Belgian Christmas Travels

For the Christmas 4-day weekend, we planned to go to Belgium.  This is so close and had been on my list of places I wanted to visit.  The plan was to go to Brugge first, then Ghent for a day trip, and spend the rest of the trip in Brussels.  Let’s just say we attempted Ghent, drove through Ghent, Ghent looked beautiful, the market looked fun, but no parking, driving around for an hour looking for parking, running low on gas, and it being packed in general, forced us to leave Ghent behind.  So you won’t be hearing much about Ghent today.  I think we will take a weekend trip there over the Christmas holiday next year to check out that city and the market.

We left Kaiserslautern and drove about 4 hours to Brugge.  We stayed at an airbnb for the first time.  Normally, we have used booking.com.  I like both sites and now I look at both to find the best deal.  Anne was our host in Brugge and so wonderful.  We shared a room with a bathroom, but it was nice and clean.  She even made a Christmas Even dinner.  We ate with her other guests who were from L.A. and write for NBC television!  We walked around Christmas Eve and saw some of the small market.  Brugge is simply a cute, fun town.  We did do some touristy things, but really it could be a place to go to take in the beauty of this medieval city. 

Some things that we saw in Brugge:

        Bell Tower

       Church of the Holy Blood (you get to see Jesus’ blood? Pretty neat)

       Market Square

       A Michaelangelo in Church of our Lady

       City Hall

       Chocolate Shops Galor

       De Halve Maan Brewery Tour and tasting (has a great view at the end of the tour)

       Christmas Market

      Great Food

      Carriage Ride

      Damme Canal

        A monastery

      Minnewater park area (you get to see and feed tons of Swans!)

 Christmas Eve Dinner by Anne

 The Holy Blood of Jesus

 Michaelangelo Statue 

We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Brugge.  In the morning the day after Christmas, we toured the Brewery and I highly recommend that! We bought lots of beer to take home and it was delicious!  As you read above, we tried Ghent and it was a bust. 

Brussels, Belgium

As we were running out of gas and driving in circles in a city full of traffic, the freak out started.  I was frustrated, Ryan is stressing, and we cannot find our stupid hotel.  We finally found a small gas station and filled up, so that relieved that problem.  I broke down and called the Hotel to find out where the heck they were located!  In the states, that would not be a problem, but here I am outside of Germany and so I was making an international call.  Something’s are annoying here, but I will not complain.  We parked in an overpriced 40 Euro garage and carried our belongings to the hotel.  While the hotel had poorly advertised parking, we had a great apartment in a great location. 

We used the Rick Steves guide along with recommendations from our hotel to get around.  Brussels has several Christmas markets all throughout the city.  We managed to see most of them, but really they were not much different than other ones we had visited.  We enjoyed the food and wine, but there wasn’t much merchandise or crafts.  We found an amazing restaurant for dinner on the Grand Place.  We had to wait about 45 minutes, and we were starving, BUT after that meal it was all worth it!  Go to this place for sure if you are ever in Brussels: L’Estaminet due Kelderke. 

The other awesome part of Brussels at Christmas is the Grand Place.  The buildings are so grand and beautiful.  They also have a light show that runs every 30 minutes to music and it was pretty gorgeous!  Another great restaurant we ate at in Brussels was L’HPO (used to be called L’Achepot). 

You also can’t visit Belgium without sampling all of the many amazing Beers.  I don’t LOVE beer, but I love Belgian Beer!  Make sure to hit up Delerium Tap House in Brussels and just sample several beers. 

Here are some highlights of what we saw in Brussels:

 Grand Place

 Mannekin Pis

 St. Catherine Neighborhood/Christmas Market

 St. Michael’s Cathedral

   Galleries Shopping

  Chocolate shops

  Rue des Bouchers

  Royal Palace

  Parc de Brussels

  Notre Dame du Sablon Church

   Place du Petit Sablon

     Sculpture Garden

   Viewpoint from Place Poelaert

    Palais de Justice

    Place du Grand Sablon

Overall, we loved the chocolate, waffles, food, and beer in Belgium! I am really excited for their flea markets too! I think Belgium will have my heart, and Brugge especially proved to be one of the most charming cities I have seen yet!

Lodging: Airbnb and Booking.com
Transportation: Drove our Car
Guidebook: Rick Steves