Antwerp, Belgium

The next morning we woke up early to catch tram back to Ghent St Pieters station and a train to Antwerp Central. Antwerp was a major power in global trade in the 16th century (roughly 40% passed through its ports) and grew rich on the pepper and textile market. However, it declined in fortune when the Dutch took control and trade moved to Amsterdam in preference to Antwerp.In modern times Antwerp is best-known for the diamond trade with 80% of the world's rough cut diamonds passing through the city's 'diamond district' and many retail shops offering a range of jewellery 

Ghent, Belgium

A weekend visiting Christmas Markets in Europe is an annual tradition for many Southern Hemisphere expats that live in London.
A cold Christmas makes the festive celebrations feel more traditional, and over the past two winters we have enjoyed mulled wine, sausages and a creamy stew of potatoes with ham in Cologne and Vienna.

This year we traveled by Eurostar train to Belgium where we enjoyed the festive treats on offer in Ghent and Antwerp - with separate blog posts written for each city.

Brussels New Years Eve

Celebrating the arrival of 2013 in Brussels was last minute decision based on price. We had searched around for other popular destinations, but the sky-rocketing prices in Edinburgh for Hogmanay and the mark-up on warmer Mediterranean options of Portugal, Spain and Malta; meant that we had limited options. Even though by the time December arrived and we were looking forward to sunshine and respite from a cold dreary stint of London weather; unfortunately the land of beer, waffles, mussels and chocolate did not offer appropriate festive weather and for the three days of our trip, it rained, rained and rained.

Brussels, Belgium

Travelling from Bruges to Brussels takes about an hour long journey. We eventually landed ourselves at the Central station and headed in the direction of the main square - Grand Place, voted the most beautiful square in Europe in 2010.

Brussels has often been mentioned by our expat friends as the boring second city compared to the beauty of Bruges as it was full of EU government buildings. We concluded otherwise, finding it to have just as much charm, great food and interesting architecture as Bruges.

Bruges, Belgium

Belgium may only be a small country but holds its weight in terms of things to eat,see and drink. We travelled to two cities in Belgium over a single weekend - Bruges and Brussels. The fact that we only knew how to speak English did not hinder our travels, as most tourist directions and menus are multilingual - French, Dutch, English, German; and the locals were helpful in providing assistance.
This made the experience of eating mussel pots, waffles and chocolate some of the reasons we love travelling around Europe.