Day 1

Michael and I visited Belgium during our Europe trip in 2017. We started our Belgian experience in Antwerp, which is located in the northern part of Belgium. We were able to take the train from Amsterdam, which took about 2 hours.

After checking into our Airbnb we went on a free walking tour with the company, Legends of Antwerp, and they gave a great tour with a lot of history about the city. Ii is great to do a walking tour on the first day in a big city to get a great overview of what the city has to see.

We tried to go to dinner at the (Super) Mercado, which is a old post office turned into a huge covered food market, but it was closed for 2 weeks while we were there. If we are ever back I definitely want to try this place out since it looked like it had a lot of fun and traditional foods to try. We ended up going to dinner at Backyard, which turned out to be great. We split bruschetta and Michael had pasta and I had salad. At dinner we had the first taste of Belgian beer and we loved the Leffe Blond. After dinner we went home to rest up for the nest day.

Day 2

The next day in Belgium we took a train from Antwerp to Bruges, which took about an hour and twenty minutes and was fifteen euro. From the train station you can walk to the city center of Bruges and we first went into the Belfort Tower. This is the tall tower of Bruges, which served as a warehouse and a market hall in Middle Ages. You can climb to top for nice view over the city, but we did not do because it did not seem worth the 10 euro.

We did the walking tour In Brugge Free Walking Tour, which started at the Market Square in front of the Belfort tower. The tour was very good and informative, but it was quite long. We covered a lot of ground and went around the part of the city that isn’t as frequented by tourists. I would definitely recommend this tour but remember to bring a snack and be ready for a long tour. You do get a free chocolate tasting at the end and also get a pass that gives you discounts at certain places. Here is a link to the tour website, http://www.cyhitours.com/en.

We ate lunch down one of the many streets and grabbed a quick bite before heading out to explore more. We walked by the Chocolate Line which is a famous fancy chocolate place. Our tour guide told us that the chocolate is 80 euro per kilo. Inside you can watch them make the chocolate. There are over 60 “artisan” chocolate shops in Bruges but our tour guide said that only 13 are true artisans that make their chocolate in house.

After walking around town we went to the De Halve Maan Brewery, which dates back to 16th century and the current site has been there since 1865. I highly recommend visiting this brewery.  They have a Tour every hour that is 9 euro, 45 minutes and taste of one of  their beers. We did not do the tour because you can walk through the whole brewery on your own and they have a lot to read. They also offer lunch here and the beers are very inexpensive, 3.20 euro each when we went!

After the brewery it was time for some Belgian waffles! We went to a food stand that our tour guide recommended and they are made fresh for each order. After our waffles we walked along Langerstraat for about 20 minutes to an old windmill and gardens.

We took the evening train back to Antwerp, there is a train from Bruges to Antwerp every 30 minutes. Back in Antwerp we stopped at the grocery store for dinner making supplies and picked up empanadas at a place near our Airbnb.

Day 3

The next morning we went to a farmers market on our way to the train station to Brussels. The market was called Oudevaartplaats and opens at 8:00 am on Saturdays. We were there right when it was opening so it was quiet but they were preparing for a huge market and I would have loved to visit it around 9:30-10:00 but we had a train to catch. They had fruits, vegetables, oils, cheese and prepared foods. Oh yeah and ore waffles.

We took the train from Antwerp to Brussels and it took about 40 minutes. In Brussels the Grand Markt is amazing and city hall is gorgeous. The side streets have waffles and chocolate shops everywhere. We started off with a free walking tour of Brussels with Sandemans New Europe Tours. We met in front of the tower of city hall on Grand Place Markt and the tour was very informative and gave a good overview of the large city. One fun fact we learned was that Brussels is known for a little bronze sculpture called Manneken Pis, which is a little boy peeing into a fountain basin. It was put in place in 1618 or 1619 and the current sculpture has been there since 1965. There were many tales as to why it is famous but it is definitely a sight that many tourist want to see.

There was a break in our walking tour at 12:00 (half way through) where Michael and I went to Delirium Cafe.  This is a bar with over 2000 beers on tap and is a must in Brussels. It is huge and has multiple floors. Michael tried the Belgian Coast IPA and I got the Bruges Zot Blonde.

While on our tour we decided we wanted to stay in Brussels that night instead of Antwerp so we booked Warwick Hotel last minute and got 30% off! The hotel was located near the train station which was very convenient.

That afternoon we did a Waffle Workshop in Brussels at the https://www.waffleworkshop.com/. We were the only ones in the waffle workshop which was great. The girl who was the guide was our age and very knowledgeable about Belgian culture. She was from Ukraine and moved the Brussels for school. It was very interesting to talk to her about Ukrainian culture and how she moved out before there were issues in her country. The waffle workshop was great! We first walked down the waffle street and she described the different types of waffles and history. Then we went to the waffle workshop and made the batter and then were able to cook as many waffles as we could eat. Michael and I only ate two but she said some others could eat 9. We could top them with Nutella, speculoos (cookie butter), peanut butter, banana, strawberry, honey, syrup, jelly, apple syroop and whip cream. It was a great experience. The company also offers a chocolate workshop, beer tasting, bar crawl.

We then took the train back to Antwerp, packed up and went back to Brussels for the night. Back in Brussels we went to dinner down a side road with a bunch of Greek places and had dinner at Santorini. I had chicken salad and Michael had the chicken plate. There were musicians and performers all over the streets.

Day 4

Woke up and walked around Brussels for the last time, and got lunch at Exki which is a quick salad place and then walked down waffle for one last waffle. We went to Delirium one last time and tried the Trappist beers, which are beers brewed by Trappist breweries which are breweries run by monks. There are six in Belgium, two in the Netherlands, and one each in Austria, Italy and the United States. After Belgium we were off to Paris so we took the train to the airport to continue the journey.