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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Pinch Me..I'm in Ireland!

Next up on our travelogue...Ireland!   What can I say?    It was everything we'd hoped it would be...which was basically a country full of green (natural and man-made), stunning scenery,  and lots of personality!   We were enamored! 

On Saturday, we woke up early and took a tour bus along the Wild Atlantic Way.  Part of the route looked a bit like this with crazy hairpin curves that made us very glad that we weren't driving! 

We were very impressed with how green it was, despite it being the first week of March!

The end destination for our tour was out to the breathtaking Cliffs of Moher (also known as the "Cliffs of Insanity"--in case you happen to be Princess Bride fans.)     We very much enjoyed the  opportunity to see this iconic Irish site and we are pretty sure we saw a couple puffins while we were there, so that was cool as well!

Apparently, it's a somewhat regular occurrence that people die along the cliffs and, as such, they had many of the trails closed.  I'm not sure if they were seasonal closures or permanent, but this memorial was a sobering reminder not to do anything stupid...not that we are prone to doing stupid things...but, you know, just in case. 

After the Cliffs of Moher, we headed to the quaint little town of Galway!  We very much enjoyed wandering around this adorable place and Glen was quite excited/surprised to find the latest Brandon Sanderson book in the local bookstore. 

We had a full two hours to explore, but we wished we had scheduled a whole day.   

But, alas, we saw as much as we could in that 2 hours and then boarded the bus back to our hotel in Dublin. 

On Sunday we took a public bus to church...

and met a friend of a friend (Jen B.) there...

and saw the same sister missionaries we'd run into in Edinburgh the week before. 

It was a gorgeous day, so we  decided to walk back to the hotel, rather than taking the bus, so we could see more of the city.  

We started our trek back to the hotel by walking through the Glasnevin Cemetery and National Botanic Gardens, both of which were located very near the chapel.   

We really enjoyed our walk  through the National Botanic Gardens and were very much amazed at all the signs of spring, none of which were visible here in Utah when we returned, despite Dublin being full 12° latitude further north than Utah.  

We enjoyed the walk back through Dublin and spent the next day and half seeing as much as we could. 

On a whim, we  visited the National Gallery of Ireland when we realized that it had free admission...

Totally worth the spontaneous stop! 

We also visited the  Little Museum of Dublin after seeing a lot of advertisements for it and seeing it had good reviews on Trip Advisor, but we frankly found it a rip-off.   It was full of quirky exhibits like this tennis ball collection, as found by Dublin dogs...

and this one dedicated to U2...

and I don't even know what to say about this one...a little off-color/weird/who-the-heck-knows, but it mentions postcards, so that's up my alley at least!   All in all, worth maybe $5-7 to see, but we left feeling taken advantage of after the price we paid to be there! 

On the other hand, one of the highlights of our time in Dublin was EPIC-the of Irish Emigration Museum-and admission to it cost the same as the Little Museum, but was 100 times the better experience.   Honestly it was one of the better museums I've ever been to and I would totally recommend it for someone in Dublin who wants to learn more about Irish culture and heritage.

I didn't take many photos there, because it was so interactive, but here's one goofy one...

and one of the scenes you happen upon right after entering the museum...

To wrap up all about Ireland,  I'll finish up with a few more shots from around Dublin...

We had an absolutely lovely time in Ireland and would highly recommend a visit to anyone thinking about where to go next.    Then on Tuesday morning, we took the tram to the airport and took off for home.  Here's our final view of beautiful Ireland...

Stay tuned for one more trip blogpost to come.  Yes, yes, I know I said this was the end of the trip and that is true, but I still have one more leg - between Scotland and Northern Ireland - to post about.  😊

Beautiful Northern Ireland!

