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Contract Otter posted:Me and my future wife are leaving for a week's holiday to Bruges, Belgium for our honeymoon in two and a half weeks and are looking for recommendations on what to do when we're there. We have a hotel booked in Bruges and the plan is to do some day trips, maybe to Ghent and Antwerp. We enjoy comfort, food, beer and nature so the travel plan so far leans quite heavily on restaurants, cafés and general sightseeing. Also, I hear there's a decent zoo in Antwerp so we'll look into that. Besides all this, is there anything special worth seeing around the area? Obligatory movie recommendation http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780536/
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Jul 3, 2017 23:58
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Contract Otter posted:Me and my future wife are leaving for a week's holiday to Bruges, Belgium for our honeymoon in two and a half weeks and are looking for recommendations on what to do when we're there. We have a hotel booked in Bruges and the plan is to do some day trips, maybe to Ghent and Antwerp. We enjoy comfort, food, beer and nature so the travel plan so far leans quite heavily on restaurants, cafés and general sightseeing. Also, I hear there's a decent zoo in Antwerp so we'll look into that. Besides all this, is there anything special worth seeing around the area? Most of the (wild) nature is in the south-east of Belgium (the Ardennes), but if you're looking for something nature-y to do near Bruges, there's nature reserve the Zwin, at the place where the Dutch border ends in the sea. http://www.zwin.be/en/home There's sadly not much in the way of nature left along the rest of the Belgian coast, it's one long row of hotels and resorts. But if you do like the coast you could visit a bunch of the coastal villages using the hop-on-hop-off tram they've got going along the entire Belgian coastline. I don't know what your travel options are, but another day trip you could consider is to Lille, just across the French border. It's another pretty old town, and Lille happens to have a zoo that's completely free to visit. Just note that Dutch-speaking Belgians refer to some French places using Dutch names, and you might even see this on signs, bus schedules, etc. And Lille is especially difficult because its Dutch name is spelled "Rijssel". If you get confused, just ask. Most Belgians speak fine English. There are other places in that general area - actually many Belgian towns have a nice historic center and are cool to visit if you got enough time. Ypres/Ieper comes to mind, but mostly because it's well known for its WW1 battles and has a museum on life in the trenches that is rather impressing. Might not be the best honeymoon visit, though, unless you have an interest in history. You won't have any problem finding good food/restaurants anywhere in Belgium. And speaking of beer - make sure to look for the little windows in the ground in Bruges that shows pipes running under them. This is a new project they finished last year. There's beer running through these pipes, from the old brewery in the inner city to the bottling plant outside. Much more convenient than having heavy trucks going through the narrow streets to the old brewery.
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Jul 4, 2017 06:56
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Doctor Malaver posted:Obligatory movie recommendation We watched this in preparation and loved it, looking forward to seeing all that beautiful fairytale stuff! Carbon dioxide posted:Most of the (wild) nature is in the south-east of Belgium (the Ardennes), but if you're looking for something nature-y to do near Bruges, there's nature reserve the Zwin, at the place where the Dutch border ends in the sea. http://www.zwin.be/en/home Thanks for the recommendations - Zwin and Ypres look promising and there's nothing stopping us from doing a day trip to France either. It looks like you can get from Bruges to Lille in under two hours and 20€ by train. Although there might be a bit of a language barrier since we don't know any french and I understand the French are not so keen on speaking English.
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Jul 4, 2017 09:01
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You're staying in Bruges the entire week, or you're able to pack up and move? I guess there is a week of stuff to do within an hour or two of Bruges, although I can't imagine spending more than 2 days in Bruges itself. You have Antwerp, Ghent, and Brussels within easy daytrip area, so those 3 + Brugges is plenty for a week. IMO it'd be better to spend like 4 nights in Bruges (1 full day Bruges, 1 full day Antwerp, 1 full day Ghent) and then switch to Brussels for 3 days, if you're not committed to staying in Bruges the entire time for some reason. You're probably not under 26, but if either of you are, Belgium has huge super saver train tickets for younger people, like a carnet of 10 for €50 or something ridiculously cheap. I'm guessing you won't have a car, so visiting the coast (besides going directly to Zeebrugge or Ostend) is going to be a pain in the rear end (also it's not very remarkable coastline). The Ardennes are also difficult to visit without a car, or without being a crazy biker, but in any case it's super far away from where you'll be staying.
