Belgium – Purple Travel Official Blog

Purple Tips: Europe’s Best Music Festivals 2014

Feb 27 2014

Plan an incredible summer holiday around a festival and get more bang for your buck. Read our Purple tips about the best music festivals 2014 and don’t miss out. If you’ve got any more suggestions for the best music festivals 2014, hit us up in the comments below.

Meadows in the Mountains Pic via @ Facebook

Best Music Festivals 2014 – April

Altitude Comedy Festival – Austria
When: 31 Marcy – 4 April 2014
Where: Mayrhofen, Austria
What is it: In the same awesome venue as the Snowbombing festival, this is all about comedy. Lots of beginner slopes as well as black runs and great apres-ski, this is two holidays in one!
Who: Pub Landlord Al Murray, John Murray, Tommy Tiernan, Andrew Maxwell and Craig Campbell.
Price: Depending on your arrival date from £188.

Snowbombing – Austria
When: 7-12 April 2014
Where: Up in the snowy mountains of Mayrhofen, Austria
What is it: A mix of partying and piste, where winter sports meets hedonistic highs.
Who: The Prodigy, Chemical Brothers DJ set, Four Tet, Tom Odell, Foxes.
Price: From £219 including accommodation.

Best Music Festivals 2014 – May

Primavera Sound – Barcelona
When: 29-31 May 2014
Where: Parc Del Forum, Barcelona, Spain.
What is it: A huge lineup of some of the best acts in the world today will play in the sunshine at Primavera’s outdoor stages showcasing Barcelona as a great music-lead city.
Who: The National, Arcade Fire, Pixies, Nine Inch Nails, QOTSA, Haim, Metronomy, Foals and Chrvches.
Price: €175

Best Music Festivals 2014 – June

Sonar pic via @ Facebook

Ibiza Rocks and Mallorca Rocks – Balearic Islands
When: All summer long! Starting on June 4 2014.
Where: Ibiza/Majorca
What is it: A full on summer festival experience without the mud.
Who: Haim, The 1975, John Newman, Bastille, Bombay Bicycle Club, Ed Sheeran and Tinie Tampah.
Price: From £75

Pinkpop – Netherlands
When: 7 – 9 June 2014
Where: Landgraaf, Netherlands
What is it: The 45th year of Pinkpop, this is one of the oldest in the world and draws huge names from all over the world.
Who: Arcade Fire, Metallica, Editors, Mastodon and Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters.
Price: Tickets for Pinkpop will be released on 15th March 2014

Purple 10 really weird museums

Jun 19 2013

A spy museum, all you’ve ever wanted to know about toilets and real life samples from Big Foot, we’ve got 10 really weird museums from around the world for your pleasure.

Want to become a spy? Actually, can we just ask, who doesn’t? Well, now you can, for a day anyway, at the International Spy Museum in Washington DC, USA. We’re talking gadgets, code breaking and generally being a bit James Bond as you learn about the history of secret agents and get to grips with a life of espionage.
Iceland’s Phallological Museum in Reykjavik, is as the name suggests all about biology and takes it very seriously too. It is home to a collection of more than 215 penis specimens from various mammals found in the wild all over the island including a walrus, a rogue polar bear, a whale. There are also four examples from humans, but we didn’t ask where they came from.
We always hear of the priceless art found in countless cities throughout the world, but what about the bad stuff? The Museum of Bad Art in Boston claims to be the only one of its kind in the world. Featuring art that’s ‘too bad to be ignored’ it features plenty of paintings of dodgy blue people, symbols that don’t mean much and some weird uses of nudity.
For all you’ve ever wanted to know about the humble toilet, you could do worse than the International Museum of Toilets in New Delhi. The curators tell us: ‘the toilet is a part of the history of human hygiene which is a critical chapter in the growth of civilisation.’
Athens is well known for its museums filled with thousands of years of artefacts that document the birthplace of science and democracy. We like the Tactual Museum, where you’re actively encouraged to touch everything. There are all kinds of replicas, statues and frescoes that you can get up close and personal with.
The Hair Museum of Avanos in Cappadocia, Turkey is a fairly simple idea, but definitely one of the most bizarre things you’ll see. In a room under an unassuming pottery shop, you’ll find caves covered with a collection of over 16,000 locks of hair from women from all over the world. It’s free to enter, and women can leave a lock of their own if they want.
For the latest information and conjecture on the likes of Big Foot, the Montauk Monster, or the Abominable Snowman, then the Cryptozoology Museum, in Portland, USA is a good place to start. It claims to have ‘actual samples’ of hair and unique pieces of evidence from mythical creatures from all over the world.
Your green fingers will start tingling when you hear about the British Lawnmower Museum. As you would expect, it’s dedicated to all things grass cutting and is home to specialised gardening machines, vintage lawnmowers and all manner of parts and conservation materials from all over the world. A truly British experience.
If you’ve got a weak stomach, it might be best to skip the Paris Sewer Museum. You’re guided through the tunnels and pummelled by historical and factual information about the famous underground areas that have featured in French literature including Les Miserables and Phantom Of The Opera.
Love chips? So do we and so do the Belgians apparently, if the Friet Museum is anything to go by. The ground floor offers a 10,000 year potted history of the humble spud and it’s development into the tasty chip we know and love today.

