Belgian Chocolates & Waffles

The first time I visited Belgium was in 2009, on a day trip from Norway to Brussels for processing my visa at the Embassy of Trinidad and Tobago. After submission of application in the morning, I spent the day as a tourist in the city, while waiting to collect my passport in the evening. A four hours tour on Segway and some walking around pretty much covered all popular attractions in the city. After 10 years, I visited this country once again; this time on a holiday.

April 2019:

What is Belgium famous for? Chocolates and waffles would defintely be on top of the list answering that question. That made the background of our trip. Since Brussels didn’t seem to be very attractive to us, internet research guided us to another popular detination in the country, Bruges (or Brugge). The drive from Netherlands to Bruges took us a little over three hours. After the tulips and windmills experiencing, we were happily ready for Belgian waffles and chocolates.

Bruges

A medieval settlement that had its golden ages in the 12th to 15th century, Bruges was once the commercial metropolis in the heart of Europe. The prosperity started fading in the 16th century to an extent where it became the inspiration to an opera called ‘the dead city’.

Even though we were busy sight seeing and learning history, we didn’t lose focus on chocolates and waffles. Kids gave reminders every now and then when we passed by a shop selling chocolate or waffles. We tried many of those, treating ourselves as much as we could!

Museums are not an interesting place for young kids. I still remember our experience at Louvre in Paris, where my son kept repeating “let’s go, this is too boring!!”. Probably 6 years is too early to understand history and appreciate Mona Lisa and other world renown exhibits. That was not our experience at the museums in Bruges. In this city, we visited two museums that kids really enjoyed – Chocolate Museum and Fries Museum. Kids love chocolates and french fries; making a visit to those museums interesting for them too.

French fries are not French!

This was a completely new revelation to us! Despite its name, french fries have nothing really to do with France, but they originally are from Belgium. This sounded as if, ‘Mysore Pak’ originated from Hyderabad.

To the kids, the history and dispute about its origin didn’t really matter! We just love it!

Basilica of the Holy Blood

On the Easter day, coincidentally, we were at this Basilica that has a relic of the Holy Blood. Yes, it is believed to be a cloth with the Holy Blood of Jesus Christ! We went to the Chapel on the second floor where the relic is placed, touched the glass box housing the relic, lit a candle and prayed.

Brussels

Finally, the last day of our trip arrived. The return flight to Oslo was booked from Brussels. After checking out from the hotel in Bruges, we drove almost 100 km to Brussels, the capital city. We didn’t go into the city centre due to lack of time and fearing traffic blocks. Not far from the highway is the famous landmark of Brussels, Atomium. We could easily manage that visit along with a walk around the park called ‘Mini Europe‘.

After returning the car we rented from Amsterdam city, at Brussels airport, we boarded the return flight. A truly memorable trip filled with lots of great experiences came to an end. We wished to stay longer and spend more time in most places that we touched upon during this trip. But, this trip came to an end and we have to wait until the next one!

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.

Saint Augustine