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Jul 4, 2017 12:48
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Contract Otter posted:We watched this in preparation and loved it, looking forward to seeing all that beautiful fairytale stuff! Many younger French people speak English well, but in general, the French want to see you *try*. So if you just learn the French sentence for "excuse me, do you speak English?" you can start conversations with that and then if they say "yes" you can just switch to English.
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Jul 4, 2017 18:26
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The language barrier isn't a big issue anywhere in Western Europe, because you can always find some latinate words that both of you will understand, or you can point at things. It becomes an issue in a place like Russia if you can't read signs and a lot people genuinely speak zero English.
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Jul 4, 2017 18:33
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Also, Lille to me seemed relatively international compared to other French cities, with quite a few people being able to speak some Dutch as well as some English.
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Jul 4, 2017 18:38
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If you like beer, go to Kulminator when you're in Antwerp. Perhaps go on a tour of a brewery to kill a day/hours, since Bruges can be seen in a day or two.
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Jul 4, 2017 19:38
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Contract Otter posted:Me and my future wife are leaving for a week's holiday to Bruges, Belgium for our honeymoon in two and a half weeks and are looking for recommendations on what to do when we're there. We have a hotel booked in Bruges and the plan is to do some day trips, maybe to Ghent and Antwerp. We enjoy comfort, food, beer and nature so the travel plan so far leans quite heavily on restaurants, cafés and general sightseeing. Also, I hear there's a decent zoo in Antwerp so we'll look into that. Besides all this, is there anything special worth seeing around the area? In therms of cities to visit, I'd say Ghent > Antwerp > Leuven > Ypres > Lille. One thing you should be aware of is that there'll be a free festival going on in Ghent, called "de Gentse feesten". It's huge with a ridiculous amount of activities, concerts and other events going on. It's great fun. That said, Ghent can get very crowded during the festival, especially in the evenings. Certainly check it out, https://gentsefeesten.stad.gent/en . I have a request of my own: I'm thinking of travelling to and in the UK with an interrail pass. Does somebody have any experience how difficult it is to reserve a seat on the eurostar train (brussel <-> london) last minute? Do I have to do this a long time in advance or is it likely I can still get a seat just the day before?
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Jul 4, 2017 20:32
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Walh Hara posted:In therms of cities to visit, I'd say Ghent > Antwerp > Leuven > Ypres > Lille. One thing you should be aware of is that there'll be a free festival going on in Ghent, called "de Gentse feesten". It's huge with a ridiculous amount of activities, concerts and other events going on. It's great fun. That said, Ghent can get very crowded during the festival, especially in the evenings. Certainly check it out, https://gentsefeesten.stad.gent/en . You'd put Brussels at the end of everything? I know people always poo poo on Brussels in this forum, but it's actually a pretty nice city. Also yeah, France has a reputation for people not speaking English and being snitty if you do, but honestly English is pretty widely spoken for people under 40 years old. Just try for anything super simple, like ordering a coffee, and for anything more complex starting with "eh... pardohn, vooz parlay Anglaise?" is fine. It's not like Italy, where even young people don't speak English. Belgium will be fine, as the Flemish nearly all speak English (and French), and Walloons often speak English. I've known a lot of Belgians and there seems to be a "gently caress you, other linguistic group" deal going on super strongly in Belgium, with especially the Walloons being dicks to the Flemish about refusing to ever learn Dutch beyond the basics you get from bad language teachers in school. I don't speak Dutch at all and I don't remember ever having a time not being able to talk to someone in Flanders. E: Maybe like... a ticket sales person in a train station, one time?
