You can visit Planete Chocolat - read more on http://www.planetechocolat.be/index-chocolat-UK.html

Thanks everyone, especially 111 for sharing his/her info!

I've e-mailed Manon to see about the possibility of joining a tour, and the Wittamer shops looks great, too!

You're welcome. Your link prompted me to do the research in the first place.

I'm a guy, by the way.

Have a great visit!

A man who loves chocolate as much as me...doesn't seem possible.

Thanks, and enjoy your's this weekend - you must be leaving any minute. I'm very jealous!

I'm leaving right after work tomorrow -- I fly to Brussels on 7:50 pm flight.

You'll probably not be obvious when you see this proposed itinerary for Saturday:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?U2E81208A

(It's taken from my blog.)

But I'm looking forward to it. It'll be my turn to be jealous of your trip in March.

Oops -- <<You'll probably not be obvious>> -- I meant jealous....

Academic? ...would have never guessed.

We're visiting Bruges and Antwerp also, but giving ourselves four days...not 24 hours.

I know. That career seemed so long ago.

I guess my excuse is that I've been to Antwerp and Brussels, though very quickly. I've never been to Bruges. I thought about spending the night there, but I think that it'll be too dull for me. Given the limited time, I probably should just have left it out, but I guess I've convinced myself that I should go see the art museums.

Did you enjoy it? What did you teach? There are a lot of changes going on in my company and am considering going back for MA, in order to teach at Univ. level.

I'm sorry, I know fodors isn't the place...

Hi Fly, I can answer your questions regarding academia via e-mail.

You can e-mail me at

op 111 op 111 @ hotmail.com

(remove the spaces -- basically it's my moniker inverted and then repeated twice).

By the way, are you in the US? It's unusual to teach at the university level with an MS in the US -- you almost invariably need a PhD, especially for tenure-track positions.

But feel free to tell me more about it in an e-mail. I doubt that I'll have any special insights though. I remember having this discussion with a friend once, and at the end, she basically said, "Thanks for telling me all this. But I think that this is the sort of thing I've to figure out for myself."

Which, when you think about it, is very true.

for chocolate lovers you may want to try intrend.com. They have fantastic stuff about tours for chocoholics

I'm glad I'll be in Bruges, some of you have recommended Dumon, and if the stuff inside is as good as the building looks, I'm gonna be very happy!

http://www.hipgallery.com/photopost2...cat/722/page/1

Some relatives of mine own the Camargue chocolaterie, the factory. It's very cool and big. The address is:

Camargue Chocolaterie
Weverslaan 22
9160 Lokeren
Belgium
Phone 09/463.156.786

Also you can visit a peperkoek factory, which is a traditional belgian honeycake. The following factory is owned by some relatives of mine too:

NV De Vreese-Van Loo
Poststraat 98-102
9160 Lokeren
Belgium
Phone 09/348.20.85