Belgium tips and suggestions

RedSox68

Retired 2021 -- All the Time to Travel Now!
Joined
Mar 16, 2009
We are spending a few weeks in Belgium doing a battlefield tour of WWI and WWII. We will be spending 3 days in Brussels pre-tour. Any suggestions or tips for hotels in Brussels or Ypres, restaurants, city tours, etc. would be most appreciated. Thanks much.
 
Brussels
If you are interested in beer the Delirium cafe is a must-do. Just tell the barkeeper what flavours you like and he will find you a beer you like. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delirium_Café

Visit the Grand Place and eat some typical belgian mussels with fries. Most restaurants/bars around the place serve them when they are in season. This also gives you the opportunity to see one of these beautiful buildings from the inside.

Public transport is pretty easy to use and gets you to most places of interest.

I would recommend to stay at one of the hotels near Grand Place.
 
Brussels
If you are interested in beer the Delirium cafe is a must-do. Just tell the barkeeper what flavours you like and he will find you a beer you like. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delirium_Café

Visit the Grand Place and eat some typical belgian mussels with fries. Most restaurants/bars around the place serve them when they are in season. This also gives you the opportunity to see one of these beautiful buildings from the inside.

Public transport is pretty easy to use and gets you to most places of interest.

I would recommend to stay at one of the hotels near Grand Place.

Thanks so much. Any hotel names for ones near the Palace.
 
Another thing many restaurants will serve is beef stew. Absolutely delicious (and so are Belgian waffles, real ones :) )

For hotels, I would just go to Trivago/Booking/Hotels.com and read the reviews. I filter on everything about 3.5 stars (out of 5) and then I usually read the bad reviews to see what people get upset about, if that's something I don't care about it should be fine. I am out all day when on holiday. All I need is a place that is clean and centrally located.
 


Another thing many restaurants will serve is beef stew. Absolutely delicious (and so are Belgian waffles, real ones :) )

For hotels, I would just go to Trivago/Booking/Hotels.com and read the reviews. I filter on everything about 3.5 stars (out of 5) and then I usually read the bad reviews to see what people get upset about, if that's something I don't care about it should be fine. I am out all day when on holiday. All I need is a place that is clean and centrally located.

Thanks. I like the beef stew idea for sure! I read all the reviews on Trip Advisor, too, and I agree -- some of the things people complain about and give one star for are things that don't matter a bit to me LOL
 
Anyone rent an apartment in Brussels? Any recommendations for City tours?
 


We are spending a few weeks in Belgium doing a battlefield tour of WWI and WWII. We will be spending 3 days in Brussels pre-tour. Any suggestions or tips for hotels in Brussels or Ypres, restaurants, city tours, etc. would be most appreciated. Thanks much.

First Are you renting a car ?

If yes then I will give you more info On where to go in Belgium & The Somme in France

Not Forgetting the New Monument At Bastogne

Look up the Logis Hotel Chain

We are in this area in September Avesnes -sur - Helpe to St Veith

Please reply to this thread IF you are hiring a car

We visit this area nearly every year for the last 20 years
 
Food wise, some things have already been mentioned, like mussels with fries.
The beef stew is usually made with beer (in the good and decent places). God I miss this since living in the UK.
Another thing is vidée (or vol-au-vent), it's like a chicken/mushroom pie, but instead of having a lid of pastry on top, it's a little basket. My all time favorite, and the only thing I eat when going out for dinner, lol.

Obviously, get some Belgian chocolates, I prefer Leonidas as the best.

If you like TinTin, right in the middle of Brussels is an official store (one of the very very few official ones).
I remember a few doors down from TinTin store is a cookie store. Which in my opinion had amazing cookies, but I can't seem to find it on google maps either, so it might be gone :(

Drink tip I would suggest you try a "Kriek", it's a cherry beer, or is it sour cherry? I can never remember what the English word for them is (they look like cherries, but are much darker).

Panos is great, it's like UK Greggs, but better in my opinion, haha, sausage rolls are to die for! And the options on what you can have on a baguette ... (I haven't been home in 2 years, I really miss all this food, haha)

I lived on the other side of the country from where Ypres is, but been there once, there's the Flanders museum about the war, there's loads of cemeterys, we went to Tyne Cot, but it is quite out of the way of the city center, so would need transport or a bus.
There's the "Menenbrug" in the city center where they honor a soldier every night, it attracts loads of people, but also, now, I'm not sure if they are doing it for the public.
 