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Jul 4, 2017 20:52
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Saladman posted:You'd put Brussels at the end of everything? I know people always poo poo on Brussels in this forum, but it's actually a pretty nice city. You have a point. There's some cultural bias against Brussels here in Flanders and I suffer from it as well. Maybe more accurate would be: Ghent > Antwerp > Leuven (although very small) > Brussels > Ypres > Lille That said, if you want to do a museum, go to Brussels, it certainly has the most and best museums of the country.
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Jul 5, 2017 07:51
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As long as you don't leave the museums, Brussels is a nice city. Otherwise it's a shithole compared to actual interesting cities like Antwerp and Ghent (and Tourist Park Bruges).
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Jul 5, 2017 08:53
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Carbon dioxide posted:Many younger French people speak English well, but in general, the French want to see you *try*. So if you just learn the French sentence for "excuse me, do you speak English?" you can start conversations with that and then if they say "yes" you can just switch to English. People in one of the professions which requires dealing with many tourists (tourist office, museums and galleries, bars and restaurants) will be used to it but nothing makes the average person in the street forget their English like you assuming they can speak it.
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Jul 5, 2017 10:22
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This may be a more generic travel question, but has anyone tried out any of AirBnB's "experiences"? I'm seeing some interesting ones like "have a four-course dinner in a Parisian art gallery" or "take dance lessons on the Seine", and was wondering if they're decent (I realize they're as varied as the AirBnB's themselves). Some of them seem pretty interesting and a bit more unique than the regular touristy stuff.
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Jul 5, 2017 14:46
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Jeoh posted:As long as you don't leave the museums, Brussels is a nice city. Otherwise it's a shithole compared to actual interesting cities like Antwerp and Ghent (and Tourist Park Bruges). Brussels always reminds me of that Bill Bryson line about thoroughly examining the Grand Place three times over, carefully checking the lace and chocolate shops, then looking at your watch and wondering if 9:30 in the morning is too early to start drinking
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Jul 5, 2017 15:43
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webmeister posted:Brussels always reminds me of that Bill Bryson line about thoroughly examining the Grand Place three times over, carefully checking the lace and chocolate shops, then looking at your watch and wondering if 9:30 in the morning is too early to start drinking But what about the statue of the little kid pissing, which must be on the front cover of every Chinese guidebook about Europe. I never really got that, since there are dozens of cities with fountains with the water coming out of kids' dicks, or out of women's nipples. It's like a dime a dozen.
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Jul 5, 2017 16:03
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Saladman posted:But what about the statue of the little kid pissing, which must be on the front cover of every Chinese guidebook about Europe. Helsinki's is clearly the best one 
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Jul 5, 2017 16:10
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Saladman posted:You're staying in Bruges the entire week, or you're able to pack up and move? I guess there is a week of stuff to do within an hour or two of Bruges, although I can't imagine spending more than 2 days in Bruges itself. You have Antwerp, Ghent, and Brussels within easy daytrip area, so those 3 + Brugges is plenty for a week. IMO it'd be better to spend like 4 nights in Bruges (1 full day Bruges, 1 full day Antwerp, 1 full day Ghent) and then switch to Brussels for 3 days, if you're not committed to staying in Bruges the entire time for some reason. We're staying in Bruges and doing day trips - we thought of moving around every couple days but we like comfort too much to travel with luggage and switch hotels every other day. And no car or youth discounts for us, unfortunately but an Internet browse gives the impression of decently working train and bus network. Any tips on traps for tourists to avoid? I saw someone complain about waffle houses selling rubbish to tourists and basically being fronts to drug businesses - can we with good conscience indulge in the slightly clichéd touristy things like belgian waffles and chocolate?
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Jul 5, 2017 18:53
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Contract Otter posted:We're staying in Bruges and doing day trips - we thought of moving around every couple days but we like comfort too much to travel with luggage and switch hotels every other day. And no car or youth discounts for us, unfortunately but an Internet browse gives the impression of decently working train and bus network. If you go to Leuven, Pinocchio has excellent, dangerously addictive fresh waffles which are not a scam. Even though they sell ice cream too. That's next to the Sint-Pieterskerk, the main church. For chocolate in Leuven, go to Bittersweet, they are very creative. That's next to the city hall.
