Belgium
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Moving About
The ferry service from Ostende Belgium to England has not existed for the past 3 years. Need to catch train to Calais.
Anthony Oldfield, Australia (Jan 05)
Scams and Warnings
One caution: the restaurants around the central squares in Brugges have adopted a couple of tactics. They advertise a menu for reasonable rate, then when you are seated they present you with a list of menus significantly more expensive. You can only get the (very well advertised) cheaper menu by specifically asking for it. Also, beware of additional charges, like €7 for a bottle of water, and €4 to add a sauce to a steak. We were somewhat shocked given that the menu was €16.
Russ Speiser, France (Sep 04)
Gems, Highlights & Attractions
One of the most romantic things about Gent is walking around the town at night. Someone gave great thought to the lighting of the buildings on both sides of the main canal. It is very romantic to sit at one of the canslside restaurants sipping your wine late into the night.
Anonymous, USA (Oct 05)
One great thing that I've greatly enjoyed and could imagine a lot of foreigners enjoying, is the Place Luxembourg. Hundreads of eurocrats gather there every day for after-work drinks and in the bars (around 8 in total) have a happy-hour from 6-7pm. Apparently this is a tradition of severel years and is not likely to be changed any time soon. In the bars one can also enjoy good and afforadable pub food.
Around Porte de Hal (towards St.Gilles) there is a flea market on the streets every Saturday morning. This is a very colourful area of Brussels and walking around this part of the city and enjoying the ethnic food from stands (Portuguese, Albanian, Northern African and Middle Eastern) is a good way of appreciating this pretty area, which otherwise has a reputation of somewhat dodgy neighborhood and contains not many sights as such for tourists.
Maria Kekki, Belgium (Oct 05)
Baarle-Hertog-Nassau: I feel that there should be some mention of the oddity that is the town of Baarle. Itâ??s a town thatâ??s in the Netherlands about 5 km beyond the Belgian border but is actually Belgian. But thatâ??s not all â?? there are areas of the Netherlands within it, and itâ??s only a small town. In other words its exclaves of the Netherlands completely surrounded by Belgian territory which are in turn completely surrounded by the territory of the Netherlands!
The Belgian areas (the bulk) are called Baarle-Hertog and the Dutch are called Baarle-Nassau. An interesting point is that as each house is deemed to pay taxes in the country where its front door is located, it is an old tradition in Baarle to move the front door some meters if that is profitable for the taxes, especially for shops.
Richard Barker, UK (Mar 05)
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