Adventures with Abigail

I went to Belgium in November of 2023. This is my story!

Alright, so I landed in Brussels in the morning. I ended up having to check my carryon because the flight was full full, but luckily the bag pick up went super smoothly. I changed into my day clothes (the bathroom stalls were very tight with my carryon luggage there with me), and I followed the signs to the train. I bought a ticket to Brussels-Central because that seemed like the closest stop to Grand Place, and then had a slightly difficult time figuring out what train to take. The ticketing kiosk doesn’t tell you what train to take even though you pay for the trip from your current location to your destination. The sign outside seemed to say that it stopped at Brussels-Central, so I decided to get on. This train came 15 minutes early, but didn’t leave until it’s scheduled time. There was a couple waiting for the train, and I was confused by its early arrival so I asked them just to make sure. The man was wearing a sweatshirt that said “Canada” and he had a French accent. He was confused about why I was confused, but did say this was the train I wanted. This train was an older model (in general, I’ve found Belgium has two models of trains), and the electronic sign inside didn’t seem to work. I just had to listen for the French accented announcement for my stop. I did later learn that all the other trains have the words scrolling across the electronic sign, so that wasn’t as bad later. I did make it to Grand Place just fine. The cobblestone was a real problem, though. My rolley bag was real loud and I was concerned it would end up damaging my already-on-its-last-legs bag, so I ended up carrying it a good bit. There was a general hush across the Grand Place plaza, so I really made an effort to carry it there. They were working on setting up the giant nativity scene in the middle of the plaza. I had some time to kill, so I paid a little extra to get coffee and a muffin at a shop in the corner of the plaza.

After a nice little breakfast, I decide that I don’t want to carry my bag around more, so I head to Bruges. I did indeed get on the wrong train. It wasn’t 100%, but it would have taken twice as long to get to Bruges. I knew I needed to get on the 11:20am train, but a train that said the same final destination (and had Bruges in the mini description of its stops) came up at 11:12am. I got on thinking these trains just come early and wait like it did at the airport. Once we got underway the train announcer came on and gave us a good description in French, Flemish, and finally English. He said this train does, indeed, go to Bruges, but the long way. If we want to go directly there then we need to get off at this next stop and get on another train that picks up at 11:29am. He finished his English description right as we pull into the station, so I rush off the train. Then I learned that when the platform number is highlighted, that means it’s been changed. So I made it to platform 9 only to see what I think means “not in service” signage and had to learn on the fly about the train boards. I did see what I think is my train with my destination at the same time as the train announcer said it would be, but it had a highlighted 7 for the platform. I took a gamble and got on that train. They actually hole-punch your paper tickets, too, so that was cool. Other things I noticed is that Belgium has the big fancy windmills, and most of the houses we pass have skylights. I did make it to Bruges!

After the train, I took a bus to my B&B location. It was supposed to cost 2.5 euros, but the tap-to-pay didn’t work. It seems like this might be a common issue because the driver just waved me on. It happened to a pair of men, too. I did find my B&B, but since it’s a smaller one I couldn’t actually check in early or drop off my bag. I ended up walking around and finding a bench to sit at. I was able to message my host and let them know that I was in town, so we scheduled to meet at 2pm.

