Tag Archives: travel

Bruges was interesting, it was smaller version of Gent. Or that was my perception. One minute you’d be wandering through mob city tourist-ville and then you’d turn the corner and a find a quiet little cobbled street. There would be someone loading a baby stroller into a car and workers taking materials from a van. There was the same central square with over-priced, but decent restaurants. Canals with boat rides. Horse drawn carriages. This is the most touristy thing, the horse drawn carriage – do people really like it other than it’s a thing to do on vacation?

By the end of the first evening we felt like we’d seen it all. We toyed with the idea of hopping on the train and going to Ostend on the coast. One drawback was that the train station wasn’t very convenient to our hotel. We finally decided against it because the weather was changing and we were afraid it was going to be too stormy and we’d just be wandering around trying to stay warm and keep the sand out of our eyes.

We did a lot of walking and wandering around the park. We bought bags and bags of candy and sampled everything. It was terrific.

Even my Auntie who has lived in Europe for 90 years asked: why Gent? How did you even think of going to Gent?

Well, I bought a little travel book with: Brussels, Gent, Bruges and Antwerp. Gent is a university town and sounded nice.

It was.

One of the articles I read online said it was the less Disneyland version of Bruges. This turned out to be an accurate description. If you’re planning to go to Belgium I would suggest skipping Bruges and go to Gent instead. Well, depending on what kind of travel you like. I don’t like herding around in mobs of tourists if I can avoid it.

Gent felt like a real place with real people wandering around going to restaurants by the canal. I didn’t feel pummeled by tourism. Plus we had our most expensive but most lovely hotel. Our hosts were two young men who honestly seemed like the highlight of their life was visiting with their guests and telling them about Gent.

It’s been years since I fantasized about living in a foreign city, but Gent, I would love to try.

One of the notes I wrote to Bob was that it even smells better! Our hotel room had a delicious room freshener. Pineapple?

We did a lot of walking around, simply enjoying the area. We did go check out the Adoration of the Lamb which is an extensive altarpiece undergoing restoration and very interesting.

So what’s in Belgium?

I heard this question more than once before we left.

We have family in Germany so we’ve made a number of trips and visited most countries adjacent to Germany. We’ve never been to Belgium.

The day we arrived in Brussels was the worst weather of the trip. It started raining when we left the train station. It was a short walk to the hotel but it was the kind of rain that you don’t want to be walking in, especially with luggage and in an unfamiliar place.

Since I was already inhumanly tired and hungry, the rain was especially soul-crushing and for a few moments I wept quietly to myself and thought: I hate traveling.

But we found our hotel and found food and adult beverages and all was well soon enough.

We slept through the night and woke up at 8:30 thinking we had mastered the time change. (Actually, I think Erin woke up closer to 7am.) We went to the hotel breakfast and attacked the hot beverage machine. Fifteen minutes later, we were fine.

The weather was gorgeous. We wandered over to the Grand Palais which was tourist central. Maybe Americans aren’t going to Belgium but everyone else is. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. We got our city passes (museums, public transport) and wandered off. Visited the history museum. Turns out I knew NOTHING about the history of Belgium. I’m too embarrassed to elaborate.

But here’s a tidbit: King Leopold I looks like Bill Compton

We also did the underground archeology tour which was fascinating but a little hard to visualize.

This is one of those inexplicable tourist things. Everyone needs to take a picture of this dumb statue. It’s a mob scene in front of it. It’s famous for being famous.

As you can see, I took a picture, too.

At the Fine Arts Museum there was this one painting that I thought looked like a totally crazy pants lady with her eyes rolled back. It looked like the cover of a 70’s horror novel. The description said it was a religious painting and explained the symbols. Erin and I weren’t convinced.

The day we were leaving I wanted to make sure we got our moneys worth out of our museum card so we went to the Beer Museum and the Chocolate Museum. If you go to Brussels: Don’t waste your time. At least at the beer museum you get a free beer which I didn’t have because it was 10am and I couldn’t afford to ruin the rest of the day that early.

I’m fascinated by this locks of love thing. The Internet says this bridge is called Eiserner Steg.

I heard about putting a padlock on a bridge for the first time this summer. In Paris there was a bridge where they had to cut them off because the locks were collapsing the rails.

But some of the locks are years old so it’s not a new thing. Also it’s clearly an enterprise because many of the locks have fancy engraving.

It’s sort of sweet but then you have to wonder how many times kids sneak back there with bolt cutters.

Nothing like trying to keep yourself awake after a couple of long flights. We kept telling ourselves that being outside was going to do it for us and we’d reset our clocks and be acclimated in no time.

We took turns deciding that we were fried. One would rally the other.

This is not the first time I’ve had to kill time near the Hauptbahnhof in Frankfurt. Bob and I did the same thing and did the same walk along the river.

There were museums opening up but Erin and I didn’t think we could handle wandering around a museum when we were desperate to just keep our eyes open.

Twice we were approached by teenaged girls. I’m so cynical I expected a scam, but it also could be that two middle-aged ladies in fleece are safe to approach. In either case the language barrier kept it from going too far.

Finally we were at the train station. I was worried that it would take me awhile to remember how navigate the transportation, but only about 3 minutes.

