Well hey there guys! I have been incredibly busy with all these workshops, school stuff and planning the basic outline of my study stay in Australia and I didn't really have much time to make some DIY project or a recipe. However, I have finally went through all the pictures and materials I gathered during my trip to Belgium and I thought I might share some of them with you. Especially because I got quite a lot of questions similar to a headline one before I went to Belgium, and I also have quite many friends panicking because of recent attacks in Brussels. I think there is no point in being afraid and avoiding such awesome country!
The post itself is divided in two sections - first of which is dedicated to all the places I have visited and maybe some trips. The second part is more like tips & tricks, my personal experience with food, travelling etc.
When my friend asked me whether I would like to visit Waterloo, I could not say anything else but YES! I am huge history lover and when I get the chance to visit some nice place with historic value, I am 100% in. We went there by the car during our trip to french speaking part of Belgium, however I would suggest to save more time for visiting this place and not making many other plans for that day as the visit will take few hours.
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You can pay for a visit on the top of the lion memorial hill, where you can get an awesome overview of all the fields where Battle of Waterloo took place.
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| The map of the battle of Waterloo |
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| Climbing on the top of the lion memorial was quite a workout actually! |
If you pay entrance fee for the museum, you can see a lot more though. There are few rooms dedicated to the history of Napoleon era, then in few more rooms you can see all the weapons that were used during the battle of Waterloo and soldiers' uniforms of all the nations that fought in this battle and many many more. Unfortunately, I was unable to take good pictures inside the museum because I had really terrible camera at the time and as the whole museum is under ground, the artificial lighting was not good enough for taking pictures.
After visiting the museum, you can also pay a visit to the farm Hougoumont, one of those farm that the allies hid and ambushed Napoleon's soldiers, which resulted in them winning the battle. There is a bus going there from the memorial, however I strongly recommend going by car, especially if the weather is not very pleasant - we missed the bus and decided that we will rather go back to the memorial through a muddy field due to the next bus going in mere half an hour (the mud was nasty, trust me!).
Even though we planned to spend whole day in the french speaking part, we managed to visit only Namur before the dusk. Namur is regular town with this huge fortress overlooking the town and some great rocks to climb right next to the town (as I was told by my friend). We visited the fortress and went for a small walk around the town itself.
Namur fortress, Citadelle de Namur, used to be defence fortress and nowadays it's purposes are mainly tourist. However, there is quite famous perfume lab ran by Guy Delforge hidden inside the fortress due to the perfect conditions for the perfumes to mature. And yea, there is also this awesome turtle rider statue which was moved here from the Oostende beach after the modern art exhibition ended.
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Guy Delforge's perfumes
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Guy Delforge's perfumes
I can really recommend climbing on the top of that fortress as you will have an amazing view of Namur. I really loved the architecture in all of Belgium, however, I loved the french speaking part liiiitle bit more in this aspect.
I loved the overall feel of the town and the statue shown in the picture below is just ridiculous. I also noticed that in this part of Belgium, the people were living more....well....french? Always having time for their coffee and talk, sitting on terraces and not inside the restaurants, even though it was still very cold outside. Just chill. I loved that!
Oh, my beloved Brugge, my most favourite part of the whole trip! The city is amazing, it has everything - cute retreats, lovely architecture, tons of history related stories, canals, swans, etc. Basically Brugge has everything for me to instantly fall in love with it. It resembles a lot to Venice, but the architecture kind of reminded me of my beloved Prague. Which is another plus, obviously. The biggest minus of Brugge is the crowd of tourists everywhere you go.
These two towers are visible from all over Brugge. The first one is the Bell fort and the other one is part of one of two cathedrals of Brugge. I recommend paying a visit to both of the cathedrals as they are beautiful inside, one of them even holds Michelangelo's statue of the Madonna with baby Jesus, which is the only Madonna statue which was moved from Italy while Michelangelo was still alive.
As for the pictures below, they are all Hansa houses, the first two pictures actually show former Hansa headquarters. The Hansa, former trade union, is one of the reasons why Brugge has this amazing architecture everywhere you look.
Have you guys seen the movie "In Bruge"? It was filmed right here, in the location where the following two pictures were taken. And that is also said to be the most photographed scenery in the whole Brugge, as I learnt from Simon, our "tour guide".
We originally wanted to attend this free tour that Tripadvisor recommended us, however, we kind of lost in time and realised it bit too late. Luckily we ran into that group at some point around Begijnhof and we ended up finishing at least a half of the tour. I can strongly recommend the tour to every history lover as the tour guide not only shows you around, but also tells the stories related to the history of those places. Did you know why is the Blind donkey street called so? Did you know why there are tons of swans all around Brugge? Did you know where the former red light district was and why? No? Go attend that tour and you will!
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The very special place I want to mention for Brugge is the Begijnhof, which is this tiny area in south-east of Brugge with white houses, a church and beautiful piece of nature, where nuns and widows used to live. You need to be silent in all of this area, however I think that peaceful state of mind you will get there is well worth it. We even were lucky enough to see blooming daffodils, yay. :3
Aw yea, Brussels. The multicultural city which is now paralysed by recent attacks. I feel really bad for all the Muslims living there and actually all around the Europe, as I have met some really generous and lovely Muslims in Brussels. I must admit that Brussels is not my no. 1, not even no. 2 place I have visited during this trip, however, as a law student who hopes to work with European commission someday, I enjoyed especially the visit to the EU district of Brussels quite a lot.
