Belgium

[northmallexile]

A few of us thinking of going for a longish weekend in the New Year. Anyone got any tips? Should we concentrate on Brussels, or go farther afield?

[Tube a Pringles]

Belgium is just a whole lot of nothing to be honest.

[POL]

Belgium is a great spot, Brussels is a very underrated city

[The Lord McGrath]

Would highly recommend Brussels. Suffer from an outdated view that it is a boring city. Simply not true, great pubs, great clubs and plenty to do.

[Tube a Pringles]

Would highly recommend Brussels. Suffer from an outdated view that it is a boring city. Simply not true, great pubs, great clubs and plenty to do.

It's all relative. I suppose there are a couple of decent clubs alright.

Don't bother seeing that atomaton thing, it's shite.

[The Lord McGrath]

There's a fairly good red light district aswell, a bit run down but nice chicks there, I was riding for half the night down there. Yea, the atom thing is shite

[jungle]

There are 5 places worth visiting in Belgium - Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp, Bruges and the Ardennes.

The first four of these are city-break destinations and the last is good if you are into adventure sports, hiking, cycling etc. Being January, you probably won't want to do those things, so I'll give you a synopsis of the other ones.

Bruges - Probably the prettiest city in Northern Europe. However, it is very, very quiet. If it's a romantic break that you want, it is probably a good option, but it isn't if you're looking for nightlife.

Antwerp - Although, it's an ancient city, it is considerably modern, with all but a small part dating from the 19th century onwards. If you're into Flemish art, it has all the best galleries. The nightlife is excellent, as is the shopping. It has a small Amsterdam-style red light district, but it's much seedier than Amsterdam. That would be my general warning about the city. Although, it has a lot to recommend it, there is undoubtedly a rough edge.

Ghent - Probably a compromise between the two. In the areas where Bruges excels (general prettiness), it is better than Antwerp, but worse than Bruges. In the areas where Antwerp excels (shopping, nightlife) it is better than Bruges, but worse than Antwerp.

Brussels - Very different to other Belgian cities. It has all the impressive monuments and buildings you'd expect in a capital city. It also has a very quaint old town clustered around the Grand Place (Grote Markt). Nightlife is decent, but it's distributed around the city and can be tricky to find if you don't know where you're going. The shopping is divided into two areas. A high-street style area around Rue Neuve (Nieuwstraat) and a more upmarket area around Rue de la Touson d'Or.

[northmallexile]

Cheers, that's helpful.

Anyone ever visited any of the old WWI sites?

[EDDIEB]

Brussels is a great city but definitly try to get a day trip to Bruges its well worth it.
Head to Ypres for all the WW1 stuff - good museum in the centre of the town.You can walk the town walls to the Menin gate ? with all the names of the fallen carved into the great arch.Lots of Irish names there also.
If you are travelling by car you will inevitibly come across war graves and memorials etc.Lots of trenches,bombed out fields and debris left untouched etc.by the locals who now have turned it into a tourist attraction in parts.

[northmallexile]

*bump*

Anyone able to recommend places to stay in Brussels? Somewhere affordable enough would be good.

[Coreydob]

Better off going to college town like Ghent or leuven Brussels is boring!

[TommyL]

Leuven is class.Thousands of students. We stayed there on our way to Rock Werchter. The people are the nicest i've ever met anywhere in the world(much more laid back than the south of Belgium).