Belgium 2024

We spent about 3.5 months in Belgium visiting R’s family and organising my visa, ID cards, healthcare, a car, etc. While there, we had a few visitors and made several day trips visiting different places in Belgium. Here is a quick overview of the places we visited (in alphabetical order, not chronological).

Antwerp

We spent several days (nearly once per week) visiting Antwerp. It’s such a great city! It has a beautiful cathedral filled with Rubens paintings, several nice squares, nooks and crannies and some fun museums.

Downtown

Cathedral

The Antwerp cathedral is really beautiful and has several Rubens paintings (he’s from Antwerp).

Illusion museum

This was a fun museum that we spent a couple of hours in.

Bruges (Brugge)

This town is very popular and is always packed with tourists.

Brussels

Gent (Ghent)

Gent is probably my favourite place in Belgium. What’s not to love about a town with 2 castles in it and several canals? I’m not sure why internationally Bruges is known more as a tourist destination than Gent.

Ypers / Iper and Flanders Fields

We spent the day teaching the kids about the various WWI battles that were fought in southwestern Belgium. We visited various cemeteries (allied forces and a German one). And we spent some time in the town of Ypers which was completely destroyed during WWI, but has since been rebuilt as it originally was. They had a really amazing Flanders Fields museum there.

Beer

And of course, one of the best things about visiting Belgium is drinking the delicious beers!