When I checked into my B&B my hostess let me choose between two rooms. I took the very top floor one that has a little sitting area and bathroom downstairs and the bed in a loft situation up a tight stair case. It was lovely. She also gave me a paper map and wrote some restaurant recommendations on it. Thank goodness I said yes to a paper map because literally 30 minutes later my phone is broken and 90% unusable. I took a picture of the paper map and thought it would be fun to use that to get to a museum I wanted to go to. This museum was called “Choco-Story” and it has a bundle option to get that, the Friet museum and the Luminer museum. I did that, and started my journey into the chocolate museum. The first thing you get to is a stupid touristy photo opportunity where there’s the holes cut out to put your face through and your body is a giant cacao bean. I thought it would be funny to do that by myself, and there wasn’t anyone else around (it is offseason for tourism in Belgium, and also midweek), so I went to set my phone up on a post nearby. Suffice it to say, the phone slips out of my hands while I’m setting it up, and it lands face down. I’ve dropped my phone plenty of times without issue, but this time it must have landed on some debris because it’s broken. I was bummed, but there was just a little crack so I decided to soldier on and fix it when I got home. I continued to not really enjoy the museum (see my Costa Rica trip for my Chocolate plantation tour and you’ll understand why this museum wasn’t impressive to me), and I’m on the top floor in the theater when I realize my phone screen has stopped working. So now I’m upset and have decided to leave the museum to ask the desk if they know of a phone repair place. I didn’t actually bring my paper map with me (just took a photo because paper maps are obnoxiously large), but the desk gives me a map. They send one of their guys to show me to a repair place since it was a slow day at the museum. The repair guy says it’ll be Thursday or Friday to get my part in stock, so I schedule that and find my way back to my B&B. It’s really fortunate that I found my way to the museum with the photo of the map because I’m not sure I’d have been able to find my way back with the paper map otherwise. I just happened to remember one of the cross street names and the shape of the road so I knew where to go. It was a stressful end to the day, but I was also exhausted. I was planning on waiting until normal European dinner time (after 7pm) to eat, but I was tired and hungry so I went to one of my hostess recommendations right when they opened. It was right down the road, and the food was affordable and delicious! I had Pork Knuckle covered in mustard sauce with vegetables and fries. I also have a really good sour blonde beer called Oude Geuze Boon. I even later found a bottle to bring home. This pork was a very large portion, and I only ended up eating like a third of it.

After a nice sleep I had a cute little breakfast at my B&B. I was able to chat with my hostess a little. She asked where I was from, so I told her Utah. She looked really confused, so I said Texas. She knew where Texas was! I just said Texas to anyone who asked after that. Breakfast was local meats and cheese with fruit, bread, juice, and tea. I did remember that I brought my goPro, so I took that with me into town. It was only a 5 minute walk, too. I took a cute little video of my walk to Market Square. I planned to go straight to the Belfry tower to climb it, but they were sold out of the timeslots before 10.

I got a ticket, though, and went to explore the square to kill 30 minutes. I didn’t make it very far because there was a book store. I spent about 20 minutes in the store and walked away with 2 books in French (no, I don’t read French, but one was a gift and the other looked really really cool [it was about gemstones]). Of course I wasn’t going to climb 366 stairs with two heavy books in my hands, so I went back to drop them off at my B&B and came back to the square. I was very prompt for my climb, and set off at a steady pace. It took me 7 minutes to climb the stairs to the top. I did have to stop once for about 30 seconds to let some people pass on the way down, but other than that I was just going steadily up the stairs. It was really really hard, but the view was pretty cool! While I was there, the bells went off and I got to see all the pulleys and hammers that go into making the song the tower plays. It was also pretty loud. I also stopped at some of the display rooms on the way down.

After climbing all those stairs and coming back down in 20ish minutes, I was very thirsty and sought water. I found a Dunkin Donuts in the square that sold water, and then I decided to explore a little away from the square. I did have my paper map with me, and I figured I knew where I was. I did run into the chocolate store I had selected via research before coming to Belgium. I bought some chocolate and decided to return it to my B&B before going back to the phone store. I wanted to mix things up, so I decided to find my own way back to the B&B. I did not do it right and ended up getting lost. I decided that since I was walking along a canal, I’d take a video.

I was able to ask a random person to show me where we were on the map. They were able to, but I still got a little (less than before) lost. I ran right into the Friet museum! It was marked on my map, so I was able to route myself back from there. After dropping off my chocolate (and gopro), I used my paper map to find my way to the phone store. I had the guy mark where his store was, so I was able to easily find my way there. When I showed up, he told me the part wasn’t in and that I’d have to come back at 10:30am the next day.

