Regular readers of The Escape Hatch may have noticed that Jared and I travel a lot, to a lot of places. However, to date, there is only a single European country with a blog entry. After 20 years of Jared indulging me in traveling to places much cheaper and more exotic than Western Europe, we decided on a trip to Belgium because our friend KT has spent the last three summers teaching in Lille, France. Jared was his typical, understated self (for instance, he didn’t do a happy dance about traveling to Europe instead of a hot, uncomfortable, and/or intestinal parasite-infested country), but I’m sure that inside he was relieved and excited. Plus, spending time with KT and Melissa, our frequent travel companions, is something we both look forward to.
As I started researching places to see and things to do, I found many descriptions about how different the French and Dutch-influenced portions of the country are, with rambling discussions on why it’s necessary to visit both parts of the country to get a true feel for the place. Reading through the many cities recommended in both areas, though, I quickly realized that while Belgium has a plethora of interesting and quirky museums, the primary activities other travelers were the most enthusiastic about were walking around cities looking at architecture or going hiking. There was also a lot of talk about how cities in different areas were very similar, “but here’s the one reason you should go to this city instead of that city.” For instance, Bruges and Ghent are almost identical, but you should go to Bruges over Ghent for whatever reason. This didn’t excite me about our trip, but I dutifully compiled a list of things to do around the country. Then I sat back to wait until it was time to leave.
The flight to Belgium went very well compared to many other international transits we’ve experienced (see Jared’s article “I Hate Travel”), making for a pleasant start to our vacation. Until. You guessed it—because it’s Jared and me, something had to happen.
When we got to the airport in Brussels, we needed to catch a train the Ghent. There was a train on the tracks as we came down the steps to the platform, and Jared was quick enough to jump on. I was close behind him, but Melissa got caught up on the stairs. I was looking at Jared on the train and Melissa on the stairs, trying to decide whether to board, when the doors snapped shut and the train pulled out. Not exactly what we were hoping for, but also not a huge deal because train service in Belgium is frequent, and we could take the next train to Ghent.
As we were waiting, we started talking with a friendly woman on the platform about Brussels and got some great tips on things to do. Boarding the next train, we thought we were back on track, until we pulled into a station in Brussels—and suddenly everyone got up and left. The lady we’d been speaking with told us the train was out of service, and we’d need to catch a different one to Ghent. Luckily, she was taking the same train, so we followed her to the next platform. As we were waiting, Jared texted me that his train had also kicked everyone off, this time in the ass end of nowhere, because there were animals on the track ahead.
Over the next 20 minutes, he received conflicting and unclear directions from multiple people about whether any more trains would run that night, whether he needed to return to Brussels to catch a different line to Ghent, or whether he was about to pay for a really freaking expensive rideshare. Melissa and I were watching the board as our train racked up delay after delay, ultimately arriving almost 15 minutes late. We climbed on to finish our trip, and luckily, Jared managed to get on a train headed to Ghent via a different route. Finally, we all arrived within 5 minutes of each other. We grabbed fast-food pasta at the station and a rideshare to our rental house, where KT had already checked in. We ate some dinner and called it a night.
The next day, we took the train to Bruges. The weather was a tad warm, but we felt the walk from the train station was more than worth the effort once we got to the torture museum. We’ve been to torture museums in several countries, and this one had a collection equal to any other we’ve visited. Afterward, we walked around the main square looking at the architecture, and had a very overpriced, mediocre lunch at a restaurant whose most memorable trait was the collection of creepy dolls hanging from the ceiling, a sight I could have gone my whole life without seeing.
We’d planned to spend a full day in Ghent, and I’m glad we did. Of the two cities, I really wish we’d skipped Bruges and spent more time in Ghent. The Gravensteen Castle has a well-done, dramatized audio tour with sound effects and very dry humor that made it much more interesting and engaging than most audio tours I’ve taken—especially the description of the beheadings and other goings-on in certain parts of the structure.
We grabbed waffles because they’re 30% of the food sold in Belgium (with fries and chocolate making up the remaining 60%), then meandered to the famous Graffiti Alley. Some of the art was beautiful, and in keeping with our strange ability to stumble into engagement photos and weddings, we happened upon an engagement photo session where the couple let us take their picture. We continued meandering around the city, enjoying a pleasantly bland and relaxing day before heading to our rental house for dinner.
Melissa took one for the team and agreed to be our rental car driver so we could visit some of the areas that are more difficult to access by train. Our first destination was Ypres, where battle trenches and other structures from WWI have been excavated. Luckily, it hadn’t rained and we were able to go down in the trenches, then visit the Flanders WWI museum. They have an impressive collection of artifacts and maps, discussions, and video recreations of the battles in the area. After the museum and lunch (more fries, because they’re inescapable), we headed to what ultimately was my favorite place – the Trollentoren in Boom. Thomas Dambo has been building large, wooden trolls around the world since 2014, and the six located in De Shorre Park were beautiful, as was the forest hike to see them all. KT and I were especially taken with the one called Little Nora, as she collects rocks!
