First trip to Belgium
This thursday I went to Belgium with my girlfriend. It was my birthday on friday. So it was part of my birthday present :) One of my reasons for wanting to study in Holland was the prospects of being able to travel all around europe because I am essentially in the middle. Unfortunately that has not quite happened. I have been here more than one and a half year and I had still not been to Belgium.
Belgium was in someway what I had expected but also not like expected. People tell me that Belgium is more chaotic and less organized than Holland. At the same time they say that Belgium people are friendlier and that there is a stronger food tradition. I guess one could say the Dutch eat to live and the Belgium live to eat (to misquote a popular phrase). Belgium has also suffered more economic hardship in the past.
However Belgium does not stand back to Holland. And I guess this is my biggest surprise. There are some really beautiful parts in Belgium cities unlike anything I have seen in the Netherlands. A lot has probably to do with the fact that they are catholic. The old houses and buildings are much richer decorated: there a lots of ornamentation, carved out status, spires and gold on the buildings. Even the windows can be very intricate and beautiful. Dutch houses and buildings are usually much simpler looking.
However I do find it hard to say that one is better than the other. The dutch seem to have preserved their cities better and they have a more consistent style. We were only in Ghent and Antwerpen so those are the only cities I can use to make some premature sweeping generalizations about Belgium. But anyway, I find that in Belgium one can walk from one overly Beautiful part of town to a really shitty neighborhood or run down buildings within a few minutes. There seems also to be much larger span of styles and architectures than what I am used to from the Netherlands.
Both Antwerpen and Ghent had truly picturesque areas and I cursed myself constantly for having forgotten my camera at home.
Belgium also struck me as more tourist friendly than the Netherlands. One does not need to know about the strippenkart system to take buses cheap or use chipknip cards to get a train ticket. These are things that are nice for us who live in the Netherlands but seems to be a constant source of confusion to the newcomers to the country. In Belgium you can usually pay everything with cash and buying single tram tickets is cheap, just 1 euro.
They also seemed to have more special stores that would be of interest to tourists, there are loads of exclusive little stores. It is crazy how many chocolate stores they have.
Ghent is about the same size as Utrecht but had a lot larger variety of things to see and the city center felt larger. Probably because Ghent was a more important city than Utrecht in the past and thus have accumulated big buildings over longer time. E.g. Ghent had several large cathedrals and towers not just one like in Utrecht. They are all very large and their is even an mediaeval castle in the middle of the city! Actually it was just a couple of minutes from the bed and breakfast we stayed at.
Anyway I can highly recommend anybody to go to Belgium. It is interesting to see how similar Belgium and the Netherlands are but still they have easily recognizable differences.
Belgium was in someway what I had expected but also not like expected. People tell me that Belgium is more chaotic and less organized than Holland. At the same time they say that Belgium people are friendlier and that there is a stronger food tradition. I guess one could say the Dutch eat to live and the Belgium live to eat (to misquote a popular phrase). Belgium has also suffered more economic hardship in the past.
However Belgium does not stand back to Holland. And I guess this is my biggest surprise. There are some really beautiful parts in Belgium cities unlike anything I have seen in the Netherlands. A lot has probably to do with the fact that they are catholic. The old houses and buildings are much richer decorated: there a lots of ornamentation, carved out status, spires and gold on the buildings. Even the windows can be very intricate and beautiful. Dutch houses and buildings are usually much simpler looking.
However I do find it hard to say that one is better than the other. The dutch seem to have preserved their cities better and they have a more consistent style. We were only in Ghent and Antwerpen so those are the only cities I can use to make some premature sweeping generalizations about Belgium. But anyway, I find that in Belgium one can walk from one overly Beautiful part of town to a really shitty neighborhood or run down buildings within a few minutes. There seems also to be much larger span of styles and architectures than what I am used to from the Netherlands.
Both Antwerpen and Ghent had truly picturesque areas and I cursed myself constantly for having forgotten my camera at home.
Belgium also struck me as more tourist friendly than the Netherlands. One does not need to know about the strippenkart system to take buses cheap or use chipknip cards to get a train ticket. These are things that are nice for us who live in the Netherlands but seems to be a constant source of confusion to the newcomers to the country. In Belgium you can usually pay everything with cash and buying single tram tickets is cheap, just 1 euro.
They also seemed to have more special stores that would be of interest to tourists, there are loads of exclusive little stores. It is crazy how many chocolate stores they have.
Ghent is about the same size as Utrecht but had a lot larger variety of things to see and the city center felt larger. Probably because Ghent was a more important city than Utrecht in the past and thus have accumulated big buildings over longer time. E.g. Ghent had several large cathedrals and towers not just one like in Utrecht. They are all very large and their is even an mediaeval castle in the middle of the city! Actually it was just a couple of minutes from the bed and breakfast we stayed at.
Anyway I can highly recommend anybody to go to Belgium. It is interesting to see how similar Belgium and the Netherlands are but still they have easily recognizable differences.
posted by Adam Smith at 02:10
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