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Jul 5, 2017 20:08
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Saladman posted:But what about the statue of the little kid pissing, which must be on the front cover of every Chinese guidebook about Europe. The text under it in Chinese reads "Look, foreigners let their kids piss in the street too!" Funnily enough I've been to Brussels twice and I've still never seen Mannekin Pis. The first trip we went specifically looking for it and couldn't find it, though this was long before google maps, smartphones or hordes of mainland Chinese.
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Jul 5, 2017 20:13
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Contract Otter posted:We're staying in Bruges and doing day trips - we thought of moving around every couple days but we like comfort too much to travel with luggage and switch hotels every other day. And no car or youth discounts for us, unfortunately but an Internet browse gives the impression of decently working train and bus network. In my experience, waffle places in Belgium are perfectly fine. Just look for a sort of cafe or restaurant where you can sit down and get a waffle with your coffee. Entropist is talking about take-away places, yeah those are crap. I mean there's nothing wrong with going to Leuven, but going there *just* for waffles while you can get pretty good waffles in every Belgian town? That's a bit silly.
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Jul 5, 2017 20:14
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Contract Otter posted:We're staying in Bruges and doing day trips - we thought of moving around every couple days but we like comfort too much to travel with luggage and switch hotels every other day. And no car or youth discounts for us, unfortunately but an Internet browse gives the impression of decently working train and bus network. I've honestly never heard anyone complain about waffle houses that aren't take away. Don't worry about it at all. Only tourist trap I can think of is that apparantly some restaurants around the Markt, Burg and Dijver are way too expensive for what you get (local people would never go there), but I don't know Burges well enough to recommend anything. Should be easy to find recommendations on the net though. The trains in Belgium are quite good and it should be very easy (and quite cheap) to travel to the other cities with them. In the weekend there are tickets at half price.
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Jul 5, 2017 20:41
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I didn't see if this was answered already, but what company do people use for travel insurance? I can't find reviews anywhere.
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Jul 6, 2017 04:08
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Carbon dioxide posted:In my experience, waffle places in Belgium are perfectly fine. Just look for a sort of cafe or restaurant where you can sit down and get a waffle with your coffee. Entropist is talking about take-away places, yeah those are crap. I mean there's nothing wrong with going to Leuven, but going there *just* for waffles while you can get pretty good waffles in every Belgian town? That's a bit silly. I go to Leuven just for a goon meet. Pretty hosed up in the head
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Jul 6, 2017 06:15
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Considering doing a trip that starts from Moscow in a few weeks. I currently live in Europe so I can be pretty flexible when buying tickets. Fly into Moscow Fly or Train into Saint Petersburg Fly or Train into Helsinki, Finland Ferry into Tallinn, Estonia Bus into Riga, Latvia Bus into Vilnius, Lithuania I plan to spend about 2 or so weeks with this itinerary. Anyone have any tips? Maybe skip some destinations? Places to go? How many days to spend in the cities?
