Tapis de Fleur Bruxelles | Carpet of Flowers Brussels

The event itself is created every 2 years in the Brussels Main Square since its inception in 1971.  The tradition began when landscape architect E. Stautemans was inspired by smaller Flemish cities’ carpets.  The 2014 Brussels Carpet of Flowers was created as a tribute to the Turkish immigrants to Belgium.  Since the flowers are petals and plucked Begonias, the carpet only lasts for 4 days before it is taken down. It takes roughly 100 volunteers under 4 hours to assemble at a rate of 300 flowers per square meter.

While the view from ground level is a site to see, the above ground view is to die for.  We arrived in town at 6 pm and went to dinner. By 730 pm, we walked out of the restaurant; since the baby had napped most of the afternoon, it was too early to call it a night and too late to visit any indoor attractions.  We went straight to the Grand Place, which was across the street from our hotel; how I scored this little gem 4 days before the long weekend I had no idea.  The lighting at dusk was amazing and the ground level view of the buildings within the Grand Place was equally impressive.

Town Hall, or Hotel de Ville, has the greatest view.  They charge 5 euro per adult and strollers are not welcome.  We received a booklet about the history of the carpet during our wait.  30 minutes to get up to the balcony sounds long but it was a slow moving walking tour of the hall as well.  Once we arrived at the balcony, people were asked to continue moving towards to the right as space became available so more people could have a chance to see.  Too many people were hanging out on the balcony, it became a real problem while carrying a 2-year-old and hugging the wall – which protrudes every few feet.

In the end, we had some amazing photos and the lineup the next day was ridiculously long. Although we went to bed at a later-than-usual time, it was very worth it.  The crowds around the carpet the next morning were just as busy; it was hard to move around the square.

The morning after looked (and smelled) like a frat party but holy smokes it was cleaned up quickly. We were up earlier than I would have liked – thank you munchkin, mommy doesn’t need sleep anyways – so we witnessed a few post-party bottles littering the streets. Come breakfast, everything was cleaned up, the trucks were out of the center and all was back to normal. Amazing.

Being our first overnight trip since arriving in Germany and we couldn’t have asked for a more impressive welcome. While the crowds in the rest of the city were something to be desired, we were given a great first impression as to what more vacations at top European events were going to look like.

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THE ESSENTIAL TRAVEL GUIDE TO LIEGE, BELGIUM

When travellers visit Belgium, they usually set their sights on Brussels and cities in Flanders like Antwerp and Ghent. But there is plenty to see and do in the south of the country too. With its proximity to the German, Dutch, and Luxembourg borders, Liège makes an excellent base for exploring a whole range of European countries. Whether you’re looking for a fun day-trip from Brussels or a weekend getaway, why not consider Liège for your next holiday in Belgium?

Liège with kids

There was surprisingly a lot to do with the kids in Liège. While we only had a few hours in the afternoon, we did manage to see most of it, and make note of the rest for next time we are in the area. Liège really isn’t that far from us, and now that Baby Girl does cry in the car the whole time, little day trips like this aren’t a big deal anymore.

Aqua-museum

The aquarium is downstairs and the marine biology museum is upstairs. There is a special entrance next to the stairs for access to the elevator, which we used. From there, we just parked the stroller in the coat room and let Baby Girl walk around for an hour.

There are approximately 200 species of fish from around the world, held in 50 pools within the aquarium. With the Visit Pass, we only paid 1 euro for Munchkin’s entrance fee. At 16 euro for the booklet, and 7.50 per adult for the Aqua-museum, the City pass just paid for itself and this was only our first stop.

La Navette Fluviale

The river shuttle was just across the street from the museum, and they were scheduled to arrive in 20 minutes. We took a quick break in the stairs, with everyone else, and just watched the river and the people walk by. It was a nice break, and the weather was starting to heat up so it was great to catch a little sun while we could.

Strollers are allowed but they must be collapsed, as the stairs are very narrow and the off-ramp from the main deck is not wide enough for a stroller to roll through.

Montagne de Bueren

These stairs were a real hit with the kids. After we took the river shuttle one stop over, we walked a few blocks and made it to the famous staircase of Liege. If you haven’t heard of these, it is crazy long and steep, and people actually live along the stairs. We came once last January to visit the Star Wars Ice exhibit and the kids were going this time about climbing the stairs again.

According to Wikipedia,

Montagne de Bueren is a 374-step staircase in Liège, Belgium. The staircase is named after Vincent de Bueren, who defended Liège against an attack by the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold in the 15th century. It was built in 1881 to honour the 600 soldiers who died in the battle.^[2]

In 2013, Montagne de Bueren was ranked as #1 on The Huffington Post‘s list of Most Extreme Staircases.