Next up I went to a fancy Italian restaurant (another that was recommended by my hostess). I was trying to go to a different recommendation, but it was closed. This one was okay. I just got Bruschetta. After lunch I found my way back to the Friet museum. It was very very fun. I’m starting to sense a theme here with me and potato museums (see the other one I went to [and loved] in Idaho). Anyway, this museum was fun and cute. They had these little signs all over, and they had a lovely audio tour (the chocolate one did, too) with a clear path to follow as you go from one to the next in the story they were telling. I wasn’t able to take my photos here, but these were worth the effort at the time. Also, check out the silly (and somewhat creepy?) singing potato and fry in the video below. They tell you the secret to Belgium Fries!

I also learned some fun facts. 1) Frys are called French Fries because during World War 1 when American soldiers were introduced to Fries by Belgian soldiers (who spoke French) they were mistaken for French soldiers. 2) The story goes that the fry was invented when (waaay back when) a little town in Belgium used to fry these tiny fish, but one winter the river froze over so the people cut up potatoes in the shape of their fish and fried them the same. Thus the fry was born! At the end of the museum there’s a fry shop. These fries tasted exactly as they were described in the museum, and they were pretty good.

After the Friet museum, I decided to make my way over to the De Halve Brewery. I planned my route to about where I thought the brewery was. I did mostly make it there, but it was tucked back around the corner in an alley so I missed it the first time. My phone happened to work enough to kinda see my saved location for the brewery was down the alley I walked by. I got there about 15 minutes before the next tour, so I signed up and just waited in the shop. It wasn’t really explained at the time, but there was an English tour (actually so many people they split us up into two groups). The guide led us around the brewery and showed us how the brewery originally operated. They also told us about the construction process to have a pipeline run from the current location to the new location (and back). People were pretty impressed with that. The tour also takes you to the top of the brewery, and this is the 3rd highest point the public can get to in Bruges (first is the belfry, second is the concert hall). See the photo below for that view. My legs were hurting a bit after those extra stairs.

After the tour concludes, I got in line to order my “free” beer. There was one guy in front of me, and we both ended up heading towards the fire at the far end of the room. I choose a 2 person table in the corner, and he approached and asked 1) if I was solo traveling and 2) if he could join me at my table. I said yes to both, and we got to chatting. Small world, he happened to be from Houston! It was quite fun chatting with someone who understood my references. He also had a Rick Steve’s book with him. I had taken photos from a Rick Steve’s book I checked out at the library early in the month, but of course those photos weren’t available to me. He mentioned he was headed to see the Begijnhof Courtyard next, and that reminded me that I did want to see that. We decided to go together, and he read me some paragraphs of the book on the walk over. The courtyard was very quiet (see photo below), and you are not allowed to walk on the grass.

After the courtyard we both had planned to eat dinner at the same place, so we just went together. We had about an hour to kill before the place opened up, so we swung by a museum we both had planned for the next day. We also ambled around and checked some random buildings that I probably wouldn’t have been brave enough to walk into alone. We also attempted to have some Belgian Waffles, but I’m not sure if we succeeded. They were rectangular shaped, and they didn’t really taste amazing. Check out this sign below. It made it’s rounds on reddit a few months ago, but I was happened upon it in person! It was next to the brewery. Bruges also had its christmas light up in full swing this night. The last thing we did before dinner was follow a Rick Steve’s recommendation. Apparently, one of the city’s newest buildings sits upon one of its oldest buildings. The Crowne Plaza Hotel sits upon some ancient ruins, and Rick Steve’s says if you ask the front desk nicely they might let you down into the basement to see it. When we walked in, the front desk was vacant, so we just walked down the stairs in the corner of the room. It was mildly underwhelming because everything was very clean. There was a cool maze-like section in a semicircle, but when you get to the center, it’s a big conference room with regular fancy chairs and a podium with a microphone. The last two photos below show how polished these “architectural ruins” were.