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Jul 6, 2017 08:54
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That seems maybe a bit busy since you'd want to spend most of your time in Russia, so you would basically be rushing through the Baltics at the end. Though I guess the distances there are so short that for example staying only for like six hours in Tallinn is doable, so you could leave from Helsinki in the morning and get to Riga in the night. Although obviously Tallinn is a great place so it's worth staying overnight there. I haven't been to Riga or Vilnus. Flying from Petersburg to Helsinki would be silly, the train takes like less than three hours. The Moscow-Petersburg flight makes sense: the night trains have a certain charm and are relatively inexpensive, but I couldn't sleep on them at all, which kind of ruined my plans. I would end up in a city in the early morning, hadn't slept a wink, and I had to wait til 2pm to get into the hotel, at that point having been awake for 30 hours. It ruined whole days. Although obviously most people can sleep on them so ymmv. If you do end up taking the train you could visit Veliky Novgorod since it's practically half way between them. It has a really lovely medieval city centre, it's like one of the hearts of Old Russia. Moscow is huge and gorgeous - I'd stay a minimum of three nights if you want to actually do anything and not just enjoy the culture shock. Remember to take the metro a lot, it Rules. Petersburg is a very different kind of city - it's more Western, more artsy, cultural, fancy in an old fashioned way, people occasionally speak English, you can find vegan food. The difference between Europe and Russia basically. Again, I'd say a minimum of three nights would be good. We stayed I think four nights there last summer? but because it rained the whole loving time we barely got to see anything but bars and the Hermitage. As for Helsinki, I live here so I can answer questions, but I'd feel more comfortable making recommendations if I knew what you're into.
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Jul 6, 2017 10:10
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I just visited the Stockholm Armemuseum and really enjoyed the information on European warfare; any other suggestions on cities that have similar museums?
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Jul 9, 2017 18:19
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radlum posted:I just visited the Stockholm Armemuseum and really enjoyed the information on European warfare; any other suggestions on cities that have similar museums? I'm not sure what time period you're interested in, but Toledo, Spain has a good army/military museum. It's a day-trip from Madrid, though, not a place to bother spending days at a time IMO.
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Jul 9, 2017 19:33
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PT6A posted:I'm not sure what time period you're interested in, but Toledo, Spain has a good army/military museum. It's a day-trip from Madrid, though, not a place to bother spending days at a time IMO. Toledo is worth at least one night IMO, purely because it's much nicer in the evening/early morning when all the day-trippers have hosed off back to Madrid 
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Jul 9, 2017 19:46
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webmeister posted:Toledo is worth at least one night IMO, purely because it's much nicer in the evening/early morning when all the day-trippers have hosed off back to Madrid Good point, although the last train leaves shortly before 10PM so you can still enjoy the time period after the tour buses gently caress off.
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Jul 9, 2017 20:22
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radlum posted:I just visited the Stockholm Armemuseum and really enjoyed the information on European warfare; any other suggestions on cities that have similar museums? Musee des Invalides in Paris.
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Jul 9, 2017 20:54
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I'm a 25 year old who'se planning to go to the UK for the first time next week. I'm mostly interested in architectural and historical stuff, I don't care much about parties and going out. This is my itinerary for now, but I'm unsure of how long I should stay at each place. Note: I'll use the interrail pass and travel by train, so I can visit any 4 cities in the UK without having to worry about the prices of the traintickets. Day 1: Travel to London (in the morning) Day 6: Travel to Edinburgh Day 9: Travel to Liverpool Day 12: Travel to Oxford Day 14: Travel back home (in the evening) Questions: - How long should I stay in London? Because I'm buying an interrail anyway for the eurostar train anyway it makes sense to me to visit 4 cities, but I'm not sure how I should spread my 14 days among those cities. - I'm actually not sure whether Liverpool is the nicest/coolest place to visit. There are so many options. Suggestions? - I quite like going hiking, what's the best place of these 4 cities to go hiking for a day? I assume Edinburgh? - Because of the way interrail works, I could easily visit a city on each day I'm travelling. For example, insead of travelling from London to Edinburgh in one go, I could in the morning go to Newcastle (for example) and later in the evening continue to Edinburgh. Are there any such cities well worth a visit (small, doable in a few hours, etc) edit: suggestions for any hostels in any of these cities are certainly welcome as well, especially in London. Walh Hara fucked around with this message at 09:50 on Jul 10, 2017 |
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Jul 10, 2017 09:38
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Definitely go up Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, it's not a long hike but the view is great.
