Belgium « UnorthodoxY Archive

April 4, 2008

EU 2008: Brussels, Belgium

Filed under: Life,Photo,Travel — Tags: Belgium, Brussels, eu, Food, Travel — SpaceDog @ 1:14 pm

From Bruges to Brussels on the train takes around an hour, but the difference between the two places is vast. Brussels is much more a typical European city, full of modern buildings and with flocks of people milling around.

I didn’t get a good look at the central market square as it was filled with a massive tent holding a stage and seating for some event or other. So I wandered in search of the Mannequin Pis, it’s not a big statue and I might have missed it had it not been surrounded by a bunch of tourists, a brass band and a group of people in black-face make-up wielding oversize items of cutlery. I wish I knew exactly what was going on but sadly I remain mystified. After that I managed to get hopelessly lost, the map the hotel gave me wasn’t very helpful and, worse, it didn’t match either the map in my book or reality. I did manage to find another Notre Dame to visit (one of the best I’ve seen).

After finally working where I was I headed to a restaurant that I’d seen recommended on Wikitravel. It was booked out save for one table that I could have as long I was done in time for a later booking. I figured this was a good sign and immediately opted for two traditional dishes, eels in green sauce and saddle of rabbit. Both dishes were fantastic, the eels tasted very faintly fishy but with a lot fewer bones than I’d expected, I’m less convinced about the sauce which was just too herby for my taste. The rabbit came with it’s nice crispy skin but both the skin and the flesh didn’t have any real strong flavour, I’d expected something much gamier. I can see why the have the sauce over it to give the dish some oomph. The chips were excellent, they love their chips in Belgium and they’re good everywhere but these were simply the best chips I can remember eating anywhere.

The second day I travelled to the Atomium which is outside of the centre of Brussels (although it’s easy to get by train or tram.) The Atomium is a giant representation of a iron atom, built in 1958 for the Brussles World Fair, it was renovated recently and reopened last year. It’s excellent, just seeing this bizarre building makes the trip worthwhile but you can also go to the top sphere and get great views of Brussels.

From the top of the Atomium I spotted another attraction I’d wanted to visit, the mini-EU. I hadn’t known they were right beside each other so it was a nice surprise. The mini-EU is a set of scale models of buildings and locations from around the EU, there’s little sounds clips and some of the models move too. It’s pretty great actually, you learn a lot of things about the countries and because all the models are to the same scale you can get an idea of the comparative size of things. It’s totally worth a day out of the town centre to visit these the area, there are a few other things around to visit, shockingly none of this was covered in my guidebook so you’ll might be better turning to the internet for help.

I did manage some pub crawling whilst I was there and whilst I liked Bruges better I did find a couple of nice places. Delirium is stuck down a side street, it’s massive and has a huge range of beers while it’s sister bar across the street is stocked with an equivalent selection of spirits. Well worth searching out, although it’ll be busy. I also found a nice little rock bar which is a nice break from the beer halls and the tourist traps.

To be honest I don’t see much reason to go back to Brussels, there’s plenty of more interesting places to visit in Belgium.

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April 2, 2008

EU 2008: Bruges, Belgium

Filed under: Life,Photo,Travel — Tags: Belgium, Bruges, eu, Food, Travel — SpaceDog @ 12:07 pm

I’m going to split the Belgium posts to cover each city I visited. First Bruges, I took the ferry from Rosyth which drops you at Zeebrugge, from there it’s a short bus ride into town. The bus leaves you by the main train station but it’s only a ten minute walk to the centre.

The first things that strikes you about Bruges is just the whole picture postcard perfectness of the city, canals, narrow cobbled streets, open squares and some of the oldest buildings in Europe. The second thing that hits you is the smell, the place smells of chocolate and general deliciousness.

It’s another small city, all the main sites are within easy walking distance but there’s a few buses if you want to take it easy. The best thing to do is take a canal tour, not only will you get an idea of the layout of the city but you can see things that aren’t accessible from the streets. There are tons of places offering the boat rides, so it’s easy enough to find one.

I spent most of my time just wandering around being entranced by the scenery, although I did have to retire for an afternoon nap to recover from the boat trip. I’m surprised the place isn’t filled with tourists although I expect it will be during the summer. There are a lot of bars and restaurants that are geared up for tourists and, to be honest, the food isn’t that great. The traditional mussels and chips tasted exactly like you’d expect it to, although the desserts were superb. I imagine that getting further away from the centre might reveal better food but all the places I found further afield were full, perhaps wise to do your research and book in advance.

