Beautiful Belgium

Here's my super out-dated entry about belgium, typed while still on the trip, just never got down to posting it with the photos.

Belgium (Leuven, Brugge, Antwerp)
29 Feb – 2 Mar

We arrived in Leuven, a little university town east of Brussels at about 10pm. Met up with Lester, and walked in the rain with him for 20 mins to his place. I had to switch bags with Debbie after we were halfway there cos it got quite heavy. Didn’t help that i’m getting weaker too, nowadays. She was strong enough to scale 3 storeys of stairs to get to Camy’s room, where we were to stay for the next 2 nights. Camy and Lester are SMU students on exchange to Leuven, but Camy was away in London for the weekend and she kindly consented to let us sleep in her room, how nice! Both of them live just a few doors away from each other in a student’s residence anyway. We were so tired after cycling and rushing around all day that we just took a shower and went to sleep.

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The next day, we decided to head to Brugge, apparently the most visited place in Belgium. Not uncharacteristically, we overslept, and only managed to get on the train at 9.35am, instead of 8.35am. BTW, jinjoo decided to stay in Amsterdam, so there were only 3 of us, plus Lester. It was an hour and a half’s train ride away. On the way, we passed by Brussels, which pple have generally advised us to miss because of its lack of charm and appeal. We took heed and contended with just passing by the major train stations and catching glimpses of the high-rise buildings Lester describes as ‘Shenton Way’...

Brugge is a medieval town, so when we arrived, we felt as if time rolled back a few hundred years. The cobbled streets looked worn, and the buildings look really rustic. Horse carriages were a common sight, and the clicking sound made by their hoofs added to the feel.

We visited the 'Ten Wijngaerde' beguinage, a nunnery which used to house widows and other women who joined the beguine movement. Today it is a benedictine monastry. Its grounds were so beautiful and peaceful, we didn’t dare to speak loudly (not that I could anyway, my voice was half-gone).

Just walking down the little streets and looking at the rows and rows of little shops was an interesting activity in itself. Lester told us that Belgium is famous for 5 things: Chocolate, Fries, Mussles, Waffles and Beer. 4 out of the 5 above-listed I love – guess which. Literally on every single street, every where you turn your eye, there would be a chocolatier, and a waffle and/or a fries stand, a café and a place that sells mussles in pots. It was like junk food/gourmet heaven. I couldn’t resist peering into every chocolate shop. Even the cakes and bread in the bakeries looked so good. Lester couldn’t resist getting both a waffle and a cake in the early stages of the day, while the rest of us walked into this super crowded chocolatier and got some chocolate, fudge and truffles. I knew from that moment that I was gonna spend quite a bit on chocolate in Belgium. Of course, pralines were invented in Belgium as well, and I wasn’t gonna pass on that either. I love Belgium. And chocolate.

The plan was to have mussles for dinner, cos they weren’t cheap. But we couldn’t wait any longer and decided to have them for lunch instead. But by that time, we were around the city hall, a really grand looking square, and the start of an expensive looking shopping street. And the restaurant that we walked into was rather posh-looking. The waiter immediately knew we were gonna be cheapskate and didn’t even bother to serve us properly. Anyway, we got what we wanted. Ordered 2 pots of mussles, and they came with fries. It was very very very good, though it ended up costing us 10 euros each. Ouch.

they need to translate everything into 4 languages: flemish, french, german and english. told you it was a confused country...

famous sculpture by michelangelo in one of the cathedrals

apparently, belgium is also famous for lace... but not THAT famous i guess...

