Belgium

7th August- We didn’t even realise we were in Belgium until we stopped for supplies! Where is the “Welcome to Belgium” sign? Well, the answer is that there isn’t one in any of the countries therefore it makes it difficult to know when you’ve left one country and entered another as they just blur into one another. Anyway, it has been a whole week since we’d left the U.K. and we were now exploring our second country; we didn’t have a planned route of any sort so just picked where we fancied.

We stopped in Camping Grimbergen for 2 nights which is only a bus ride from Brussels which we went to visit the following day. We were all in our summer gear when the heavens opened up just as we stepped off the bus but it soon cleared up and all was sunny again. We stopped so I could get some waffles- we are in Belgium after all. However, they were really disappointing and not up to the expectation I was hoping for. Never mind hey!

We walked around admiring all of Brussels ornate architecture and chanced upon the Mannekin pis statue after I walked past a window full of the colourful things and I’m sorry to say but I had to laugh and take a picture! I had never heard of it before, have you? Apparently it’s really famous.

Our little girl had made friends with our neighbours daughter back at the campsite- a Dutch girl and also a Spanish girl further into the camp so she was happy scooting along and playing for the rest of the day before we upped and left for Antwerp the following day.

My husband wasn’t feeling well the next day and we got lost trying to find this campsite that was supposedly in the middle of a park but we had no idea how to get into it so spent ages driving around trying to figure it out and then found out it either doesn’t even exist or they are renovating it as when we finally managed to navigate our way in, there was building works going on. Luckily there was another site we had noticed when driving around not far from it so we went there instead. It was near Antwerp Expo and it was a huge motorhome carpark where you had to pay separately for electricity. The owners were really nice and helpful though and gave us a map of the city along with tourist attractions on it. We decided to make our way into the centre via tram and head for either the chocolate factory or the zoo- a decision we left up to our little girl and surprisingly she said the former. Well the chocolate factory called Chocolate Nation was right outside the station just on the corner so we didn’t have far to go. It was a good experience but to be honest I wouldn’t do it again as I don’t really think it’s worth it- I was hoping to be able to tour around an actual chocolate factory you know, but instead it was like a descriptive tour about chocolate and Belgian chocolate production. However, I think it’s safe to say that everyone enjoyed the tasting room!

The architecture in Antwerp is beautiful too, especially the grand station which is right next to the zoo! A zoo in the centre! Diamonds are what Antwerp is famous for if you didn’t know (I didn’t!) So as you can imagine there were diamond/jewellery shops everywhere you turned. It also happened to be Pride when we were there and so there were rainbows everywhere, much to our daughters delight who absolutely loves rainbows and decided to blend in by putting on her rainbow raincoat and then repeatedly pointed out all the rainbow coloured features she could see in shop windows, bunting along the streets and balloons etc. It also started a very grown up conversation about what pride is and why it’s important. While she may not have understood everything we said to her I still think it’s important to talk about these things with children.

Her little face was a delight to see as she excitedly pointed everything out and even more so when we stopped by a colourful bus that had rainbow face pictures on the floor around it and a table where you could get your own temporary pride tattoo- which we got to show our support of course.

The following day we headed towards the park that supposedly had the campsite we were originally trying to find as it was huge and we had clocked an awesome looking playground that we thought the children would love. Well it was an awesome playground and it was huge!! Even I was excited and it brought the inner child in me out- I did just want to clamber up everything and swing around like a monkey but I held myself together and just climbed up a few things- to help my daughter out you know (wink wink) no honestly, that’s the absolute truth apart from the hammock swing which I just couldn’t resist to try on my own. The whole area was safe for any age as the ground was covered with sand and it had two separate parks depending on age but of course our little girl went on both and why not. It was amazing, it was a child’s dream! All made from wood and ropes. What I would have given to have a playground like this when I was younger. Even my husband got into the spirit of things and climbed a tree!

We moved on and walked through the park (Nachtegalen Park) back towards the entrance we came in and stopped to get ice cream before crossing over to have a look at the beautiful building and gardens opposite which looked like a palace- turns out it was a restaurant and the gardens housed other restaurants within- it was so beautiful and romantic and all it was missing was twinkly fairy lights along the walkways by the stream towards the different buildings.

And the houses!! We did a lot of ‘house porn’ whilst in Belgium as the houses were huge, modern and different from each other with beautiful brickwork and lots of huge windows. Our heads were constantly on the swivel as we made our way back towards France; we were going to go to Luxembourg but there was a tornado there a few days ago and we decided against it but also thought that we should do the coast of France first as it seemed the most logical route.

The roads in Belgium though are awful because they are concrete so it was a very bumpy ride and also there were hardly any speed signs so my poor husband had no idea what speed he should be going at but we took this in our stride and laughed about it along the way along with not knowing what language we should have been speaking. So goodbye Belgium (for now) and Bonjour France.