I do my research, however, when it comes to beer and after a brief dinner I’d planned a little pub crawl and an early night. My first stop was to be “‘t Brugs Beertje“, an excellent little pub, full of a ton of beers and a variety of locals and tourists. An absolute must if you’re in the city, I’d like to reel off a list of other pubs to visit but I must confess I didn’t make it out of the first one. Between chatting at the bar and sampling the beers I ended up leaving around one in the morning.

I’d certainly go back to Bruges, even if only to go back to that bar. They do a snow and ice festival in the winter and I might try to get to that next year.

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March 20, 2008

Boat to Belgium

Filed under: General,Life,Travel — Tags: Belgium, Edinburgh, Ferry, Hats, Travel — SpaceDog @ 1:15 pm

The next stop in my Eurotour was Belgium, and I opted to mix it up a bit and get the SuperFast ferry across. It’s cheap, Â£31 for the overnight crossing in an airline style seat, and it means I can visit Bruges which is supposed to be a highlight of the country. Full posts and pictures coming up but here’s some advice and reflections on the crossing.

First up, sleeping, the seats are much bigger and more comfortable than those on a plane. The downside is that the seats are right beside a corridor and the kids play area is just round the corner, worse is that the lighting is left on full power all night. If noise and light are going to keep you up then take earplugs and a eye-mask, I just bundled my jacket over my head and got a fair bit of sleep but the noise was too much by around 9am and I was forced to decamp to the bar with a book.

The buffet on the ship was good, but pricey at just a shade under twenty quid. It looks like it would have been as cheap to eat in the Ã la carte restaurant, although I’ve no idea about the quality. You’re on the boat for almost 18 hours so you can’t really avoid the food, maybe you could get by with snacks and stuff out the shop but I think you’ll just got to accept that that’s were they make some of their money.

Last piece of advice, be aware there’s no ATM or money exchange in Zeebrugges port. There’s not much to buy but you’ll need money for the bus into Bruges, so have some Euros or buy the ticket on the boat.

So what was the trip like? Well, it was … interesting. As the boat filled up and the night wore on I realised that it was an interesting mix of people. It’s like an alien was charged with assembling a representative group of humanity and he dutifully picked up the business traveller, the young family, the sole blogger, and then got bored and just emptied the worst dancing-round-a-handbag nightclub he could find and mopped up an old folks home to make up the numbers. Perhaps a (blurry) picture will help.

Those hats were on the tables in the main bar when I first arrived, people supplied their own pink wigs, silly sunglasses and general fancy dress.

There were three bars on the ship, the main bar had the bulk of the clubbers while the others were much quieter, mostly with families or groups of older folk. There was a dubious lounge singer of exactly the sort you’d expect to find on a boat in the more sophisticated bar, but apart from that they were fairly dull and they shut early. There’s also a dubious looking cinema, and what’s laughingly called a casino — in reality a blackjack table and a stack of fruit machines.

Seeking distraction I sat down at the sole gaming table, turns out it wasn’t blackjack but was pontoon which has different rules (notably, the house wins on a draw, giving them an advantage and throwing my strategy into disarray). As always I lost, but I did manage to waste a couple of hours playing and drinking for not much money. Chatting to the other players I discovered that the cruise isn’t always this odd, apparently I’d got caught up in an eighties theme cruise — hence the mad costumes and 80s disco.

The real shock was the number of people that were doing the crossing to spend four hours in Belgium and then just head back that night. It’s really just a big floating nightclub with a few hours to buy duty free thrown in. Each to their own I guess, it just seems a bit strange.

Everything on the boat costs money so it’s always going to be somewhere between boring and expensive. Again I wondered if I should have taken my laptop, but there is nowhere secure to leave it so I’d have to carry it everywhere or chain it to my seat. Overall I enjoyed the crossing, everything is well run and the surreal atmosphere helped. Plus you get some excellent views of Edinburgh as you’re heading out to sea, I’ll try and put some examples on Flickr once I’ve had a chance to sort through my pictures.

There are more ferries in my future so I look forward to comparing the experiences.