I don’t think of myself as a great traveler. I’m usually timid and anxious but this trip I felt pretty comfortable most of the time. And I was happy to be there.

Great trip continues. I bought about 9 kinds of Belgian chocolate today and sampled it all and then wasn’t hungry for dinner. I ate something anyway and ordered a salad with goat cheese and bacon which was more goat cheese and bacon than salad. Way to make salad, Belgium. (Not complaining.)

I bought a bag of Belgian fudge which tasted like candy corn. Will re-wrap and hand off as a gift. Just kidding. (kinda). But everything else was amazing.

We took it easy today. A lot of the sights seemed so similar to things we’ve already seen we sort of glanced and moved on. We sat in the park for an hour and read our books and watched people play with their dogs.

First crisis of the trip. I have numerous itineraries in my computer, Google drive and email plus sent to other people. I made a single sheet cheat sheet with everything on it. And I wrote my Auntie’s phone number on it with a pen – meaning this was the only place I had the phone number. And guess what I lost?

Yeah, so I have calls in to husband and father to email us the phone number so we can remind her that we arrive tomorrow. Long day of travel tomorrow with a total of 4 (!) trains.

Belgian beer and chocolate: completely as advertised. Recommend.

Doesn’t Gent sound like a town that people should be writing limericks about?

I thought having the laptop would be handy for blog posting but what I’ve been using it for the last half hour is looking up the best places to get croquettes in Bruges. (Where we’re going next.) We missed out on the place that was recommended to us here.

Gent is wonderful. I was in love with it 15 minutes after we got here. I didn’t hate Brussels but it’s quieter here and I think the people a tad friendlier. It’s busy but not chaotic. We’ve had really terrific meals the past 2 nights. And our hotel is wonderful. Excellent hospitality, great room, convenient location.

We’ve spent most of our time walking around, enjoying the weather and scenery.

This morning we went to the botanical garden and then spent most of the day at the Museum of Fine Arts. In the afternoon we walked around and sat in the sun by the canal before finding dinner.

I put Pixelmator on the laptop and am still learning to use it. Yes, there was major tweakage on this photo.

More time tomorrow before we go to Bruges. Our hotel host says it’s 23 minutes on the train. I said: it takes me longer to get to work. There are a few more things we’re hoping to check out here before we go to Bruges.

Two nights in Bruges and then to Bad Kissingen to visit the nonagenarian.

Before we do anything, if you haven’t seen the Daily Show clip on the Washington football team, please do so now.

Now back to Belgium.

We watched a half episode of Big Bang Theory dubbed in French. Hilarious.

Today we went to the European Union visitor center which was amazing. To see how far this vision goes back and how much work went into making it a reality. I have to say I was swept away by the presentation of the process for making a law and thinking how great it was.

Until I remembered that I was being shown an ideal of how the process works. I’m sure you could make an equally group-huggy video about the US Congress or the National Congress of American Indians but when you have some insight into how process actually works, it’s not quite as magical.

Not intending to knock it because giant collaborative efforts aren’t pretty – just pointing out that I know in reality there’s a lot more involved in making things happen.

In the afternoon we went to the fine arts museum which is housed together with the modern arts museum and the old masters museum and one or 2 other exhibits. We arrived late in the day (even skipping lunch, just like I would do with Bob) so it was a rush through. I told Erin I saw everything by jogging through the galleries.

We’re in a bit earlier tonight. We have some time here tomorrow and then we’re on our way to Ghent.

Yesterday when we came back from breakfast we noticed one of our curtains was missing. There is a gauzy white curtain and a heavy blackout curtain. The white one was missing. Oh no! We had opened the window wider to get some air in there. We looked down into the courtyard to see if our curtain was there.

It would have been quite a task to unhook it from all its hook and float away, but it seemed odd that the cleaning crew would come in and take our curtain and then go again. But that must be what happened. Our curtain was back when we returned last night.

At least 7 times a day I say, “Let’s never drive here.”

The driving seems extraordinarily insane. Narrow streets. Lots of cars and buses and vans. At one point we saw a car driving through an intersection stop for a car making waiting to make a left and chew the guy out. I’m not clear what the left turn guy was doing wrong or why it was worth the trouble to stop and yell at him. Later we saw a bus that was stalled? in the single lane moving in that direction. So buses and cars trying to get around it had to get in the oncoming traffic lane. So the oncoming traffic was jumping over a low lane divider to get in the bus/taxi lane.

The only car I’ve seen driving slowly was a driving school car. It’s a busy big city so maybe it will be different in a smaller place. However I will share that the guidebook said: don’t even think about driving in the fast lane on Belgian highways. They drive very fast and nose-to-tail and it’s too much if you’re not used to it.

Yesterday at the Belgium history museum I read that the King had met with severed heads of state. I had to pause a moment and try to figure out what that meant. He actually met with several heads of state. Whew.

The first night we were so tired we slept a good 12 hours+ solid. Not so lucky last night. I’m moving slowly this morning but I had my tea and ready to head out the door.

No time for an update. Lovely weather yesterday. Half of Belgium seems to smoke and the other half jog. At one point we thought we saw someone doing both. Chocolate on every street corner. Especially in the touristy zone. The Belgian beer is everything as advertised.

Hopefully time for more comprehensive update later.