  Everyone in my family has a bit of wanderlust in them, but my brother, Nate, is the absolute king of travel and he makes the rest of us look like homebodies by comparison!   He had a goal to make it to 100 countries by the time he turned 50, which he accomplished and now he is going back to visit his favorite places and occasionally adding new destinations when it fits into his plans. So when he found out that we were visiting Northern Ireland on our trip (a place he'd never been), he spontaneously  added it onto his itinerary for a trip he was taking at the same time.   Where were the other destinations on his  trip to?   Cape Verde and the Azores in Portugal...you know right on the way to Northern Ireland!   Haha!  

Our overlap with Nate was about a day-and-a-half, so we reserved a spot for him to come along  with us on our day-long tour, which included  stops at Carrickfergus Castle, some Game of Thrones filming sites, and Giant's Causeway. 

You all probably didn't know this about me, but I am a bit of a geology nerd.  I took several geology classes in college and I LOVE visiting places in the world with unique geologic features.   Basically that means that Giant's Causeway was on the very top of my list of all the things to do in Northern Ireland and it did not disappoint.   I was nervous as we approached as it did not look like much from a distance, but up close it was as AMAZING as I had expected!    

Can you believe this place is real?!    😁

I was seriously enamored with this view and in awe at a great God who set into motion the natural processes that created such a masterpiece...

 I think I took more pictures here than at any other single location on this trip...

In case you're wondering how these striking hexagonal basalt columns just naturally formed on the Northern Irish coast, here is an excerpt from the UNESCO Heritage page about Giant's Causeway that can explain it way better than I ever could: 

"The Giant’s Causeway and Causeway Coast is a spectacular area of global geological importance on the sea coast at the edge of the Antrim plateau in Northern Ireland. The most characteristic and unique feature of the site is the exposure of some 40,000 large, regularly shaped polygonal columns of basalt in perfect horizontal sections, forming a pavement. This dramatic sight has inspired legends of giants striding over the sea to Scotland. Celebrated in the arts and in science, it has been a visitor attraction for at least 300 years and has come to be regarded as a symbol for Northern Ireland.

The property’s accessible array of curious geological exposures and polygonal columnar formations formed around 60 million years ago make it a ‘classic locality’ for the study of basaltic volcanism. The features of the Giant’s Causeway and Causeway Coast site and in particular the strata exposed in the cliff faces, have been key to shaping the understanding of the sequences of activity in the Earth’s geological history."

I could have stayed all day, but eventually the tour moved on and we explored  a couple other interesting spots before heading back to Belfast! 

The next day we bid adieu to Nate, who was heading back to Dublin for his flight home and we explored Belfast.  We logged A LOT of steps that day and enjoyed seeing everything we could possibly squeeze in.  

We particularly enjoyed the Titanic Museum {shown below} and were fascinated to learn about the construction of the Titanic, which took place on the museum's site right there on the port in Belfast.   

We thought this street was super cute and we loved the quote arched across the way, "There's only seven types of rain in Belfast:  Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday..."   Thankfully it only rained a little while we were there! 

Northern Ireland ended up being one of our favorite spots on the trip, so I will finish up with a few random facts about Northern Ireland that we learned while we were there:

1. Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom, while Ireland is not.   They use the same currency and same postage as most of the UK (including England, Scotland, and Wales...but not including Ireland).  

2. Though Northern Ireland has its own culture, it does not have its own flag. 

3.  As mentioned above, the Titanic was constructed and launched from Belfast, though it did not pick up any passengers until reaching England/France. 

4. There is still a lot of conflict between Protestants and Roman Catholics.  

5. Game of Thrones was filmed on location in Northern Ireland for almost a decade.  The Northern Irish are very proud of this connection and it ended up being a great boost to their economy.  We've never seen the show before, but didn't have a hard time imagining why it was chosen as the backdrop for a show. 

We stopped by several Game of Thrones filming sites--including Dark Hedges (shown below)--on our Giant's Causeway tour.  

And that's it for Northern Ireland!   Thanks for following along with our adventures...stay tuned for 2 more segments to come!