After lunch, it was time for dessert. So we abandoned plans to scale 365 steps up the tallest tower in Brugge for a good view. We headed straight to Choco-story this chocolate museum which tells of the origins of Chocolate. Once again, we tried to ask some random stranger for directions. But the problem is that Brugge is so touristy that the chances that you actually stop a local is quite slim. Anyhow, this Belgian couple we stopped were really helpful- they were from another town, but they tried to help us figure out, and when they couldn’t, they stopped a passing policeman on his motorbike and made him direct us. Another sign of true helpfulness and hospitality. Btw, lester’s as touristy as us la. He’s only been in Belgium for 3 weeks and haven’t even gone to Brugge himself. The chocolate museum was fantastic tho – a really educational experience. The word ‘chocolate’ was adopted from the earliest discoverers of the chocolate drink. Chocolate used to be drunk by only the noble man and royalties, and was mainly brought to the world by the Spanish, who ruled Belgium in the past. It wasn’t until a few hundred years ago that the common man started to enjoy chocolate drink, and only much later that chocolate in the solid form appeared. Of course with the industrial revolution and all that the process became easier to mass produce and chocolate became more common, blah blah. But the cacao seed has always been really important. It used to be the currency in the Mayan dynasty, and 100 cacao seeds would buy you a slave, while 10 would buy you a rabbit, or something like that…. There was also a praline making demonstration, which is in the video. The demonstrator was fantastic too – she just rattled off in 3 different languages… and her pralines tasted really good too… haha.

check out how pralines are made!

Coming out of the chocolate museum, we were all feeling so enlightened about chocolate, and in particular, why Belgian chocolate was so fine and famous all over the world (Leonidas, Godiva, Guylian, Cote D’Or, etc.), we were really inspired to buy chocolates for ourselves. And when we saw this chocolatier which was having some promotion – 250g for 4 euros, we decided to buy some for ourselves. It’s not that cheap la, about 50 singapore cents a piece I think? But well, it seemed like the right thing to do. Sigh now that I’m typing this I feel like having one right now! I had wanted to buy some leonidas for david, but thought that I’d do that back in leuven the next day so that they’d be fresh longer. So I thought I’d settle for some cheaper chocolate for myself. But it turned out that leonidas was one of the cheaper brands around. All those brands I’ve never heard of, plus those small shops selling home-made chocolates and pralines were about the same price or more expensive. Haha.

chocolatiers galore!

Anyway, there wasn’t much else to do after all the eating we did, so we headed back to leuvan for frozen pizza dinner, after spending so much money in the day. The winds at leuvan are crazy, I say they are worse than Copenhagen, and I hate the way the wind plays with trash on the ground, making them twirl around in circles and fly everywhere, like there’s a mini whirlpool coming at you or something. So we had Lester’s special frozen pizza + salami + egg for dinner. It was not bad! Haha. I ate a lot. Oops. But I was feeling quite tired and sick so I chose to stay in while the rest went out after that for ice-cream and some drinks. Stella Artois and Hoe Gaarden are the home brands, and they cost like 1 euro a mug or something, something ridiculously cheap, like tuborg and Carlsberg in Denmark.

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The next day, we decided to just walk around Leuven a bit and then go to Antwerp, the 2nd largest city in Belgium. But Leuven was a dead town on a Sunday, everything was closed, including most eating places, so we ended up at Quick, this fast food place for brunch (gives you a clue of how late we woke up, and we slept before midnight the night before). We bid goodbye to our friendly host and made him promise to buy some chocolates for us before going back to Singapore in summer.

the beautiful city hall

camy's room, and lester, our host...

Antwerp was about 1 hour away by train. First thing we did when we got there was to try and get train tickets back to Amsterdam that night, and dump our heavy bags into the lockers. We were really thankful to get the train tickets cheaper than we had expected, which helped us to rule out of the option of having to take the bus, which would have make me sick, and cause some inconvenience because it doesn’t bring us to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. All in all, our tickets to Belgium cost 22.70 + 17.30 euro.

antwerpen station is an attraction in itself, it's SO grand. and the bus conductors are so cute, their uniform is classic man. i think it's in tin-tin...

and the locker which we squeezed all our luggage into.

