profile081 About

Alison Cornford-Matheson

CheeseWeb.eu is a travel resource for expats in Belgium and abroad. We discover the little known attractions in Belgium and across Europe. We aim to make relocating more fun and exciting, and a little bit easier too.

CheeseWeb is full of inspiring photography of beautiful travel destinations. We have a warm and helpful community and new-comers are always welcome. We hope you enjoy it!

Who is behind CheeseWeb?

Alison Cornford-Matheson is a garden and travel lifestyle photographer, freelance travel writer and copy-editor, based in Brussels, Belgium.

A Canadian at heart, she grew up in New Brunswick, but calls Nova Scotia home. She is married to Andrew (the computer geek!) and is ‘mom’ to three cats.

Alison’s obsession with travel was cultivated by her parents at an early age: her childhood summers were spent motor-homing across North America.

However, it wasn’t until she was married to Andrew that she first set foot on European soil.

Their first European adventure was a whirlwind 16-day bus tour of ‘European Highlights’. This quick taste of Europe lingered with them and they vowed to return as soon as they could.

Over the following years, Andrew’s company expanded to include an office in the Netherlands, resulting in numerous trips across the Atlantic.

Finally, in January 2004, Andrew and Alison were asked to relocate to Amsterdam for three months. This is when Alison’s weblog, CheeseWeb, was born. You can still read these early impressions in the Original CheeseWeb category.

CheeseWeb was originally Alison’s way to communicate with friends and family back home and share her experiences, adventures, photos and observations. It also served as her personal journal to help her remember her first impressions.

She was surprised to learn that people she didn’t even know were reading and enjoying her blog and it was still being visited long after she returned to Canada.

Alison had fallen in love with Amsterdam and the Netherlands and both she and Andrew soon started considering a more permanent move.

Fate, in her infinite wisdom, dealt them a slightly different card than what they had in mind. They were to be relocated to Belgium, a country they had only briefly visited and knew little about.

Taking the plunge anyway, in late June 2005, Alison fumbled through the first months in her new country and soon grew to love its eccentricities.

Since those early days, CheeseWeb has grown into a resource for expats in Belgium as well as a guide for interesting places to visit, eat and shop, but first and foremost it remains  personal journal of one expat wife, making her way in a foreign land.

CheeseWeb around the Web

Alison has been published on and interviewed for many other expat websites. Here is a list of her work beyond CheeseWeb:

Recurring Work

Guest Posts

Interviews: