A Quick Pit-stop on the Mainland: Belgium and Luxembourg

I'm aware that this blogpost will expose me as the travel nerds we are, but you probably already knew that to a certain extent, so I'm going for it.  So far I've blogged about  Scotland (the first leg of our trip),  Northern Ireland (the third leg of our trip), and  Ireland (the fourth and final leg),  but we had a pitstop in Belgium/Luxembourg between Scotland and Northern Ireland.  Why?  Because  Glen had never been to either one of them and we thought we'd take advantage while we were in the "vicinity".  Of course, the term vicinity is being used lightly here since they were a plane ride away, but relatively speaking we were much closer to Belgium/Luxembourg than we normally are and inter-Europe flights on RyanAir can be found for  cheap.  

So we went for it.  

It was a pretty quick trip, because we didn't want to short-change the British Isles, but we ended up really enjoying this fun little foray into mainland Europe for a few days.  In fact, if you ask Glen what his favorite part of the trip was, he'll likely tell you that he loved all the places we visited, but Belgium was his favorite.  And we both agree that it definitely had the best food and that's not even close!

We arrived into the Brussels Charleroi Airport (the small airport RyanAir flies into) and immediately jumped on a bus to Ghent.   We chose Ghent, because we had time for one city and it had been one of our favorite stops when I took the kids to Belgium in 2019. 

We figured since we were only spending 2 nights in Belgium, that we should get a hotel as centrally located as possible.   The Ghent Marriott (right where my finger is pointing ) is located right on the canal and was ideal for exploring the city! 

We were very excited to locate a Belgian waffle place nearby THAT HAD GLUTEN FREE WAFFLES TOO!   I  might have been a bit giddy about that and we definitely stopped there a couple times!  They even had gluten free speculoos topping for it that made me extra happy.

I was excited to introduce Glen to the Ghent "noses" that we discovered on our last trip here.   They're a locally made gummy candy that resemble a nose shape, hence the name.   

They're decently good (especially when fresh), but, frankly, I was more excited by other Belgian foodie finds.  We ate well on this leg of our trip!   

Since we only had a short time in Belgium, we debated about the most effective way to see the sites.  Ghent is a fairly compact city, but we'd walk by things, and think, "Wow, that's beautiful," then not really know anything else about it.  

What we ended up doing is buying a Scavenger Hunt off of Trip Adviser, which was a perfect way to see the city.  It took us to all the big sites (and some smaller ones), would give us information about them when we arrived, and even had games/challenges we could try.

I liked that we could go at our own speed, taking time to go inside those places that interested us.  We definitely saw a lot more of the city than we would have just by wandering. 

I was flooded with nostalgia when the scavenger hunt brought us to this alley filled with graffiti.   I had totally forgotten that this was in Ghent and we have several pictures of Ellie and Adam here from 2019.   I actually love when cities provide graffiti zones where local artists can showcase their talents. 

Between the food, the gorgeous architecture, and the walkability of Ghent, we were pretty enamored.   

We were a little reluctant to leave here after just two days, but it was time for one last adventure on the mainland before heading back to the Isles.  

Early the next morning, we packed up our luggage and hopped on a train for Luxembourg.  

It was about a 4-hour train ride, but the scenery between Ghent and Luxembourg City was stunning...especially the closer to Luxembourg we got.  It was hard to take pictures on a moving train, but here was one that actually turned out okay. 

  

We only had about 24 hours in Luxembourg City, so we logged A LOT of miles trying to see as much as humanly possible in that 24 hours.  

Luxembourg City was definitely the least touristy of the cities we visited, which meant finding postcards was harder than even usual.    It's like sending snail mail is a dying art or something. 😆 I never did find very pretty postcards there, but I laughed A LOT when we came across this one...

I've shopped for postcards in a lot of different places before and had never seen that kind of humor expressed on a postcard before.  The only thing I could figure was that at some point maybe some postcard manufacturer got Luxembourg mixed up with Luxor, Egypt and they just decided to go with it and make into a joke postcard.   My kids were VERY confused when they got theirs and originally thought they were delayed postcards from our trip to Egypt in 2023 (which I still haven't blogged about)!  

Food was also a bit of a disappointment in Luxembourg, but luckily we had been well-fed in Belgium, so it was all good. 
 
Luxembourg City is built into deep gorges formed by two rivers, which means that it's really a multi-level city.

We found a glass elevator that would take us between the upper and lower parts of the city without exhausting ourselves!   

This was taken at one of the biggest attractions in the city...Bock Casemates and the view from there was pretty spectacular. 

In fact, we found ourselves in awe of the amazing view quite a lot while walking around the city. 

And I'd say that at least 50% of the photos we took in Luxembourg were of gorgeous overlooks like this one...

We were also  excited to run into missionaries in the short time we were there.  They were out with friends doing a running club and asked us to take a few photos for them.   We hadn't even noticed there missionaries among them when they first approached us to take their photo, but they were so cute when we all realized.   I think their friends were as excited to meet Mormons "in the wild" as the missionaries were!  It certainly made our day, especially since the last time I'd been in Luxembourg was when I was 14 and we stopped to visit my cousin, Scott, who was serving his mission there in 1987, so it seemed only fitting to see missionaries here again, nearly 40 years later! 

We very much enjoyed our time in both Belgium and Luxembourg...

But before we knew it, it was time to head back to the British Isles....Luxembourg to Belfast, then Dublin, then home...

And now, the trip blogposts are done, and I'm back to real life!

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