@ 111op ... something with a vibrant nightlife ... Antwerp is your place to be! Lots of clubs, cafés, bars and pubs.
As far as chocolatiers in Antwerp are concerned, try Burie (Korte Gasthuisstraat), Del Rey (Appelmansstraat), Goossens (Isabellalei), Bastin (Paardenmarkt and Blauwmoezelstraat). Also the classical chocolatiers like Godiva, Marcolini, Leonidas, etc.

Thanks Myriam. What would be your top pick in terms of chocolatiers in Antwerp? I stayed in a hotel very close to Del Rey the last time so I tried that. Which ones are close to the train station?

I've the crazy idea of spending the night in Rotterdam, as I've never been, but I've not investigated the train schedule. Also I don't know how vibrant the nightlife there is.

I'm thinking of squeezing in the art museums in Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent and Bruges on Saturday (and I guess, Sunday morning) -- we'll see how successful I am. :-) I've been to Brussels and Antwerp but not to the art museums, and I've not been to Ghent or Bruges. I'm not planning much in Ghent beyond a visit to the Cathedral to see the "Adoration of the Mystic Lamb" (and I guess I'll see the Bosch holdings if I can find the time). Bruges I'll spend more time in. I suspect I'll have about 10 hours to sightsee in total in Belgium. Maybe an hour per museum? :-)

If there're chocolatiers in Ghent or Bruges I should not miss, do let me know.

Thanks.

Del Rey is the only chocolatier close to the train station. Leonidas and Godiva are everywhere in the city.
Sorry, can't help with chocolatiers in Brugge or Gent.

Don't know about Rotterdam's nightlife. Many Dutch come to Antwerp to party (and eat well).

Thanks Myriam. I'll investigate more.

111op: Antwerp, Brussels, Bruges and Ghent all in a day and a half? Is this the last time you expect to be in Belgium?

With one hour per museum, you sound like a candidate for Art Buchwald's six minute tour of the Louvre.

Why the rush?

lavendrye, have you seen the Jean-Luc Godard movie "Bande a Part"? (Band of Outsiders?) The protagonists race through the Louvre in 9 minutes and 43 seconds. I hope to conduct a similarly rushed tour of the Belgian museums.

No, I'm just joking.

Who's Art Buchwald?

I do expect to be in Belgium again, but I'm especially motivated to see art by the Flemish primitives. For a few weeks I was reading up on them and looking at reproductions in books, so I'm interested in seeing the real thing.

Of course, I didn't buy a ticket to fly to Belgium to see art. It was just that this ticket was the cheapest I could find. So now that I've paid for it, I decided that a trip like this would be fun to do.

As I mentioned I've been to Brussels and Antwerp, albeit very briefly, but not to the art museums at all -- so that's what I plan to remedy on this trip. And I think that it'd give me a more complete picture if I could see the "Lamb" in Ghent, the Bosches in Ghent and also the Groeninge Museum in Bruges. Since I'm passing through Paris, I'm thinking of seeing the Flemish holdings in the Louvre. The Louvre has one Brueghel and one Bosch and one famous Jan van Ecyk. Obviously the Dutch school is also very well represented.

Anyway, Ghent is halfway between Brussels and Bruges, based on what I gathered, and I'm not going to spend that much time there. I expect to spend a little more time in Bruges as I've never been there. Ideally I should spend the evening there, but then I'm not sure I want to.

And it won't be all in a day, strictly. I'll have Sunday morning too, as I plan to arrive early afternoon in Paris (the train is only 1.5 hours) -- so I can take a noon train or something.

Hope this helps.

Who's Art Buchwald? A great journalist and humorist, well known to my generation.

Here's his Louvre piece:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articl...256/ai_3453390

You might want also to look for his explanation of Thanksgiving to the French " Le jour du Merci Donnant"

That's very funny. This question is going to sound stupid -- was that a complete satire? I fear I'm a very literal person. :-)

Here's the Godard version:

http://www.bfi.org.uk/collections/re...a-z/a-z.html#L

By the way, this is copied by the recent Bertolucci movie, but I've not seen that.

Indeed it was a complete satire. Buchwald, who still has a regular syndicated column in the Washington Post, can be very droll. The only U.S. writer today who can compare, in my opinion, is Christopher Buckley.

Thanks for the Godard reference.

Now, I'm wondering where Godard took his inspiration. If I remember right, such a race was done by an earlier movie, but I've not dug out the proper reference.