Una, mystery solved... I just asked my husband if he remembers how much those tickets were, and he says it was about 29 per person, not total. Sorry!!! (By the way, I'm pretty confident that the rest of the prices I listed are accurate!)

Meredith; glad you liked Antwerp. Sir Anthony van Dijk is indeed very good, and a beautiful setting in one of the oldest parts of Antwerp. The price guideline of $22 for a main course is probably not very recent though!
Another nice place is Dock's Café, opposite the Steen fortress.

Meredith

Nothing to apologize for at all. You have provided so much wonderful info for this trip that a small difference in the price of train tickets is not going to change anything. This is one of the best trip reports I have ever read - and very pertinent to my own plans.

Looking forward to the continuation with Many thanks!

Oh yes - also wanted to mention that I will try to beat Ryan's single frite :)
>>Ryan is convinced that one fry in particular that he ate was the single best french fry in all of Belgium.>>

Oh my gosh, Una - you are WAY too kind!

Day 8
We started off our second day in Brugge with a bike ride! We rented our bikes through our hotel (I did not record the price, but I want to say it was around 24 euros for both bikes for the day) and headed straight to the four windmills along the outskirts of town. We weren't so lucky with the weather, as it drizzled for the first hour or two of our ride. Oh, and while we were waiting for a traffic light to change, a bird on a lamppost pooped on me - ick! (I said to Ryan, "Isn't that supposed to be good luck?" He said, "No, that's just what they tell people who have been sh*t on so they don't feel so bad about being sh*t on.")

Anyway, aside from the rain and other things falling from the sky, we had a nice ride by the windmills and took tons of pictures of them. Then we headed out on the very pleasant ride to Damme. The road to Damme follows along a very peaceful, bucolic canal. Only about three or four miles away, it's not at all a strenuous ride. In Damme, we rode all through the streets and wandered through what I suppose is an abandoned church - it's a big structure right next to the cemetary. Can anyone tell me why this church is abandoned? I didn't see anything about it in my guidebooks.

We had a most fabulous lunch in Damme. There are at least 10 restaurants, if not more, right there on the main square. After much debate, we settled in at Damse Poort and really enjoyed the three-course menu of the day for 15 euros a piece - judging by the amount of food we were served, this was an excellent deal. With beers, our total was 33.40 euros. Our lunch included soup, salad, and carbonnade (with fries, of course) - it was so hearty, delicious, and absolutely perfect for a drizzly day. (I also mentioned carbonnade above, as we had it our first night in Brugge. Carbonnade is a wonderfully rich beef stew cooked in beer. It's also known as stoofvlees - don't miss out on it!!)

Heading back to Brugge, we decided to follow some winding roads through the farmland rather than the canal road. This was a nice ride that eventually took us through some residential neighborhoods and back into downtown Brugge. We would have loved to cycle all through town, but this was Saturday afternoon, and the tourists were out in droves! I mentioned this on another post and inadvertantly sparked some debate about whether or not Brugge is crazy with tourists on Saturdays. I can only vouch for the one Saturday that we were there - it was a madhouse! Between the crowds of pedestrians and the parade of horse-drawn carriages, we absolutely did not feel safe on our bikes. On some of the smaller alleyways especially, there simply was not room to maneuver a bike. So we locked up our bikes and explored on foot instead. I'm really glad that we had a chance to enjoy Brugge the day before, when the number of tourists was much more manageable. Don't get me wrong - there were plenty of tourists like us on Friday as well. But the amount on Saturday was insane.

Back on our bikes again, we rode away from the tourist-packed center and explored lots of streets that we had not yet visited on foot. We also rode through Minnewater, a peaceful park filled with canals. On our way back to our hotel, we happened to pass by a big parking lot somewhere on the outskirts of town that was packed with countless tour buses - presumably, most of those tourists were day-trippers. The crowds were certainly gone by the time we came back to town for dinner.

At this point, we had been in Belgium for three days and still hadn't eaten a mussel - so our choice for dinner was obvious. On one of our cab rides the day before, we had asked our driver where he goes for mussels. This guy has lived in Brugge all his life, so he was a trust-worthy source. He recommended a place called Mosselcalder, on Huidevettersplein. We thought the mussels here were very good (although we did have better ones in Brussels - more on that later!), and the restaurant itself was very cozy. It's sort of sub-terranean and cave-like, but also warm and inviting. I had the mussel menu of the day - these mussels were served in a creamy beer sauce. So good! Ryan got mussels in white wine - they were good, but not as good as mine. We also had appetizers and beer, for a total of 70.50 euros.

The abandoned church in Damme is the ruin of the original Church of Our Lady. It was erected in the 13th century and partly demolished in the 18th century. By lack of funds it has never been rebuilt. For what it's worth.
BTW, have you climbed the tower and enjoyed the beautiful view over the Flemish polders?

Myriam, thanks for the info. I had no idea the original building was so old!

