2 reasons why you need to go to Beligium

What comes to mind when you think of Belgium? Me – it’s waffles and beer! On our latest trip away I couldn’t wait to taste both. For a while I knew I wanted to visit Belgium but didn’t really know where the best place to go – where I could experience the small town atmosphere but have enough to do I wouldn’t be bored….

After lots of research we narrowed it down to two places:

Ghent
A friend, who had visited over 10 times because she loved the place so much, recommended Ghent to me and I can see why. When you first arrive you can’t help but be drawn to Cathedral street – where there are three churches in quick succession! Then you have the canals and the beautiful bridges that criss cross over them! It’s easy to get lost in the city, and I would recommend doing so as that’s when you might just stumble over a little gem – like this graffiti street!

Make sure you pop into as many of the pubs and bars as possible and try a different beer in each – be careful they are a lot stronger than they are at home! My favourite was Westmalle Trappiest, which is a dark beer (something I’ve never liked before)!

Another recommendation would be to head up the Cathedral tower for some spectacular views over the city and the other churches too. One place I would recommend for a bit to eat is Allegro Moderato – tasty food but the view is also great being right on the canal edge.

Bruges
Bruges was named a Unesco World Heritage site and is smaller than Ghent but has everything you need for a weekend away. It’s so pretty that it looks like it could be in a fairy tale, with cobbled streets and is one of the best preserved medieval cities in Belgium.

If you are here in the summer one way to see the place is to grab a bike and cycle round the city or even better jump on a boat and get a guided tour! Plus you will be stepping onto a film set as ‘In Bruges’ was actually filmed in Bruges… who would have guessed!

Other things not to miss are Bruges only independent brewery, the Church of Our Lady and the belfry. I would also recommend Ribs n Beer for your fix of meat and of course Belgium’s infamous beer.

In the end we picked Ghent – it seemed small enough we could tackle it one weekend but big enough we wouldn’t get bored. It was absolutely perfect, I think we may have tried at least 30 different beers and found the best Belgium waffle place within a couple of hours of getting there. I also fell I love with a chocolate spread which is even better than Nutella! Safe to say we may have pigged out a little whilst we were there, but with brilliant food it was hard not to.

The best way to get across the channel from up norf is to hop on overnight ferry to Belgium from Hull to Zeebrugge. This drops you off very close to Bruges, probably the next place I want to go to in Belgium and is only a short distance away from Ghent too!

---

 

This post was sponsored by P&O UK.