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Jul 10, 2017 09:42
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Walh Hara posted:I'm a 25 year old who'se planning to go to the UK for the first time next week. I'm mostly interested in architectural and historical stuff, I don't care much about parties and going out. Depending on your planned arrival, you might be able to do one less day in Oxford if you feel like you need more time elsewhere and could arrive early enough on Day 13 instead. The city centre is tiny and there aren't that many things to see beyond the colleges and perhaps the Ashmolean museum (think a small version of the British Museum). This of course depends a bit on whether you plan to see any colleges from the inside, or how many. If you have a few hours, you will start to come past the same places again and again (hello Broad Street). Also, the main shopping street (Cornmarket) isn't very nice, and they are building behind that. Some of the colleges are very pretty, however, so it's definitely worth having a look. My Lovely Horse posted:Definitely go up Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, it's not a long hike but the view is great. Also, this is correct. Ditto for Calton Hill/National Monument.
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Jul 10, 2017 13:59
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My Lovely Horse posted:Definitely go up Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh, it's not a long hike but the view is great. Another Yes for this! The weather there is no joke, we went up in beautiful warm sunny weather and came down the other side in driving rain... It was nuts. I loved Endinburgh as it reminds me of a MC Escher drawing come to life!
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Jul 10, 2017 19:26
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Walh Hara posted:I'm a 25 year old who'se planning to go to the UK for the first time next week. I'm mostly interested in architectural and historical stuff, I don't care much about parties and going out. With London, how long you spend there just depends on your budget and what you think you'll find interesting. I reckon you could stay for six months and still not run out of stuff to do (assuming you have fairly broad interests). A starting point (by no means exhaustive): - Tower of London - British Museum - National Gallery - Portrait Gallery - Westminster Abbey - Tate Modern - Globe Theatre - Wander around Shoreditch - Camden Markets - Borough Markets - St Paul's Cathedral - Hyde Park - Science Museum - Buckingham Palace & changing of the guard - Day trip to Stonehenge or Bath or both With the journey up to Edinburgh, maybe break it up in York? It's basically on the way, fairly compact, doesn't take too long to explore and has interesting buildings. Take a wander around the Shambles markets, check out the York Minster cathedral and the city walls, have a beer in a 500 year old pub and then get back on the train. I'd definitely recommend Liverpool! I grew up with family from Manchester (rival city) so all my life I'd heard negative stories and things about Liverpool. But I was completely taken aback - it's young, friendly, vibrant and really interesting. Check out the Pier Head area (you'll love the architecture), the Albert Dock is interesting and home to several museums, plus there's the cultural quarter around St George's Hall which has some great neo-classical buildings. Lots of trendy pubs, restaurants and cafes around too, since there's a huge student population. Yeah there are definitely some lovely parts of the city, but the centre is definitely fine. I did a travelogue video about the world heritage aspects of the city if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRkILmEPkdw And yeah, Edinburgh is your best bet for hiking in those cities. Arthur's Seat is great, though it's a 45 minute climb at most (probably less if you're a fit/experienced hiker).
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Jul 10, 2017 20:27
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If you have an interest in war history that isn't just guns and bombs, go visit Bletchley Park, it's a pretty short ride out from London.
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Jul 10, 2017 20:40
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Collateral Damage posted:If you have an interest in war history that isn't just guns and bombs, go visit Bletchley Park, it's a pretty short ride out from London. Absolutely. It's just off the train line into Kings Cross as well so you could easily fit it in to a travelling day too.
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Jul 10, 2017 20:54
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Churchill's War Rooms are pretty good for WW2 stuff as well, and that's right in the centre of London
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Jul 10, 2017 22:36
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webmeister posted:I'd definitely recommend Liverpool! I grew up with family from Manchester (rival city) so all my life I'd heard negative stories and things about Liverpool. That's kinda funny, my entire mom's side is from Liverpool so I'm kind of the opposite of you... Although I don't remember anyone speaking poorly of Manchester? Basically it came down to being a red (Liverpool FBC) or a blue (Everton). My family is 100% blue and speaks fluent scouse! I can barely understand my cousins at times... Both cities are great, but I really loved having afternoon tea at the Panoramic 34 in Liverpool. Some of the best scones around ☺️
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Jul 11, 2017 02:57
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