As for climbing the tower, we got our fill of bell towers when we climbed the one in Delft. I kind of regret not climbing the tower in Brugge, but conquering my fear once per trip is enough for me! :)

Hello to anyone who is still following this trip report... I haven't forgotten about reporting on the rest of our trip (just the last two days in Brussels to tell you about still), but I won't be able to finish up until after Thanksgiving. I'm feeding 18 people this year (YIKES) and have several of them staying with us through the holiday. I hope to wrap up this trip report sometime over the weekend. Thanks!!!

Thanks for the trip report! We'd thought about going to Amsterdam this year, but our trip took us elsewhere. I've heard very nice things about it (some friends of mine raved about the McDonalds fries using real animal fat, but that wasn't something that I thought would be interesting to me! ) But I really would like to see the Anne Frank House, and the Van Gogh museum. The D'orsay in Paris very much interested me in Impressionism.

Thank you for the great report!

PR

I am going to s-c-r-e-a-m !!
X(

You have to do what you have to do - but I am going to eat my fingernails down to the quick till after your Thanksgiving holidays /:)

Have a great holiday and try to enjoy yourself despite the number of people!

Looking forward to your continuation, when you can! ((O))

Thanks, PR! And Una, you are too funny!! I am actually very much looking forward to Thanksgiving, despite the number of people that will be crammed into my little townhouse. We will have four generations of my husband's family and three generations of mine - it will be very special! The onslaught of visitors begins today - eeek! :)

Day 9
Goodbye, Brugge - hello, Brussels! This morning we cabbed it back to the train station for the last leg of our trip. We arrived in Brussels about mid-morning and headed straight for our hotel. I have to say, I found the Brussels stations (both Midi and Central) to be a little sketchy. Out of all the towns and train stations we visited, Brussels is the only place where we really felt like we had to keep our hands on our wallets. Nothing actually happened, but we just felt more weary of our surroundings the whole time we were in Brussels.

After checking in at our hotel, we were starving for lunch. We took a quick stroll in and around the Grand Place in search of a cheap portable lunch - Panos fit the bill. We chose some sandwiches at this shop (right near the entrance to Galeries Royales St. Hubert) and munched away as we made our way up the hill towards St. Michael's Cathedral.

Then we made our way over to BELvue Museum, the only museum we visited in all of Belgium. (Not that there aren't plenty of worthy museums in Belgium - we just got our fill of museum visits in Amsterdam!) BELvue Museum, located next to the Royal Palace, focuses on Belgian history, starting in 1830 when Belgium became an independent nation. I'm really glad we made it a point to visit this museum, because I learned all kinds of things I didn't know about Belgium - details about the royal family were particularly interesting. I can't help but have a mild fascination with the royal families of Europe - and honestly, before visiting this museum, I couldn't have named a single Belgian king or queen. Entrance to the museum was 3 euros - totally worth it!

Exiting the museum, we turned left onto Rue Regence and followed Rick Steves' Upper Town walk. After popping briefly into Notre Dame du Sublon, we stopped for a bit at Place Poelaert to enjoy the panoramic view of Brussels. I'm glad we got to see the Atomium (albeit from far away) since we didn't have time to make it out that way. We finished our tour of Upper Town with a stroll through Place du Sablon and a break at a sidewalk cafe for more of that delicious Belgian beer.

Heading back towards our hotel, we walked through Grand Place again and spent more time observing. WOW, what a square! Definitly the highlight of Brussels, in my opinion. I could have spent hours staring at those beautiful guild halls. I'd seen pictures of the Grand Place and heard that it was one of the grandest squares of Europe - but still, I was really really impressed!

That night for dinner, we decided after much debate to have some Italian food at a place recommended by Rick Steves, located right off the Grand Place. On our way there, we strolled through Rue de Bouchers (Restaurant Row) out of curiosity, just to see what it was all about. I couldn't tell you whether or not the restaurants there are any good or not, but we were really turned off by the atmosphere. We decided not to return there for dinner on our last night.

Anyway, we had the address for this Italian restaurant and simply could not find it. We walked in circles and saw nothing. By this time we were starving and grouchy - a lethal combination! Feeling frustrated, we finally found the restaurant - and discovered that it was closed tonight (a Sunday night). It was of course pitch black and deserted - no wonder we didn't see it the first and second time we walked by it! Rick actually did say in his book that the place was closed on Sundays - we were just too dumb to nitice that important detail!

Now we were REALLY getting grouchy. We headed back in the direction of our hotel and decided to eat at La Maison des Crepes. We didn't realize it when we decided on this place, but turns out it's a Rick recommendation. The crepes were big and delicious - we each ordered one and split a Nicoise salad. I can't find our receipt, but I believe our crepes were about 8 euros each, plus anothe 8 or 9 euros for the huge salad. This was a pleasant, inexpensive dinner in a very cozy restaurant filled with locals.