Place St Lambert

The Bishop of Maastricht, Lambert, was assassinated on this site, in the year 700. St Lambert’s Cathedral was eventually built on the site until 1793 when a group of revolutionaries had the site destroyed. Taking almost 35 years to dismantle,  the square now houses what is left of the cathedral. Prince Bishops Palace now houses the city’s Court House (Palais de Justice).

Archaeoforum

We didn’t have the chance to check it out this time but underneath the Place Saint Lambert is a archaeological museum. It contains remains of a Gallo-Roman villa and medieval buildings.

Guillemins Railway Station

The Railway station in Liege is out of this world. When you first walk it, it is filled with shops and restaurants. Upstairs are the various platforms for local and regional trains. All of this is standard for a train station, but the architecture is incredible. The dome and stairways around the building, and the water features just in front of the building, are incredible.

Built in 2009 by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, is one of the most beautiful railway stations in Europe.

Cathedral

There are so many churches  within Liege and Cathedrale Saint-Paul is incredible. We managed to visit 3 before they closed at 7 pm for the night.

La Batte

The one thing that we didn’t have time to do, was La Batte. It is an incredible market, 2 km long, along the waterfront and runs every Sunday 8-2 pm. We had to leave early Sunday morning to make it to Vimy Ridge on time for the shuttle service and pulled out of town as they were setting up.

This is also important to note, because traffic may have been non-existent at 8 in the morning, but there were a lot of detours due to delivery trucks getting ready for the market.

Hotels in Liege

We stayed that the beautiful Ramada Plaza Hotel in Liege. We found it was centrally located, plenty of parking available (for an extra 10 euro) and an excellent breakfast was included. According to the front desk, the building used to be a convent, hence the amazing architecture in the parking lot and court yard.

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The Breakfast room is on the first floor, and down a series of hallways (all marked with signs). I was too busy stuffing my face and admiring the building to take any photos (sorry), but the gentleman says this used to be a shop for women’s clothing before the hotel took it over. In the corner, away from the buffet, was a nice little toy area. We sat next to it so they could play while we finished eating (because they weren’t hungry at the moment, just “starving” moments before and shortly after sitting down though).

From here, we were able to take a nice walk to pretty much anything we wanted to visit.

Another great hotel in Liege for families

Univers Hotel and Brasserie

Only 50m from the main train station, it is a great option for a a quick overnight stay. The historic downtown area is only 15 min walk away and the Aquarium museum is a short 1.4 km north.

Check out their latest prices here

Where to eat in Liege

We had reservations at the Amon Nanesse; it is attached to a bar and just down the street from the Palais de Justice and Hotel de Ville. Unlike the restaurants that we have been used to, this one opened at 6 pm instead of 7 pm, which was great. We were early for our reservation and they sat us anyways. The menu was incredible; steal, salmon or Liege meatballs, all served with fries and a salad. It was like luxury bar-food, it was great!

If we had more time…

If we had more time, or planned on going back, we do have a little list of places that would like to hit up. There is la Maison de la Metallurgie et de l’Industrie de Liege, which is French for House of Metallurgy and Industry of Liege. The brochure from the tourism office makes it look like it is would be something the kids would enjoy. As an historian, this is definitely a place that I would like to visit as well.

The second museum I wish we had had the time for is the Musee des Transport en commun du pays de Liege, or the Museum of Public Transport. Like most children, mine can’t resist a transportation museum. We have visited at least 5 in the last 3 years and it never grows old. They just love to look and touch and hear everything about trucks, trains and airplanes. Cars, not so much. No idea why.

An excellent resource for planning a trip to Belgium can we found in the Lonely Planet Belgium Guide. 

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What’s in an Expo anyway

I wasn’t sure what to expect at a Harry Potter expo. I’m a huge fan of the movies, though I have yet to carve out the time to read the books, and I scarcely remember seeing David Tennant play a role in the movie until someone told me ( Super Huge Whovian!!). OK, so maybe not a huge fan, but I am a big fan.

I had never been to an expo before so I wasn’t sure what it would look like; Google search was not kind. I wasn’t sure if this was going to be like The Doctor Who Experience (which I have been to, surprise surprise), or a Harry Potter Museum, or something in between. I was pleasantly shocked to find it was something like an interactive museum and super kid friendly.

First Impressions

So we walk into the main lobby and it is pretty spread out; ticket sales to the left, line for pre-booked to the right, get you’re picture taken in front of a green screen on the way to the queue, it was great. Baby girl was fast asleep so I didn’t have to worry about posing her. The three of us (I thought) took a cute photo with a wand and promptly gave it back. I say promptly because any longer and munchkin would have thought it was his to keep.

