To the best of my recollection, I’ve never had a single day in my life where I visited two different countries (each for the first time). I’ve had a few days where I stopped in multiple countries, but never such that two countries were both new to me.
That is, until today. I started the day in Trier and caught a relatively early (for me, before 9am IS early) train to Luxembourg (about an hour away). The train ride from Trier was through the countryside, with fields of corn and hay, along with grazing land. Upon my arrival, I stuffed my luggage into a locker and set off to wander around the city. The main sights are about 10 minutes away from the train station. Luxembourg City doesn’t have any spectacular sights (or at least that I saw), but it is very nice. The main city is on a bit of a hill, surrounded by a very nice park (in what would be a very large moat). I walked around, took pictures and took advantage of the city’s free wireless internet service, then walked back to the train station. In total, I spent three hours touring the city. My only mistake was that I forgot to initially ask the tourist information person where I could get my passport stamped (they didn’t do it on the train). The unfortunate answer (which I found out too late) was it can only be done at the tourist office in the center city. As it was about 15 minutes until my train (the next train was in 1 hour) and I didn’t think it was worthwhile to walk back and forth for just a passport stamp, I moved on.
I got on the train headed for Brussels. Just like Luxembourg, I’d never previously been to Belgium. However, I had enjoyed a few Belgian Waffles (and even Belgian Beers) previously, but have never been a big fan of their sprouts. The train ride (about 3 hours) went mostly the countryside. One thought: Belgium is officially bilingual (French and Flemish). I wonder…doesn’t that put an awful strain on the animals? Imagine a poor cow, having to take time from his busy grazing schedule to be fluent in two languages! It just doesn’t seem right.
The weather was fairly nice and sunny when I left Luxembourg (albeit a bit chilly). As I got closer to Brussels, the sky was gray. I’m prepared for this, because the first thing my tour book said about Belgium is that the weather is predictably unpredictable. This means my raincoat and umbrella will be close at hand for the next couple of days.
As I was able to secure a place to stay in Bruges, my stay in Brussels today is limited to changing trains. The process of securing a hotel was complicated by the fact that my cell phone call got dropped a couple of times. Thankfully, the person at the hotel was very kind regarding this inconvenience.
Upon arrival at the main Brussels train station, I could have caught a train to Bruges in a matter of seconds (just across the platform). However, to get to Bruges, I had to know what the ultimate destination of the train was. As the most convenient and timely train was out, I was fortunate that another would come along 30 minutes later. I took the time to wander around the station; it is very large and has trains headed for seemingly everywhere. My train left Brussels at about 5pm, and was absolutely packed (including 1st class, which was a first for me). However, the train cleared out considerably after the first stop (Ghent). The Bruges train station is under massive reconstruction, so much so that the steps from the platform made of plywood. To get to my hotel, I took one of the many buses headed for the “Markt” (the old marketplace), then walked about 4 blocks (cobblestones) to my hotel. It was situated right next to a canal & I had decided to spring the extra 5 Euros to secure a canal view. This part of Bruges could easily be transplanted into the Netherlands without skipping a beat. The canals, bicycles and Flemish language (very similar to Dutch) made me feel like I had returned to Holland. After resting awhile, I spent some time in the hotel lobby taking advantage of free wi-fi (arranging my final hotel as well as checking my seats for the flight home [good thing, as I now have a better chance of having an empty middle seat for my first leg, although the second leg looks pretty grim]), before heading out for a late dinner. There are a series of cafes that line the Markt, all seemingly aimed at the tourist trade. I opted for a Chinese meal a few steps off the Markt. The server probably spoke more languages than I do, but unfortunately we didn’t have one in common. The food was barely passable and the server was more interested in other matters than getting my check. Try as she might, she still wasn’t a serious challenger for the title, “Employee of the Month”. One funny thing: there was some sort of music playing while I was there, primarily a pan flute recording. I chuckled when I realized the song being played on the pan flute was Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is”. I had managed to stumble into a place with some serious elevator music.
I took a few photos of the area at night and headed back to the hotel. One interesting thing about my room: It appears they installed a prefabricated bathroom into the room. The inside was a series of plastic panels that fit together a bit like Legos. It was very funny, yet functional. Unfortunately, it wasn’t really possible to take a photo that did justice to this sight.
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