pulled out of the European Union a number of years ago and this starts to be noticed in daily life by now. The first major change for tourists and travellers was that the European identity cards were no longer sufficient to enter the UK, a passport was mandatory. However, by 2024 it was announced that on top of the passport, from March 2025 everyone want

Number 12: Camber Castle Camber Castle is one of the original Device forts ordered in 1539. It resembles strongly the castles of Deal, Walmer and Sandown, however ... Deal and Walmer still survive intact today while Camber castle survives as a ruined castle in the middle of a field surrounded by nature, hikers and cows! It is under management of English Heritage but is not generally open to the public and there are no facilities. The location is close to the village of Rye an

Another 2 short stops in late December 2025 in Antwerp! First of all I had a drone slot in Antwerp when Balmoral was docked, it doesn't mean that's all I went to look for! The free ferries bringing people from Linkeroever to Steenplein and back are interesting as well. I went to the former Sint-Jan-de-Doper church, the only part of the village of Oosterweel still existing today! The rest was leveled decades ago to make space for the port expansions. The site is currently bloc

What is the link between National Geographic in February 1956, 2 cruises I did in 2018 and 2019, and a drone shoot that I did in 2024 in Ijmuiden? SITMAR Sitmar was an Italian shipping line that started way back in 1937 and somehow survived Facism, World War 2 and the post-war merging of various shipping lines in Italy into the Italian Line. Initially the company started with cargo and gradually started replacing the cargo vessels with passenger ships from 1947. The line was

Valencia and Mallorca - October 2025 Click here for the full photo album Day 1 Another very early morning, my alarm sounded at 04.00am and by 04.30 I was on the road towards Brussels Airport. I went to the check-in desk, I am not a fan of the automatic check-in stuff! My bag was checked at 10.1 kg … fantastic! And I was off to the Fast Lane at security and then the Business Lounge at Brussels Airport called “The Loft” where I enjoyed my breakfast and had some time to work on

2-3 December 2025: I was working at Ostend Airport for 2 days and the first day I left at 3 am to get there in time so at the end of the day at 5.30pm I was so tired that I didn't go out anymore after work, I went straight to my AirBNB to eat and sleep. The next day I only had to work a few hours and by noon I was able to go out before returning home so I decided to pass by Zeebrugge. First of all I went to see if there was anything interesting at the viewpoint near the Naval

Another trip with Onno and Vadym from Onnozone ! We are all interested in ships and maritime industry, however ... the World Port Days are pretty crowded, so this year we decided to look at it from a different perspective, from onboard a ship! Every year during the World Port Days, P&O Ferries send their ships into the city up to the Erasmus bridge during the day as these ships sail towards England at night and are usually docked at the Europoort terminal during the day. The

Yes I know! Here we go again ... another cruise ship visiting Antwerp, and I did perform a drone shoot of the Ilma, the new ship of The...

Today a different port, one that I have only visited a few times before and the first time I fly the drone here! Scheveningen is a...

Yes we are in Antwerp again! Another ship was docked and I had permission to fly the drone so here is the selection of shots from both...

As many of my followers know, I have to work at Ostend Airport from time to time, this day was no different and I had the time to pass by...