Following dinner, we went to Le Cirio for a "dessert beer." This cafe has so much character - again, this is a Rick recommendation that we chose without realizing he had recommended it. I had a cherry beer, and Ryan had a dark beer. Our waiter was a charming older gentleman. After our trip, I happened to catch the Brussels episode of "Passport to Europe" with Samantha Brown. She also went to Le Cirio and had the same waiter as us! (I wish I had seen it before the trip - I would have loved to tell the waiter that I recognized him from TV back in America.) :)

Day 10
Our last full day! :(
We did lots more walking today, starting back in Grand Place again and walking throughout Lower Town. We also made our way to Mannekin Pis - what to say about Mannekin Pis? He's amusing in a kitschy way, but he's also underwhelming. I'm really not sure what the fuss is about a little boy peeing! Mannekin Pis is really more of a been-there-saw-that kind of sight. We stared at him for a minute or two and then moved on.

We also made our way over to the Fish Market area to scope our restaurants for dinner. After our dinner debacle the night before, we knew we wanted to choose a memorable place for our last night. We found several appealling restaurants and chose Bij den Boer - more on that later.

Looking at all these restaurants made us hungry for lunch! We wanted to eat somewhere in Grand Place for our last lunch and decided on 't Kelderke - a somewhat expensive but excellent choice! This restaurant serves traditional Belgian food in a warm cellar right on Grand Place. My mussels provencale and fries were absolutely delicious, and Ryan's pork chop was really good, too. (Really, just thinking about those mussels right now is making my mouth water!) With drinks, our total was 49 euros. This is more than we had planned on spending for lunch, but it was so good that we don't regret it at all.

In order to recover from our huge lunch, we walked through Place du Sablon again and up into Upper Town. This being our last day in Belgium, we were intent on finding some really good chocolate to bring home with us. We decided on Mary Chocolatier on Rue Royale in Upper Town. I don't remember the price (sorry - clearly my attention to detail in my notes waned towards the end of the trip!), but it was on par with some of the other really nice chocolate shops. I can say this - Mary's chocolate is HEAVENLY.

We spent the rest of the afternoon lounging in our hotel room. What can I say - by the 10th day of a trip, I am tired!! Thanks to our big lunch, we had a bit of a later dinner at Bij den Boer. We chose this place because it offered a four-course menu (soup, appetizer, entree, dessert) for 25 euros. Most other restaurants in the area offered three courses for the same price. This restaurant was another excellent choice!! For each course, there were two choices - between us, we got to try everything, and it was all to die for. Among our dishes were fish soup, a salmon appetizer, a guacomole appetizer, roasted guinea hen, another kind of fish that I've never heard of before, and I can't for the life of me remember what we had for dessert (again with the spotty notes!). With a bottle of wine, our total was 73 euros. We thought this was an excellent value, considering how much food we had and how delicious it all was. I highly recommend this wonderful restaurant!

By the way, this was also a Rick recommendation. When we've used Rick's books in the past, we always felt the restaurant recommendations left something to be desired. But this time, every recommendation we tried (with the exception of the Pancake Bakery in Amsterdam) was very very good. Good job, Rick!

Day 11
Today is departure day - boohoo! There's not much to tell you about today, as we had to catch an early train to the airport. (Oh, I forgot to mention - we stopped at Central Station the night before to buy our tickets. We thought that having tickets in hand in the morning may save us a few precious minutes, as we had to be at the train station by 7:15 and we are not morning people!)

Check-in and security at the Brussels airport was a breeze - but all passentgers on U.S.-bound flights have to go through extra security. All U.S. flights are nestled together at the end of a terminal, and everyone has to have their carry-on bags individually checked. This line took a pretty long time, and the security check was much stricter than it is in the U.S. They wouldn't allow any liquids at all (on our flight from Atlanta to Amsterdam, we could take small bottles of liquid packed in a quart-size plastic bag), and each person is allowed strictly one carry-on only (as opposed to one carry-on and a purse or other "personal item" that is allowed here in the U.S.).

Our flight home was pretty empty, so we could move around and stretch out across the three seats in the middle aisle - nice!

Well, folks, that's the story of our trip to the Netherlands and Belgium! I hope this is helpful, and I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thanks for reading!!!

Meredith

tttttt

Meredith, I know this is an old report, but thanks to the MUCH IMPROVED search function, I am finding your report which I probably wasn't able to do so before (I find this by searching for "Damme"). We were in Belgium last fall and one of our highlights was riding our bicycles from Bruges to Damme.

When I was researching for my trip last year, I did lots of searches on the old forum but very few threads ever came up, and definitely not your TR!

I just want to tell you I enjoyed your TR a lot, it took me back to Belgium for the last 10 minutes.

Meredith,
I really enjoyed reading your report and also want to thank yk for bringing it up. While you were writing it we were involved in planning our 2007 trip to Switzerland without a thought of being in the Netherlands, Brugge, and Brussels this April. Thanks for the many tips, they will be useful.

Oh, yay - my trip report! Haven't seen this one in a long while.

Thanks for the kind words, yk and ronkala! :)

Enjoyed the report and found it very helpful. I was originally thinking about staying in Brussels and taking the train to various other points -- Ghent, Brugge, Anthwerp, etc. Judging from your TR, doesn't sound like a great idea.

Thanks again. Saved the info.