The forecast for Sunday was for clear skies, but it wound up raining for much of the day, from about 9 AM to 3 PM. We started off going to a flea market about a twenty minute walk from the hotel, and tehn since it was raining, went to a pretty interesting museum about Belgian history. By the time we got out of the museum and had lunch, the rain was letting up and we spent the rest of the day haniging around the Grand Place. It was then back to the hotel to pack. The flight home on Monday, June [View Full Entry]

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Ok, it's 3 AM on Sunday morning and I am having a hard time remembering what we did on Friday! Since we had bought a 72 hour pass good for many attractions in Brussels, we sort of felt obliged to use it to get a good value for the purchase. Because it was open earlier than other museums, we started out at the musical instrument museum, located on a great art nuveau building. we are not musial instrument buffs, but the museum was a lot of fun for both of us. At the entrance, you are given headphones, and as you [View Full Entry]

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Picking up from the prior post, we decided to spare the lamb after all. We ended up having one of the best dinners of our trip, at the Marco Polo Restaurant in Ghent. The atmosphere was great, the service very friendly, and the food - we both had a salad, pasta with mushroom sauce, and shared a tiramisu - was very tasty. On Wedenesday it was another daytrip - about an hour by train from Ghent to Tournai, our first foray into the French speaking part of Belgium. The weather was dreary and our brief stay of 3 hours or so [View Full Entry]

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Early Sunday morning June 7, Don and I picked up and packed up again and took the train from Antwerp to Ghent, a trip of about 50 minutes. The city was very quiet when we arrived at 8 AM, and it was a quick tram ride to the city center to our hotel, the NH Ghent. We have stayed at NH hotels before, and they were very nice, this one is no exception. Off we went sightseeing around the city, for the next two days. The first day we probably never went more than 7 blocks in any direction, but there [View Full Entry]

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Having mostly just wandered around Antwerp on Thursday, we decided to go on daytrips from Antwerp on Friday and Saturday. Friday we went the 25 minutes by train to the small city of Mechelen (pop. 77,000), located halfway between Antwerp and Brussels. It was a nice city to visit (large Cathedral, several other impressive churches, picteresque Grote Markt (main square). Our day included a nice outdoor lunch on the Grote Markt, and a boat ride along the small river flowing through the city that afforded a close-up of the townscape. We also visited a small Holocaust Museum - Mechelen was the [View Full Entry]

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We left Brugge early in the morning on Wedensday, June 3, taking the local Brugge bus from the Bariseele to the train station, and then the quick 80 minute train ride to Antwerp. The weather had turned much cooler, but we still wore shorts but this time with a sweatshirt. Antwerp is not as immediately apppealing as Brugge in the "cuteness" sense. It is about four times the size, and its center is a mix of newer and pold buildings. There remain several wonderful churches and a large collection of art (featuring Rubens) is scattered around town. We spent the first [View Full Entry]

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On Friday, May 29 we arrived nice and early at the airport. Because our trip had been delayed by one week, we had to scrap the nonstop flight from DC to Brussels, and change to a one-stop via Munich, meaning we would arrive in Brussels 5 hours later than planned. That's not a big deal for a two week trip, but a non-stop is nicer, and as luck would have it, the nice gate attendant switched us back to the direct Brussels flight! Of course a thunder storm caused our flight to be delayed by almost two hours, but it was [View Full Entry]

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In two days we are off to Belgium from our home in Washington DC, arriving on Saturday, May 30. We will spend four nights in each of the following: Brugge, Antwerp, Ghent, and Brussels. We started planning the trip about 2 months ago. It's a destination we've wanted to go to for a while, and it just beat out an Alaskan cruise/Oregon trip for this vacation. [View Full Entry]

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