Totally didn’t realize it at the time, but this dinner was my thanksgiving dinner. How poetic that I had it with someone from Texas? We ate at a restaurant called Diligence. Both my hostess and his hotel recommended this place. We walked in right when it opened, so we were able to get a table even though we didn’t have a reservation. He had mussels (because mussels are on every menu in Bruges, so it must be common), and I had two different appetizers. One was a mysterious meatball with mayo based sauce, and another was “blonde sausage” with mustard based sauce. They were both very good, and I also tried some of the mussels. I asked the waiter for a beer recommendation, so that’s what I drank. I don’t think I actually got the name of it, but it was as good as the other Belgian beers I had tried.

The next morning I went ahead and checked out of my B&B after breakfast, but my hostess let me keep my luggage in the lobby. The sun was out the play today. This was a nice break from the overcast skies.

I went over to the Groeninge museum, which was the only MUST-SEE in the Rick Steve’s book. The courtyard was adorable, and the museum itself had a nice flow to it. Check out that last painting. Doesn’t it remind you of Bridgerton? I also met up with my buddy from the day before here, so it was nice to talk about the art with someone. We parted ways for the last time afterwards.

I showed up to my phone repair store promptly at 10:30am. I dropped off my phone and learned that I’d have to pay in all cash! It was “fun” having to find an ATM without a phone (those aren’t marked on tourism paper maps). I found one, though, and got some cash. I only got lost once on my way to the lamp museum, too. This museum shares the same building as the chocolate museum. I really didn’t know what to expect, and of course, I didn’t get any photos here (no phone, ya know?). It wasn’t at all what I expected. I was thinking like some nice antique lamps my grandma would have had, but nope. This museum is actually called Lumina Domestica, so it covered how humans have lighted their homes from the dawn of humanity! It really started with like, “these beings were not the humans of today. they knew about fire, but could not create it,” and ended with “and here we have LEDs.” I spent about an hour and a half there learning all about lamps throughout the ages. It really made me feel dumb because I knew I wouldn’t have been able to come up with these oil lamp designs with all the knowledge I have now, but these people did with just brute intelligence.

I made it back to the phone repair store without incident, but when I walked in my dude was just shaking his head. He said “bad news,” and then proceeded to give me a lame technical reason about why he wasn’t able to fix my phone. I bought a cheap phone from him, went back to my B&B to use the wifi to transfer my settings to this new phone, downloaded google maps for where I was going, and decided to do that rest of my trip with data (I did get my phone fixed for free once I got home to Utah). At least this phone gave me the ability to take pictures, and route myself with a giant paper map.

I had a dinner reservation to make and 4 hours of training to do to get there, so I was in a slight rush leaving Bruges. I knew how to get to Brussels, so I did that first. I checked into my airBnB and dropped off my carryon. I went to the train station (which was conveniently located a very short walk from my airBnB) with just my backpack. I had packed it the day before for this exact purpose. When I got the train station, I went to stand in line to buy a ticket from an actual person (as opposed to the self help kiosk). A train station employee asked me what I needed, so I told him I was trying to get to Luxembourg. He took me to the kiosk, “helped” me buy a ticket, and then told me what train to take (Platform 3 at 4;37). It was 4:15ish, so I had to wait on the first floor for a little bit before going to the platform. I watched the tv (see the first photo below) until my train came up. I knew from my previous research that sometimes this train stops in Arlon and sometimes it goes straight to Luxembourg, so I was not confused by the information not saying Luxembourg anywhere. I got on the train without incident. This time I got lucky and got one of the nice trains. It was dark by the time we got out of Brussels, so I saw nothing of the countryside. After 2 hours and 45 minutes we get to Arlon. The train announcer came on the speaker and said to continue to Luxembourg we had to get off and take the train on the other side of the platform. I get off, and I notice a large amount of the crowd is moving with purpose towards the other train, and some are even jogging/running. I follow suite and make it on the train about half a minute before the doors close. This train was closer to a regular city train than a cross-country train, but it was only a 20 minute ride. I knew I was cutting it close to my 8pm reservation. While I was at my airBnB earlier, I had routed myself to the restaurant, so I knew every 5 minutes Tram #1 would come to the train station. When I got off the train, I swiftly walked to where I thought the tram stop was. I was wrong, but I saw it coming in and was able to run onto the tram that stopped at the station. When I got on the tram, I quickly checked that my stop was listed (it was), and sat down for a 5 minute ride. I was only 5 minutes late to my reservation, but they seemed disapproving. I had planned to check into my hotel and dress up for dinner, but all the drama with my phone meant that wasn’t an option. Nevertheless, I had a fantastic dinner. This steak was literally the best steak I have ever had. It was covered in onion and garlic sauce and was super tender. The fries were okay, and the salad was good. The steak was just so large that I barely ate anything else. I also tried their house white wine. Afterwards, I made it safely to my hotel and enjoyed the little plaza outside decorated for christmas.