There is a lot too see in the EU district, especially if you like all these modern buildings and members of the army patrolling around you, however what I loved the most was this piece of the Berlin wall that they had on display right next to the EC Berlaymont building (which is the one I posed for my picture with).
Next thing that is an absolute must-see while visiting Brussels is obviously the Atomium. You don't have to tell me twice to go there - it is shiny and artistic looking, I got to see it no matter what. I believe you can get an epic view of Brussels if you are not as stupid as us and actually visit the Atomium when it is already open, lol!
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As for the rest of Brussels, I recommend just going to the tourist information and purchasing the map for tiny amount of money. There are many places to be seen in Brussels and we have just walked around all of them during one day and enjoyed view as I didn't want to spend much time in Brussels and rather see more places around Belgium. The tourist information is located on the Grand-Place and you can find it easily.
Following pictures are just some random pictures I have taken during our walk around Brussels.
Side note - Did you think that the no. 1 place of interest in Brussels is the peeing boy statue? Wrong.... Go see this bad boy....ehm...dog!
The last place I have visited is Oostende, the seaside summer resort. Visiting this town in winter is not the most clever thing I could have done, however, it still was very beautiful and relaxing day (except for the wind and the rain that ruined my hair, lol).
The very first thing that we have done after arrival was buying load of fresh fish and other sea food which is great thing to do as all the products are really fresh and was very likely caught on that very morning. However, if you do so, pay attention to your food - you might have to fight for it with all the hungry seagulls that are swarming around all the time.
Oostende is generally just vacation town with beach and restaurant and shops. However, once a year it hosts this big film festival. If you are not lucky enough to be there during that time, there are Hollywood-like stars on the pavement around the colonnade.
Vilvoorde is quite large town located approx 15 to 20 minutes of train ride from Brussels and as a resident of quite similar town (just a bit smaller) in quite similar distance from Prague, I must admit that I really liked it and that I could imagine even living there. It is just regular town with not many places of interest, however, I really liked some of the houses, parks and stuff like that and I really loved the historic buildings - Vilvoorde prison and especially Vilvoorde train station, which is one of the oldest train stations in the Europe.
I would say that Vilvoorde is generally quite multicultural town, even though you can find this big church right in the centre of the town and the church where nuns used to spend all their life. There are quite few Muslims living in there and there is also said to be a mosque in Vilvoorde, however, I did not manage to find it.
I learnt that Vilvoorde used to be quite an industrial town. You can still find some big factories around the town (compared to my hometown with only 1 factory) and all around the town you can also see these industrial "memorials" that commemorate the industrial aspect of the town. They are old metal gears and other parts, covered in bright colours. As I learnt later, the colours are the result of Vilvoordre painter school student's training. Actually, in the area near this school, you can find brightly coloures houses - their owners were offered to have their house painted for free, however they can't choose the colour that your house is going to get. But it looks really cool! (Aaaan my friend hates it very much, lol!)
What is the first thing that comes on your mind when you think of Belgium? The chocolate, fries and beer, right? YAY! For the beer, I, as an (almost) abstinent, can recommend one place that I have visited and liked, and I am sure that you will like it too - Delirium in Brussels. They have hell lot of beers to choose from, however I was disappointed that among all the Czech beers, they have chosen not very delicious one. Well, I guess I am not going to Delirium to drink Czech beer anyways, so why do I even care.
As for the chocolate, I was recommended to buy some Leonidas chocolates, which can be usually found just around the corner in any of bigger Belgian cities. I loved their chocolates and so did my family. But then again, I have bought some Côte d'Or chocolate at the supermarket for my friends and family and they just loved it too.
As for the fries, i have tried some and I can give my recommendations on two places - one in Brussels, which is quite near to the Bourse building (it is located on the right hand side of the Bourse, in the block of buildings right next to it - just search for a window that advertise fries and you are all good!). In Brugge, I really liked the place at the very right corner of the main square, or you can try visit Fries museum and make your own! :)
I am not the most experienced traveller ever, however I found out some usefull tricks that I want to share with you.
My first tip, that is probably gonna be very useful for all of you who will want to travel through the Belgium a bit more, is purchasing the Rail Pass. The only minus of this pass is that you kind of need to be young as the Rail Pass is designed only for people up to the age of 26. With this pass you just need to fill in the departure location, the destination, a day of the week and a date and you are good to go anywhere in the whole Belgium for 5,1 EUR. Also you don't have to take the shortest way to your destination and you can visit another city on the go - we went from Oostende to Vilvoorde via Antwerpen where we grabbed a cup of coffee and observed the beautiful train station (we would have probably had a little bit of a tour around the city too, but it was pouring down, so we decided not to do so).
This other trick is a lifesaver in Brussels sometimes - I found out that their ticket control systems at the entrance to the subway, being as advanced as they are (compared to the ticket punching mechanism in Prague), may sometimes not allow you to enter even though you hold the perfectly valid ticket....because of...the reasons, well. However, Brussels prepaid public transport cards doesn't work as London's Oyster card and someone can let you enter on their card and not pay a penny for that. I would not recommend not purchasing the ticket and trying to ask someone to let you in tho, as you can get fined for doing so. However, if your valid ticked won't let you enter, this is a great way to save yourself two more Euros by not buying another ticket.
Last but not least, you don't exactly need to spend obscene amount of money on the guide book - just go visit the tourist centre and they will usually give you a map and suggest the places of interest that you should visit. Remember, the ladies in the tourist centre and the TripAdvisor are your best friends!
