How to Plan an International Trip: Travel Tales and Tips : May 2019

Belgium, though a small nation, has been right at the forefront of Europe's history, with many of the continent's most important events played out across its countryside. It was in Belgium that Napoleon met his match at the battle of Waterloo, and during both the First and Second World Wars, Belgium found itself thrust into the frontline.

We planned to enjoy a small flavor of Belgium by spending 3 days there. Brussels is the natural point of entry. Brussels is Belgium's capital; it is almost the"capital of Europe," headquarters of the European Commission, the executive of the European Union is in Brussels!

Mini Europe was the highlight of the day in Brussels... here are a few pics.

We enjoyed day trips to nearby Bruges and Ghent as well

Here's a map

LOGISTICS:

For travel in Belgium it's good to know a few things

Names are in both Dutch and French.

Antwerpen/Anvers = Antwerp;

Brugge = Bruges;

Brussel/Bruxelles = Brussels

Gent/Gand = Ghent;

Oostende = Ostend;

Brussels Midi=zuid (south)

TRANSPORT OPTIONS:

We had planned 2 day trips from Brussels, to Bruges and Ghent on Apr 24 and 25. This amounted to 8 trips between the both of us for the to and fro trips. We decided to buy the 10 journey pass for €83 for the both of us.

We were later taking the train to Leiden Centraal from Brussels and could have used the train pass up to the border of Belgium, and bought tickets only for Noordenkempen to Leiden. But it did not give too much of a discount. Also we needed to take a train to Brussels Centraal from the airport and our hotel was 700 m walk from the Centraal station. So we used our 1st 2 trips of the train pass for that trip from Airport to Central station.

https://www.belgiantrain.be/en/tickets-and-railcards/railpass

FOR BRUSSELS CITY, single 1 hour ticket is €2.10 bought from machine. Buying from driver costlier, 2.50

OPTION if there are multiple trips inside the city: buy a €5 Mobib card and put a 10-trip "card" on it for €14, which multiple people can use for the whole group, reducing the cost of each journey

Day 12: 25 April 2019, Tuesday:

We had an early morning 6.30 am flight to Brussels on April 25 and were staying at NH Munich Airport hotel for the night of April 24th.

We got an email in the evening saying our flight was cancelled and we were on the next flight at 7.30 am. We arranged for the hotel shuttle to drop us at the airport at 6 am. The flight got delayed further and we took off only at 8.30 am. Reached Brussels airport by 10.15.

We asked in the Info place, a snooty lay tried to sell us transport options card useful only inside Brussels. Thankfully we knew what we needed. We did not need any local transport within Brussels. As said, We were staying at walking distance from the Central station.

Brussels main airport is BRUSSELS ZAVENTEM. Another Brussels airport Charleroi airport is 13.4 km away.

Train from the airport to Bruxelles-central, takes 20 mins (faster than a taxi) and costs €9, there are 6 trains an hour.

The station is very easy to find, you just follow the signs and go down to level -1. The cost is €9.

Trains depart every 13-20 mins, and can have many different final destinations (Oostende, De Panne, Mons, Tournai, Brugge, Bruxelles-Midi ...)

The machines were not too easy, our option was not coming up. we went to the counter. Bought the pass from the lady there. She explained how to fill the date, journey from -to on the pass. We had to pay airport tax €10 as well. She told us which platform next train to Brussels centraal was coming in the next 2 minutes, gave us tickets for scanning at the turnstile. We ran over, got thru the turnstile and boarded our train.

ACCOMMODATION:

We stayed 2 nights Apr 23-25 at Easy hotel Brussels Rue d'Argent 1, 700 m from the Central station.

The pluses are its location and very competent staff, both the regular reception girl as well as the intern.

It's an easy walk from the central train station and to local transport and the Grand Place.

As already explained above, we bought the 10 journey pass from the airport and took a train to Brussels Centraal and walked to the hotel. Paid their €7 tariff for early checkin (Regular checkin is at 3 pm; it's €3 for bag storage).

We knew about their policy of charging for checkin before 3 pm and charging for lockers for bag storage. No problem at all as their base charge for room is quite nominal

Room has quirky design... looks funky but some of it is user unfriendly. The bed side tables are very narrow ledges; sad part is there is plenty of space to easily provide normal design.

Same issue with the hanger space. Very bad space utilization... access is thru the side and it's so user unfriendly

Wash basin is tiny, can't even wash your face without water spilling on floor. Same glass door closes this space as well as the shower stall. Just mentioning these issues in case they can modify the design for user comfort.

On the whole we liked the hotel.

We had many plans for sight seeing... wanted to take a walk in the old town and visit Autoworld, which has a huge collection of vintage cars. This could have been easily done. We also had Mini Europe on our agenda... but it's pretty far from the center. On a whim we decided we'll go to Mini Europe... taking the metro.

We walked to Debrouckere, went to the metro station (350m from our hotel). The ticket machine had knobs and stuff. We were trying to operate it by touch alone. Caught hold of an employee and he helped us to buy 4 tickets... 2 for both of us going to Mini Europe and 2 for coming back.

We connected up to the metro Line 6 (bleu line) direction Roi Baudouin, had a long ride, got down at station Heysel.

Mini Europe:

Walked to Mini Europe. We started our visit at 2 PM and had our doubts if we can do justice to all the exhibits by 6 pm when the display closes. Thankfully we were able to enjoy all the displays and had a great time.

There are 300 models and attention to detail is AWESOME. Interactive features are AMAZING too.

Unfortunately there is no WOW factor... if the displays are raised up at least 3 to 4 feet above ground level, we won't tower over them and will be able to enjoy all the details. They don't like comparison to Hamburg Miniatur World but in our opinion, that scores better because of displaying models at a height conducive for viewing.

Also build a canopy above, protect these art pieces from direct sun and rain

The Atomium towering in the background

Every two years in August, an enormous flower carpet is set up in the Grand Place, Brussels for a few days. A million colorful begonias are set up in patterns, and the display covers a full 24 by 77 meters (79 by 253 ft), for area total of 1,800 sq m (19,000 sq ft). The first flower carpet was made in 1971