Belgium 2008

Introduction

In Autumn 2004 I met my good friend F. at a Greek party in Barcelona. We made many trips together, this is one of them.

Summer 2008. After having realized I never visited my former neighbour country in the south, we book a flight to Brussels. Places to visit in that week are Bruges, Antwerp and Brussels of course.

We are on an early flight from BCN to Zaventem airport, landing there in the late morning. We buy train tickets to Bruges in the east. 

Brugge station is just south of the centre. Well, let's grab the bus to get to the youth hostel (although we are not that young ourselves anymore, but nonetheless)...

I try to make check in conversation in flemish with the young lady from the reception:

"Nen goeie namiddag mammezelleke, iek kom seffens inchecken"

Her reply: "Sorry, could you repeat in English?"

"Sure, no problem, I'd like to check in, I'm from Holland and my friend is from Spain. I was led to believe that we're in a dutch speaking country here."

"Yes love, but I'm from Ireland"

Since it's still early, we do a boat roundtrip over the canals and visit the cozy shops and bars. Bruges has a chocolate museum which we visited (a few years earlier on a south France trip we spent a lot of dough on bonbons).

This little town, the Venice of the north, is really absolutely beautiful. Gastronomically speaking, Belgium is a garden of Eden. After dinner we had a splendid night in Delaney Irish pub. (you can't miss it, it's in the middle of the city on the market square) 

There was an old rocksinger performing live blues. 

After two days in Bruges and a few beers too many, the 3rd day started with a small hangover. Many belgian beers are from 7 to 10% alcohol. Basically, the more evil the name of a beer, the more alcohol it contains.

We left the hostel and at the station, the tickets for harbourcity Antwerp were bought.

F. needed some medication so we visited the 1st pharmacy in Antwerp and continued to the hotel, situated near the huge cathedral.

The legend tells that the name of the city Antwerpen derives from a giant whose hand was cut off and then thrown in the river Schelde (Hand Werpen in Dutch). For additional info: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvius_Brabo

We explored the area of the harbour, shopping street Meir and the Groenplaats where we witnessed a typical belgian 15 minute thundershower. At the Groenplaats (green square) you can buy delicious gaufres (waffles).

The evening fell and we landed in the at that time very popular jazz bar "De Muze". (Unfortunately it closed a couple of years ago). The orchestra played splendid the ambiance was great.

The next day we decided to do a small visit to the Netherlands. But first we found this awesome breakfast bar, not the cheapest but our table there looked like a brunch buffet.

With full stomachs we strolled to Antwerpen Centraal, one of the most beautiful train stations in West Europe and took an international train to Rotterdam. We came to see the Coolsingel and city centre but the weather was awful. F. had been in my country the year before and then we didn't have time to stash Rotterdam in our schedule.

Back in beerland Belgium we enjoyed a fancy dinner and revisited de Muze.

The next morning we revisited the breakfast bar, afterwards the harbour and then we figured out what more we could do. Since we saw the most important parts of Antwerp, we took a train to Ghent, the capital of the province East Flanders. 

From the station you can take a tram but it's only a small walk to the centre. Like in Bruges, here there are also plenty of canals and the rivers Schelde and Leie meet in this city.

We took a boat trip, there was a nice château (castle) and the sun did his best effort today, as this part of Belgium normally has rain everyday.

We sat on a terrace alongside the canal, drank a Vedett beer and saw another bar with the name "Dulle Griet". This is a reference to a painting of Brueghel and in the 60s this war lady got her own comic in the famous Bob & Bobette series.

In the evening we returned to Antwerp and made our suitcases ready for Brussels where we traveled the next day. 

Arriving in the capital I was a bit shocked but not really surprised when the hotel personnel was not able or willing to speak Flemish anymore, in multiculti Bruxelles the main language is French.

The hotel was situated at Place Fontainas near an important boulevard and in the vicinity of "la Bourse" (stock exchange). There's an excellent metro system. The street names are in French and Dutch.

Most important visit was the Atomium, the remains of the 1958 Expo and there's a statue of Manneken Pis, (a little peeing bloke) in the city centre. Believe it or not, he also has his own comic in the Bob & Bobette series. 

There are dozens of comic book stores in Brussels and you will also find several wall paintings of belgian comic heroes. Just like the language border between Flanders and Wallonie, beer, chocolate and fries, comic books are an important part of belgian culture.

On a typical evening we were standing at a church waiting for the rain to pass. Then we could move on and visited some beer pubs. It's particularly difficult not to get drunk if you don't know the different types of beer (there are menu cards with approx. 100 types).

Brussels was magnificent but the return journey awaited us. F. decided to bring souvenirs (small bronze Manneken Pis figures) for his colleagues.

He had about 30 of those in the suitcase when we passed customs on Zaventem and of course the alarms went off. "Messieurs, avez-vous quelque chose pour declarer" (Gentlemen, do you have anything to declare?)

No, not at all. But the security guys checked the suitcases and found the bronze figures. 

I explained them it were just some souvenirs for friends, so they agreed with an amicable "ça va, you may continue now".