I had a cute little breakfast at the hotel, then checked out. When I stepped outside my hotel the view was very different from the night before. There was a whole farmers market taking up the entire plaza (with a carousel to boot!)! I wandered around the farmers market and then farther afield before realizing nothing was really open yet (it was 9am).

I found the tourism office in the same plaza as my hotel, so I went in. I got a map and museum recommendations. I went to the Luxembourg City History Museum first since it was closer. When I bought my ticket, the officer told me my ticket also comes with access to an art museum. The museum had 6 floors (I only did 5 of them). The first floor had a large room explaining how difficult it is to figure out what someone actually looked like. It also had this statue of a mermaid? It didn’t really explain that one, but the walls of the museum are meant to give you the feeling of being in Luxembourg at whatever time the exhibit was. This first floor had mostly rocky walls. After the mermaid the museum took you through basically all of Luxembourg City’s history. From military outpost to the financial capital of the EU. Each section had a nice scale model of the city. One even had a light show depicting the siege of Luxembourg City.

Towards the end of the Luxembourg City history portion of the museum, it got a little abstract. Some artist had a video documenting the crazy M-F traffic juxtaposing the empty streets on the weekends. Another had this….light swing….that also had some sounds playing…?…in this room with stairs that go to nowhere…it sure was something. The swing was swinging, too.

The fifth floor (and last one I did) had the temporary exhibit “All You Can Eat.” It went through what Luxembourgish people have eaten throughout time, and also had some graphic information about food inequality in the world. There was also a dog character throughout this floor that kept talking about these potato pancake type food. The big payoff was the recipe at the end. I haven’t made them yet, but I plan to!

Next up, I walked over the art museum that was included with my ticket. This museum was called Villa Vauban Art Museum. It was named after the same person my hotel was named after (Hotel Vauban). He was a famous engineer. The museum was kinda small, and had the 1600-1800s art work in the same room as some wooden carved pieces from the 2020s. It also had a small replica of The Thinker at the end of a dramatic hallway.

There was definitely more to have seen in Luxembourg City. Like the story behind this plaque in the photo below. But I had a train to catch, and I wanted to see the country side this time. I also thought this video that’s shown on the tram was funny. I don’t know why the eyeball missed the train or what it wanted me to know about it.

I accidentally skipped lunch because of the museums, so I grabbed some McDonalds on my way to the train station. Of course, I had a snack wrap. This one was called a grilled chicken snack wrap, but that’s because the wrap itself was grilled (the chicken was fried). Either way, delicious.

So, it turns out, I really didn’t miss much on my way to Luxembourg. Most of the train route is next to berms, so the photo below is what I saw most of the time. I did see a few castles though! The sun was setting shortly before I arrived in Brussels. It was a great view, but didn’t make for pretty pictures.

After dropping my stuff off at my airBnB, I set out to find dinner. I thought the christmas market was at the Grand Place plaza, but it was not. I started wandering around the neighbor looking for food and accidentally stumbled upon the christmas markets.