Antwerp is a completely different town from Leuven or Brugge. It was in a state of transition, while there were lots of majestically grand buildings, there were also lots of modern looking buildings around, giving the town a rather confused look, as Debbie would put it. Nonetheless, we were just glad that there was actually life in the town, on a Sunday, despite the fact that all the shops were closed. Not leonidas tho, I saw it open and better yet, there was a promotion! 750g (40-45 pieces) for 10 euros! I got a box for david and some other stuff, feeling both satisfied and guilty at the same time. I really did spend a lot on chocolate in 2 days. I wanted to buy some to send home with uncle kp in march for the family, but they said that the chocolate should be consumed within 2 weeks otherwise they lose their flavour. Sorry… I know it’s quite rare that one can find something that is actually cheaper in Europe than in Singapore. And 4 times cheaper too.

the giant box of leonidas nicely wrapped up! :)

the combined stash of chocolate we lugged back all the way from belgium!

the stoic buildings in antwerp, unfazed by the changing tides of time

the gothic cathedral; even commercial buildings seem like from out of a heritage collection: the Hilton, and Fortis, the belgian national bank.

Anyway, we basically walked around the town a bit, and then hunted for this old-fashioned café which sold this famous chococino – a fusion of coffee and chocolate. And they serve it with a piece of homemade chocolate. This country is crazy about chocolates I tell you. The drink wasn’t great, but the ambience was. Or maybe we were just too lazy. Deb and I just sat there for a long time and refused to move, while jiamin was eager to hunt down this shop which sold a hundred different types of beers. Anyway, just any random supermaket has like a zillion different types of alcohol on display. It’s crazy. Too bad I couldn’t really care less about it.

a random 'supermarket'/ beer store

Some other interesting little places in this place include a bar which is full of figurines ousted from the nearby Cathedral during some religious riots (also the oldest Gothic cathedral in Belgium), called ‘Holy Beer’. Antwerp is also the city of diamonds. De Beers is Belgian and lots of diamonds are cut by Antwerpen hands.

Holy Beer

There was also a fries museum which we did not go into. Belgian fries are generally thicker, not salty, and usually come with some kind of sauce topping, which costs extra.

We also tried some authentic Belgian waffles there. I think the Singapore Belgian waffles are fake or poor imitations…. They only got the shape right, but not the taste and texture.

The other great thing about Antwerp was that they had student discounts for some eating places, so we decided to go into this Italian restaurant for dinner. The place is really cute, cos the table clothes, lampshades and waiters’ uniforms are all the same pattern – red and white checker. It’s funny to see all the tables, lamps and waiters decked in the same cloth. And so I ordered the cheapest pizza, 4.50euros before discount. And it turned out to be an entire pizza. I was determined to finish mine tho. Jiamin and Debbie gave up and decided to pack it for breakfast the next day. But I took about 1 hour (the longest I’ve ever spent eating – we had lots of time anyway) and I finished the whole pizza. Disgusting, but true. We hung around at macdonald’s for the free wifi before taking the last train out of Antwerp to Amsterstam Schiphol so that we wouldn’t have to spend so many hours in the airport.

our dinner (mussles and pizzas) & dinner place

other interesting sights: a really small car, signs sold at a flee market, scouts (ahem) and brownies doing stupid stuff in a quaint old town square

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I am now sitting in a wheelchair beside some random powerpoint in the airport typing this. (Debs ingenius idea...) Debbie and jiamin are fast asleep in the chairs nearby. The time is 3.41am. I should go catch some rest soon. Danish homework beckons tomorrow morning as well, argh. I don’t want to go back to school! But then again, it’s about time to go home, David’s had some bathroom choking nightmares while we were gone… but I also need to guard my 2+kg of chocolates! Dilemma! It’s about 3.5 hours more before we check in and leave BENE for good. It was a good trip. For the tastebuds at least! Not so much for the wallet. Now I need to concentrate on getting well so that I can eat the chocolates I bought. And prepare for skiing in 2 weeks! (: