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Beligum - Bruges, Brussels, beer, bikes, byways

Holiday Ideas & Foreign Travel
zico
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Beligum - Bruges, Brussels, beer, bikes, byways

#141887

Postby zico » May 28th, 2018, 2:41 pm

Quick report on a 5 day trip, using Ryanair, Belgian rail and car hire.

Early morning flight with ever-friendly Ryanair to Brussels (Charlerloi) which is only 40 minutes by bus to the centre of Brussels. Then took the train to Bruges, getting a 78 euro pass for 10 rail trips. Belgium was my first ever foreign country back when I was 12 years old, on a family car trip through Europe, and my main recollection apart from the general foreignness of it all is they had billiard tables without pockets. I've never returned before now, but Bruges is a famous destination so decided to check it out.

In the north of Belgium, they speak Flemish, which must be the easiest language in the world for an English speaker to get a grasp of if, as it looks so similar to ours. For example “Welkom in deze trein”. "Dank U Wel" for "thank you".

We were only staying for 2 nights, so stayed at an Ibis in the old city area. I’d feared Bruges would be overrun with tourists, but it was fine and not over-busy. There are a few big groups around, but they're easy enough to avoid. The place has a nice quiet gentle atmosphere, with lots of cobbled streets, not much traffic and people on bikes ambling around amiably. Got a 28 euro ticket for 12 museums, which turned out to be a good buy, as it got us to all corners of the city, and some of the museums we wouldn’t have bothered going to see turned out to be really interesting. The main Markt area had quite a lot of tourists, but there were lots of other areas in the old town which were pretty quiet and were chock-full of interesting old houses with the ziggurat triangle-top design. One museum was a working windmill. Did you know they can turn the entire building around so the sails catch the wind better? I didn’t. Generally, if you like very steep corkscrewing old stairs, you’ll love Bruges. We went to the Belfry in the main square which is 366 steps up, and has good views over the city, without any scary sheer drops, as you’re fenced in at the top.

The next day we took a side trip to Ghent, only half an hour away by train. A quick word about the north Belgian countryside – flat. Ghent is a bigger city than Bruges and a completely different atmosphere where everyone is important and in a rush. Cyclists here are a complete pain, there are absolutely tons of them, and most believe that everyone else should just jump out of their way, especially on the “pedestrian-only” (ha!) areas. As for zebras, don’t even dare think about stepping out if there’s a cyclist approaching. Ghent has a small section of old-town buildings clustered around a river, but the general atmosphere was pretty charmless, and we hot-footed it back to the calm of Bruges. We had some disappointing mussels at a canalside restaurant, where the owner told us the mussels season was July-February, and they only had rubbish mussels from Denmark at this time.

Next was Antwerp for a day, arriving by train into Antwerp’s magnificent main station. This is an even bigger city than Ghent, but had a much better ambience than Ghent. A surprising amount of Antwerp’s main street and squares is being dug up, but there’s a nice old town central area. There’s not that much in the way of sights. You can take a harbour tour to look at container ports, but we declined this opportunity.

Onto Brussels next day. Back in the 1970’s I remembered this as having a big main square, a tiny statue of a boy having a pee (even at an early age I wondered about a city claiming this as its main tourist attraction), and streets and streets full of horrible grey concrete buildings even worse than we had in Britain at the time. This time round I managed to find streets with nice old buildings, and it was a lot better than I remembered. Of course nowadays the Grand Plas is full is people taking selfies and bumping into you, but it’s a pleasant place to have a Belgian beer, look at the old buildings and watch the world (and their cameras) go by. Good meal at the De Monk pub, which was a very no-nonsense place, a bit old-fashioned with lots of wood furnishings, and a simple menu of spaghetti bolognese or spaghetti that wasn't bolognese. Good food and drink here, and good value.

