Tips when travelling through Belgium: If you are travelling by car towards the south of Brussels or Ardennes don't take the highways. You miss out on the spectacular views, and all the beautiful small villages on the way, and it will probably just take you an extra 15 minutes. But they will be so enjoyable that you'll forget about time...
So below is the list of places we visited.
ANTWERP
I don't really like cities. I only like the greatest ones. And there is nothing better that London to be honest. Amsterdam, is a great city, and if Antwerp had been anything similar I would have liked it. But though it had water, it lacked those beautiful canals, and it was still an old town city, a little bit greyish, just like Brussels, but less modern ( good!).
Good points: High street shopping. All the best high street stores. I was impressed to find them. Someone told me the food in Antwerp is amazing, but I wasn't long enough to taste it...Just had a quick lunch in a rather posh area, and some Rose wine. Jurriaan says Antwerp is a great city to go out and lots of Burgondit places. "Belgium people love to enjoy life" He goes there a lot to see his reggae concerts.
I was seeking something different. A smaller, greener, watery town. Antwerp was nothing like that.
So we headed off to Ghent.
GHENT/ GENT - A beautiful option to Brugge
Yes! This is what I was looking for. Full of Cathedrals, and castle style, rocky buildings. And most important, full of restaurant, bars, cafes. Full of people. When you see people on the street I just get a nice feeling. I hate ghost town villages. They can be great sometimes, but I am in one of those moments, where I need to see people enjoying life near me.
The best traveller's restaurant: Mosquito Bar - a place full of Lonely Planets, photographs of travels, and young people. Nice Mojitos, good variety of food.
Nice Sunny Cafe's: Simon says - a little sunnt, trendy style cafe, with young peopl, newspapers, and light healthy lunches.
Other places I saw while walking and looked quite tempting were Souplounge and Barista. This places are great for girls travelling alone, as I was during my day in Ghent.
Music: There is a hidden Jazz bar just around the corner of the Novotel Hotel, very near the Mosquito bar. Its in a basement. Full of old people. But great old jazz music, good to dance when you are travelling in couples. We had a great drunk moment together there.
Hotel: Ibis Hotel (€80- €100). One hugh double bed, and an enormous room. We were quite lucky.
LIEGE - A Party City
A little bit on the ugly side, but still has a bit of a Paris look and feel. Maybe because I felt uneasy, as there were lots of creepy people walking through the streets. Liege is just a big city with nice parisian style buildings. The only reason we stayed there ( after leaving a boring Maastricht - only 30 minutes away from Liege) is because we wanted to go out that night, and dance the night off. Jurriaan is a great dancer, and he loves it. Our whole plan depended on that. Liege proved to be a perfect spot. The city has a small quarter of three narrow streets with one bar after the other, full of young people drinking and music blasting out of each. The most amazing thing about it was each bar had very different atmosphere from the other. One had reggea and hip hop, the other a live band a bit of a posh gathering with fairy lights covering the place, the other called FAR WEST had country and rockabilly music ( we had a few drinks there). It reminded me a bit of Lisbon only men were not as good looking :) and it lacked the hilly surrounding.
Liege is not a must see, but it was worth our night.
Hotel: Mercure, from the Accord (€89)
AROUND THE ARDENNES
Villages to visit: Spontin, Dinant, La Roche en Ardenne and coffee place Caffe Leffe in Dinant where we had lunch.
RENDEUX - ST THIBAULT CHURCH - the best view in the Ardennes. Maybe...a nice walk to the church, enough to clear air in our lungs.
DURBUY: we were not going to go there, but I had seen this amazing picture in a postcard, and was rather intrigued by it. Wow! It was beautiful. A little on the tourist pictoresque side. Cobble stone streets, stone village house, lovely churches, surrounded by a Valley. Lots of shops and restaurants.
We only stopped there for a quick lunch on our way to the airport. There seem to be a lot of B&B for €50 and sometimes less, and plenty of green spaces. A river/canal crosses the town, and there are bits of forrest. It seems like a lovely place to walk around nature, and sleep in a nice cozy place in the evenings.
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Its wonderful, very nice. Thanks!
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