Where In The World Is Ashley Now?: Belgium

Bruge

September 9-10, 2007

Bruge is an amazing city, it is equally as beautiful during the day as it is at night!

cont... Day 6
We finally arrived at Bruge at around 3pm. We walked to our hostel which was about a 25min away, but at least we got to see a lot of the city. We checked into our hostel, the world famous Bauhaus*****, then walked around the city seeing many canals, parks, and windmills. We bought post cards, then headed back to the hostel for dinner. Our dinner was really good considering it was a restaurant at our hostel, I had chicken and Brian had pizza. Then we took in Bruge at night, which is extremely spectacular!! I very much enjoyed our time in Bruge it was like a vacation! It is really romantic and picturisc. I would suggest it to anyone!

Day 7
We should have died! Brian and I got a little lost at 5:45am trying to walk to the train station. We took, what we thought, would be a direct root to the train station, and instead ended up totally lost, walking down muggers cove!! It was still dark out and we were walking along the canal, with water on one side and trees on the other, I was petrified!!! But we finally made it to the train station with time to spear!! It's a good thing that Bruge is such a safe city, had we been in Paris or New York we would have been robbed for sure!!

Bruge is one of my favorite cities I give it a 5. Mainly because of its beauty and the weather!!

Brian and Ashley trip: fourth stop. Day 6-7.

Antwerp

September 9th, 2007

Antwerp is another city you can walk in 1.5 hours, but it is pretty lively even on a Sunday!

cont.. Day 6
Antwerp was a lot more exciting than Ghent was. At least there were a lot more people on the streets and many more stores open. We arrived from Ghent (50 min train ride) still having left our bags in Ghent, and walked around Antwerp. We walked to the important sights and churches. One of the sights really pissed me off, because it was just a random building, for like housing!!! It might have been more interesting if we had been on a tour but oh well. Another thing that was interesting was the river. I didn't really know much about Antwerp, I have only heard it mentioned in a couple of movies but, it was actually really pretty along the river bank. The river was also bigger than I thought it would be. After walking the city, we headed back to the train station where I had another waffle! We had to take a train to Ghent, run and get our bags then catch the other train to Bruge, it worked out perfectly!

Antwerp is a 3. It was much more lively than Ghent and i think its a little prettier as well!

Brian and Ashley trip: another day trip. Day 6.

Ghent

September 9th, 2007

You can walk the entire town in 1.5 hours!

cont. Day 6
There isn't really much to say about Ghent. We took a train from Brussels (35min), locked up our bags, and walked the city. Everything was closed except for a couple of restaurants and touristy things. We did however, find a "yard" sale that was cool but there was a lot of junk there!! We ate at McDonald's for a snack, then walked back to the train station. It might have been different it things had been open, when we were walking through the streets it felt like a ghost town. Our next stop... Antwerp!

Ghent was nice but everything was closed because it was a Sunday so I give it a 2.

Brian and Ashley trip: day trip. Day 6.

Brussels

September 8-9, 2007

We walked almost 2 miles just to see this Basilica. It looked a lot closer than it was!!

Cont. Day 5
We arrived at our hostel after the train ride from Paris at around 11am, but we couldn't check in until 2pm. So we put our bags in a locker and went out to get food and see the city. We walked down a busy road called du Jardin Botanique, then off to a side street, much like downtown crossings in Boston, and had the most amazing Belgium Waffle ever!!! After the burst of energy from the waffle, we walked a lot and saw: Beurs, Place des Pabis, Palais Royal, Place Grand Sablon, and Place de al Belgique (aka: little pissing boy! which was a major disappointment because we got lost trying to find it!! see picture below!!). Then we walked about 2 miles to see the Basilica National du Sacre Coeur. It was by far the most impressive Basilica I have seen because it is on a hill by its self and we walked forever to get there! We tried almost everything that Belgium was know for, such as chocolate, waffles, beer but we missed the mussels! For dinner I had chicken fried rice, and Brian had McDonald's! Then bed!

Day 6

Let me just start out by saying we are crazy! Anyway we left Brussels early in the morning so we could visit 3 other cities in one day. It was worth it though, because the cities we saw were ones you could do in a couple of hours, without taking any tours of course!!