HowardB

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 15 was uneventful, and we actually landed a bit early. We are now back to the our normal routine, going back to work on Tuesday morning. I am writing this a few days later, just ... read more

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 was sort of the same. The highlight was the climb up the ancient bell tower. We saw a couple of other sites, but there was not much to see that we were interested in, so ... read more

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 site that Belgian Jews were transported to Auschwitz from. Saturday was similiar, but the visit was to the smaller city of Lier (pop. 33,000) just 15 minutes by train from Antwerp. Being Saturday, much of ... read more

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 still a good deal. Plus we were upgraded to the more spacious economy plus section. We arrived in Brussels on a bright and sunny Saturday morning and made easy train connections to downtown Brussels and ... read more