Then it was back to Charleroi airport to hire a car and check out the Ardennes in the southern French-speaking bit of Belgium. We’d ordered a small car, but were given a Renault Cadger monster truck thing. (It’s actually called Kadjar, but I presume that’s Flemish for Cadger.) Pleasant driving along the river valleys and through rolling farmland, stopping off at Rochefort which was supposed to be a major tourist attraction. Got a walking map from Tourist Info of “walking trails” and set off for our first walk to a Gallo-Roman fort, which was all on roads because the farmers didn’t want to let anyone on their fields. We tried another walk to an Abbey which was better and actually went through woodland paths. Rochefort didn’t look that charming, so we carried onto Durbuy, a cute little hamlet nestled by the river in a steep valley. The village had more hotels and restaurants than houses. Next day, we had a pleasant stroll along the river to the next village and back, returning just before a big thunderstorm broke.

On the plane back, we had about 30 Hasidic Jews making a real nuisance of themselves by constantly changing seats on the plane and delaying everyone. Eventually the air crew had to tell them to go back to their designated seats, so the plane could take off. All the blokes sat as far away from their wives and children as possible, and it was easy to see why, as they were some of the worst-behaved and noisiest kids I've ever seen on a plane. The kid in front of me was a tantrum specialist, and threw an incredibly loud and sustained tantrum on the descent just because she had to have a seatbelt on.

In summary, really enjoyed Bruges, Brussels redeemed itself in my eyes, Ardennes were a bit disappointing, and the Belgian beers were very enjoyable.

zico
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Re: Beligum - Bruges, Brussels, beer, bikes, byways

#141950

Postby zico » May 28th, 2018, 7:04 pm

A little curiosity I forgot to mention is the huge number of Eden Hazard lookalikes in Belgium, not only the same daffy little beard, but deeper resemblances. Maybe he's got a lot of cousins spread all over the country.

Dod101
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Re: Beligum - Bruges, Brussels, beer, bikes, byways

#141991

Postby Dod101 » May 28th, 2018, 10:29 pm

No idea who Eden Hazard is but thanks for your report. Very interesting.

Dod

AleisterCrowley
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Re: Beligum - Bruges, Brussels, beer, bikes, byways

#141992

Postby AleisterCrowley » May 28th, 2018, 10:41 pm

I used to enjoy my weekends in Brussels -
Waterloo battlefield was a bit drab, and the butte de leon was shut for renovation!
There was a quite good (and cheap) bar near the Manneken Pis (which is TINY)
The buildings can be a bit tatty - my Brussels resident friend explained this was something to do with the planning system??

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Re: Beligum - Bruges, Brussels, beer, bikes, byways

#142030

Postby redsturgeon » May 29th, 2018, 9:36 am

I love Bruges, but then I am a lover of Belgian beer!

We went to the Belfry in the main square which is 366 steps up, and has good views over the city, without any scary sheer drops, as you’re fenced in at the top.


Have you ever watched "In Bruges" if not, I'd recommend it.

John

zico
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Re: Beligum - Bruges, Brussels, beer, bikes, byways

#142440

Postby zico » May 30th, 2018, 11:49 pm

Yes, I loved the quirkiness of "In Bruges".

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Re: Beligum - Bruges, Brussels, beer, bikes, byways

#142624

Postby Clariman » May 31st, 2018, 6:29 pm

I'm a fan of Bruges too ... more so than Brussels.

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Re: Beligum - Bruges, Brussels, beer, bikes, byways

#142638

Postby staffordian » May 31st, 2018, 7:53 pm

Certainly a great place for a visit.

My brother and some of his work colleagues - now mainly retired - have made long weekend pilgrimages there twice yearly for at least the last thirty years.

And if you hadn't guessed, they all enjoy their beer :D

JMN2
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Re: Beligum - Bruges, Brussels, beer, bikes, byways

#142697

Postby JMN2 » June 1st, 2018, 8:20 am

I used to go to Brugge 2-3 times a year for many years. Cheese cubes with beer, carbonade flamand, steaks and frites, frites with horse-meat gravy. It's a fairy-tale town.

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Re: Beligum - Bruges, Brussels, beer, bikes, byways

#142703

Postby redsturgeon » June 1st, 2018, 8:48 am

JMN2 wrote:I used to go to Brugge 2-3 times a year for many years. Cheese cubes with beer, carbonade flamand, steaks and frites, frites with horse-meat gravy. It's a fairy-tale town.


Ah Brugge...almost rivals Newark in the anagram stakes :D

John


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