First Are you renting a car ?

If yes then I will give you more info On where to go in Belgium & The Somme in France

Not Forgetting the New Monument At Bastogne

Look up the Logis Hotel Chain

We are in this area in September Avesnes -sur - Helpe to St Veith

Please reply to this thread IF you are hiring a car

We visit this area nearly every year for the last 20 years


To RedSox68

Any Update on your Travel Plans ?
 
Hi -- we're still in full planning mode. We are not renting a car -- we are arranging with a private tour guide for our sites throughout Belgium/Luxembourg/France, a separate guide for Brussels/Waterloo, and then we meet up with our friends in London who are taking us to many sites in and around London to wrap up what we missed in 2015. My husband also has friends in Jersey, so we are ferrying over there to meet up with them for a few days. I'm going to need an engineering degree to tie all this together on a giant spreadsheet :rotfl2:
 
We stayed in jam hotel Brussels. Super trendy and got a roof top pool. It was easily access to walk to the main attractions. One day we also rented the electric scooters that are all over town.

Mannekin pis is over rated.

We didn't book a tour we just explored town. Honestly there are so many beautiful buildings.

In the evening we often sat in the big central park as they had lots of live music on and an open air bar . We did visit in August though and had hot weather.

The rue jordaan is mostly pedestrianised and lots of restaurants along it with tables outside. We had mussels and lovely handmade pizzas in la fringale. We had the kids with us so they chose to eat at hardrock cafe in the main square ( service was brilliant and staff made it extra special gifting some rare pins to the kids)

If you have a car PJ's chocolate factory out towards oostend is great to stock up if you need to buy lots of chocolate gifts. The whole of oostend is beautiful if you can fit it in your plans .
 
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Hi -- we're still in full planning mode. We are not renting a car -- we are arranging with a private tour guide for our sites throughout Belgium/Luxembourg/France, a separate guide for Brussels/Waterloo, and then we meet up with our friends in London who are taking us to many sites in and around London to wrap up what we missed in 2015. My husband also has friends in Jersey, so we are ferrying over there to meet up with them for a few days. I'm going to need an engineering degree to tie all this together on a giant spreadsheet :rotfl2:

I still think that renting a car is the way to go you see far more and at your own pace .

You will be driving on the same side of the road as you do in USA & Warning signs are the same

I have to remember to drive on the Right & use my Right hand to change gear

If I can still drive in a strange country at aged 70 + then so can you

Ar regards sights to visit , there is so much to see that a guide is not really a good idea. & MOST places

will have audio headphones in English


Remember The way to do the Trip that you wish to do IS at your pace & to say

" What is that Place & How do we get there " & can we stop here and look at this view ?

There is NO USE in GOING from A to B and missing the real sights in between

MY motto is From A to B via C + D + E
 
If you have a car, since you are on a theme park site, I would recommend a trip to Efteling. It's in the Netherlands but just 90 minutes away from Brussels by car. It's a very nice theme park, one of the best in Europe.
 
Mannekin pis is over rated.
I would argue that the Mannekin Pis isn't overrated but it's just a little statue, expecting anything more than perhaps him being dressed in something interesting is too much.

I think other posters have hit most of the must dos, get some stew, mussels, waterzooi, Belgian fries, chocolates, and then eat as many of the waffles and drink as much of the beer as you possibly can, both are amazing. The lambic and trappist beers are awesome but there are so many varieties to try.
 
If you have a car, since you are on a theme park site, I would recommend a trip to Efteling. It's in the Netherlands but just 90 minutes away from Brussels by car. It's a very nice theme park, one of the best in Europe.


We had heard so many people rave about this park ...but maybe we heard so much hype we went with insanely high expectations. Honestly we were underwhelmed with efteling. We went at Xmas and the theming and general atmosphere in the park was brilliant. But overall the rides and attractions felt too young . It feels very much aimed at younger children.

It's still worth a visit if you are near by , but we kept hearing oh it's better than Disney it's incredible ...
 

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