You should read… Amazing Days Out: Pig Museum Stuttgart

A Night Less Ordinary: Les Balade des Gnomes

Feb 01 2013

Welcome to A Night Less Ordinary, our hotel series where we try to bring you the best in weird, wonderful and spectacular hotels from all over the world. Whether you want to sleep in a hamster themed hotel (do you??) or imagine yourself as James Bond, we’ve got something for you. This week, take a pinch of fairy dust as we take a look at Les Balade des Gnomes in Belgium.

The motto of this incredibly cute hotel in Belgium is ‘all that you can imagine is real.’ Found in near the village of Durbury, a 17th century village Les Balade de Gnomes, looks like it came straight from a fairytale – or a Tim Burton film.

With only ten admittedly crazy rooms, this is something really special. Built by architect Mr Noel, each room has been lovingly hand crafted to resemble a fairytale and includes the chance to sleep in a Trojan Horse, a Troll Forest, or a wine room. The Macquarie Island room has a boat bed that appears to float, while others are filled with wooden toadstools, starry skies, or, oddly enough a lunar capsule. Prices start around €115 for a double room.

You’ll find the hotel at Rowe de Remoleu 20, 6941 Heyd, Durbuy, Belgium; tel. +32 472 20 86 23 info@labaladedesgnomes.be

A night less ordinary: Sleeping Around

Jan 18 2013

This is not just any old pop up hotel, this is exclusive. Here’s the deal, you take one old shipping container, fill it with a fancy box spring bed (whatever that is!) rain shower, air con, iPod docking, all the mod cons you can think of. You throw it in the middle of a busy shopping street, beside a city capital building, or in the middle of a park and you’ve got Sleeping Around. A new type of hotel experience.

The owners say: “Sleeping Around is a unique pop-up hotel. The term ‘pop-up’ goes beyond merely ‘making an appearance.’” You want to see and be seen staying in a place like this. The Belgian initiative started life on the roof of an office building, while it’s slated for holidays to the Greek Islands, France, by ski slopes and who knows where else. You can add your own suggestions for where the boxes should go next on their website.

The ‘hotel’ is made up of four containers added together to form a little village, with its own sauna and lounge room to get your day going. Centrally located, all the modern facilities you’d expect, it costs around €199 for two people per night and is aimed at people who want to stay somewhere just for a night or two and experience a different kind of hotel.

A Night Less Ordinary: Hotel CasAnus Belgium

Oct 12 2012

In this weekly series, we scour the world in search of the most weird and wonderful hotels. From cave hotels to converted prisons, capsule pods to underwater guestrooms, you can expect only the unexpected. This week, we’re not even joking, this is a hotel in the shape of a giant human intestine. We hope you’re sitting comfortable for the CasAnus in Belgium.

What’s the gimmick? Well it’s pretty evident on first glance what the gimmick is. This is less a hotel and more a giant sculpture of a human intestine that someone just happens to have dumped a bed inside. Created by artist, Joep Van Lieshout, the ‘hotel’ is situated within the Verbeke Sculpture Park in Belgium.

You should read… Top weird ways to travel on holiday

Why stay? If you’re looking for luxury, do not stay here. However, if you looking for an unusual night to remember, it doesn’t get much more memorable than this.What sets Hotel Casanus Belgium apart is the sculpture park; there are some amazing creations to look at when you wake up and you’ll likely never overnight in anything like this again.

You should read… A Night Less Ordinary : Boot Bed ‘n’ Breakfast

The Wow Factor: The exhibition space does not aim to be an oasis. It is, according to the creators, “unfinished, in motion, unpolished, contradictory, untidy, complex, inharmonious, living and unmonumental, like the world outside of the museum walls.” Although you will find no lavish fixtures here, you will enjoy a “refreshing, unpretentious place to look at art and a subtle criticism of the art world”. And just in case you were wondering, there is a clean, comfortable double bed, an electric point, heater, shower and of course – a toilet.

Prices start from €120 per night.

You should read… A Night Less Ordinary: Dog Park Park Inn

Tag - Belgium