The following day, we continued our exploration in the Walloon region, with geology a high priority. We visited the Durbuy anticline, which is surrounded by a nice park with seating so people can spend time properly appreciating this spectacular example of structural geology. Next, we visited the Grottes de Remouchamps, one of three sets of caves in the region that have rivers large enough for boats. After walking through the caves, the return trip was on the river itself, with a guide providing info on the geology and hydrology of the system.
Our final destination for the day was the small village of Dinant, home to incredible geologic structures, beautiful painted houses on both sides of the river, and the birthplace of Adolphe Sax, inventor of the saxophone. Sadly, we arrived too late in the day to visit the monastery located on top of the cliffs, but we were able to look at the painted houses, the display of saxophones on the river bridge, and enjoyed what was easily our best meal in Belgium (mostly ignoring the ever-present fries).
Our only other snag during our Belgium visit occurred with the rental car. It turns out that many of the gas stations in the country are unmanned and require you to choose an amount to pay up front rather than using the US system of inserting your credit card for authorization and then charging for whatever gas you pump. This presents a few problems, first and foremost—how are we supposed to know the amount of gas to purchase for a rental car? We don’t know how much it needs, let alone in liters, and for some reason, US credit cards are almost impossible to use at these stations. We went through every credit card that all four of us were carrying and finally resorted to paying with cash (the pumps have the equivalent of a vending machine slot for money). However, we overestimated by almost $30 how much gas the car needed, and of course, there’s no refund! We complain about companies ripping us off in the US, but gas station owners in Belgium have found the best tourist rip-off ever with this system.
The next stop on our trip was Brussels, Belgium’s capital. Hostels and hotels are very expensive, so we’d booked a very tiny apartment with a bedroom and a sofa bed. The apartment barely contained all of us, but it was cheap. When I’m booking a trip, “cheap” almost always wins over comfort, and in this case, being close to a bus stop and the Midi train station made up for the cramped quarters.
We started our time in Brussels by visiting the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, which houses a huge collection of old masters, including Rubens (my favorite). We then headed for what is apparently a very famous sandwich shop (Tonton Garby) and proceeded to wait in line for two hours. If you’re a big fan of cheese on bread, it’s probably worth the wait, and several people in line told us they had come multiple times. While the price was decent and the guy certainly knows a lot about cheese, I can’t say it’s an experience I would care to repeat.
It did fortify us enough to continue walking around the city, and to visit the Museum Garderobe Mannekin Pis. When your city’s most famous attractions are the Smurfs and a statue of a pissing child, maybe that’s an indication that you need to up your tourist game. The Garderobe museum was worth the visit, though, as they have on display many of the outfits that the statue has been gifted by various heads of state over the years, with Elvis being my favorite. We followed this with a trip to the Museum of Erotics and Mythology, a small but well-curated collection of erotica from around the world.
After more walking and a snack that didn’t involve fries or waffles, we got on the bus, where we saw something completely unexpected – the current president of the Brussels Order of the Moustache. His facial hair was, in fact, quite impressive and warranted a picture based solely on the amount of time we spent discussing it.
On our final day in Brussels, it was time to get serious about seeing our last sights and shopping for gifts. We made our way to the Laeken Cemetery in the northern suburbs, where there are interesting crypts above ground, a set of crypts below ground, and most impressively, an original cast of “The Thinker” by Auguste Rodin. Though the trip required taking multiple buses, it was worth it to see the statue and the crypts.
Following our cemetery visit, we headed to the Comic Art Museum, advertised as housing art related to Belgian originals TinTin and the Smurfs. While the TinTin and Smurfs-related items were few, the history and comic art displayed in the museum was impressive, AND they had postcards of Mannekin Pis in the form of a Smurf for the win.
Following the comic strip museum, it was time to hit up Belgium’s most famous tourist attraction—chocolate shops. Belgium is known worldwide as the home of Lindt and Godiva, but we wanted to try some of the more exclusive local shops that were each known for different varieties. This required visits to Leonidas for white chocolate, Galler for dark chocolate, one random place that had something that looked like haystacks, and finally to Godiva because we had to know how it compared to the US version. They were all delicious, but the standouts were the dark chocolates from Galler and the lemon white chocolate from Leonidas.
And that was it—our pleasantly bland trip to Belgium. Regular readers of this blog will be astounded to know that it’s possible for Jared and me to take a trip with no strikes, no riots, no natural disasters, and fairly minimal hassle, but it does happen every decade or so! Keep following The Escape Hatch to hear about two other recent trips that were definitely neither bland nor completely pleasant.