I found some food there, and even bought a christmas ornament and a few presents. I also got some hot chocolate before heading back to my airBnB for the night. I guess now’s the time to tell you abut my airBnB. It’s above an art studio and has two floors with really tight stair cases between them. The bed was uncomfortable, but the location was great.

The next morning, I went looking for breakfast and found a cupcake place nearby that also served coffee. I had a latte and a cupcake while I watched the rain fall. It did stop by the time my breakfast was over. I then started following a Rick Steve’s walking tour that started at Grand Place and took my around the neighborhood. The walk went through a mall type location before swinging back around to get a good view of Grand Place through the small streets. It also went by a St. Nicholas church before ending at the Brussels Stock Exchange building. This building was quite grand. It also has Beer World, a beer museum. I decided to go, and had a pleasant time learning about how beer is made. At the end, you get a “free” beer, so I had Timmerman Blanche Lambicus. I went to the store afterwards, but they didn’t have this beer. I did pick out three different ones to bring home, as well as two nice glasses.

After dropping my merch off at my airBnB, I continued my walking tour and went to see Manneken Pis (the peeing boy statue that was protest art). This statue was the end of one walking tour. The Musical Instrument Museum is closed the next day, so I decided to go today. I walked through/around two different police blocked mobs of people. One was a large group of women protesting the right to not be murdered by their husbands (in Palestine?). The other was a small group of men watching a soccer game. I made it to the museum just fine otherwise. I also got a nice view of the Brussels Royal Palace (It’s all blurred out on Google Street View for some reason).

The Musical Instrument Museum was cool enough. It had a great concept. They give you an audio device where you type in the numbers and you can listen to the instrument you are looking at. It worked well, but the museum in general didn’t really have a path or story to follow. I do have a newfound love for the Harpsichord. Below are some flutes, and one of the only instruments in the museum that was created in the USA.

I missed lunch again and it was late afternoon at this point, so I found a McDonalds and got myself two snack wraps. They were tasty. I then decided to follow part of another walking tour. It was getting dark, so I only did about half of it. I mostly saw some statues. On the way back, I ran into something that had a live band, so I stopped and watched for a few minutes. They had space heaters, so it was nice to warm up.

I went back to Grand Place plaza, and decided to see what was inside the big building. Turns out, there’s something called “View Tower Experience”, so I bought the last ticket for the tour starting in 10 minutes, and I got in line. We climbed a little over 300 stairs to get into the top of the tower. I was hoping to get up there before twilight ended, but I just barely missed being in the first group so it was dark. It was a decently cool experience. I didn’t learn a single thing though. It was sold as being a guided tour, but I’m not sure why. They really just pointed you to the stairs and then told you when you had to head back down the stairs.

It must have just hit 5:30pm when I walked out of the building because when I crossed the threshold into the square, a large gong sounded and the building suddenly had a single circular light on it. I look around and the plaza is quite full and everyone was facing me (well, the building I walked out of). I got a good video of some of it.

I was on a mission to get a few more items from the christmas market, and I thought I was being clever by ducking out of the square before the show was over. That was wrong. I ended up getting stuck in a tightly packed crowd on the street at the mouth of the square. It seems people coming from the christmas market had barely entered the square when they decided to stop and watch the show. this caused a massive traffic build up as more and more people arrived while people like me were trying to leave. We were finally able to start moving once the light show ended.

I got my items, and on the way back I entered the square right as another light show was starting! I was able to make my way through the crowd before I got stuck again. The next morning, I got up early and headed to the airport. Here’s the last photo from Belgium. It’s the train station.

I was plenty early, and temporarily lost my hat going through security (I did get it back). It was a long traveling day back (25 hours!).

So, yeah, that was my trip. I had to do everything old school. That’s fun when it’s a choice, but there’s definitely a layer of anxiety when it’s not a choice. Overall my trip was great!