The audio guide is not part of the admissions fee. It requires pre-booking or 5 euro each on site. Usually we only get one so at least someone can hear while the other wrangles the kids, then switch part way through. This time, munchkin wanted a head-set too so there went 10 euro. The signs are also only in German or French so I was provided with an English booklet; it had the signs all translated into English.

We queued up at the giant doors to the expo. The kind gentleman, properly dressed in his finest wizarding outfit explained that food and drink is not allowed, expect in the case of small children, then water only and please don’t make a mess. Fair enough.

Room after room

The exhibit had a handful of rooms, the first separated by a door, and the next by a wall and arch way, to delineate the themes. The first room was the sorting room. We managed to get to the front of the line, and the kind woman spoke in both French and German, as we were expecting. I just so happen to speak french so I was able to keep up with the narrative. She had asked for volunteers to be sorted before going on to the expo proper; As any normal mother would do, I volunteered my 4 year old son. He was happy to volunteer, he loves volunteering. He does not, however, like to be in the spot light or spoken to by a stranger. He ran up to the stage, sat on the chair, and then saw the group in front of us… and froze.

She asked him, in English, which house he would like to be in. He’s four! I asked him which one of the flags he liked best. “Red Mommy because it’s my favorite colour!” She did her magic and voila, Gryffindor! The crowd cheered, he gave a half smile and jumped off as fast he could. Silly dude.

The next room had the famous Hogwarts Express. We tried to take numerous photos, as the little guy LOVES trains. Unfortunately, flash photography was not allowed and I have yet to master the flashless-DSLR. My cellphone was able to capture a few great images.

All of the costumes were on display, along with a handful of props from the set. The attention to detail was impeccable.

Image credit https://www.expoharrypotter.be/

image credit https://www.expoharrypotter.be/

In the next room, we could hear a squeal from around the corner. Munchkin looked around and found “screaming plants”; the Mandrake. It was awesome. A handful of Mandrake’s at the front were interactive. A nice woman offered to pick munchkin up and help him pull up a plant while I snapped a photo, hubby stayed away as to not wake the baby.

The following room was dedicated to Quidditch. Among it’s displays, were various costumes from the cast, props and info-graphs. As with every place I try to take my children, we went through this expo faster than I had intended. He stopped at a few displays to take a closer look but it did not last long.

The crowds were manageable, thanks to the nice gentleman at the front door; by clumping the guests into groups, they were able to artificially control the traffic within the expo itself. Due to our speed, we passed everyone within our group after the first few rooms; story of my life.

Shop

The souvenir shop was at the end of the tour; required to walk through before exiting the expo, standard operating procedure. The walls were full of amazing looking souvenirs that I would have loved to take home with me, but I only have so much room in my suitcase. One wall was dedicated to the selling of wands. I took one look at the price and decided it was too expensive to investigate as to their styles, descriptions and inscriptions. At 40 euro each, I was forced to say no.

The meltdown

Throughout the whole exhibit, munchkin had been discussing magic. What makes magic, how to use magic, who uses magic. Keep in mind, he is 4 years old. He was happy to leave without a wand until he saw two girls roughly his age, taking photos in front of a few promo walls, with their very own wands. He was convinced that they belonged to the expo, just like at the front, and he could borrow them for a picture. He really wanted a picture with the train. When I told him that they belonged to the girls, he then demanded to own one.

Final thoughts

Though is doesn’t seem like it, I really did  enjoy myself at this expo. I really liked the costumes, displays and photo opportunities within the expo as well. I think I should have left my toddler with Nanny and Gramps as they toured the city on the Hop On Hop Off bus and just kept the sleeping baby; I would have had more time at each display, been able to listen to the commentaries on the head phones that I rented (total waste of money when you have a 4 year old), as well as spend the time to mentally translate the plaques or read the English booklet.

An excellent resource for planning all of Germany can we found with the Lonely Planet Belgium Guide. 

Plan Your Trip – Stay and see everything

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**Though I received complimentary tickets, all thoughts and opinions are my own. Please read my disclosure for more information***

Where else can you see all of Europe before lunchtime

Last week I had the great pleasure of touring Brussels Mini-Europe. Currently, Mini Europe is celebrating its 27th year and welcomes roughly 5.5 million guests each year, half of which are foreigners.

Factoids

As seen in the handy Pocket-guide, provided by the park

There are over 350 models, 90 cities and 27 countries represented. Each has their own private section where you can see original plants and hear authentic music.

Every model is precisely 1/25th scale; now you can visually see which one is bigger, Big Ben or the Eiffel Tower. Each model is also painstakely accurate, down to the smallest detail; the Arc de Triomphe model has the names of the 750 officers and soliders listed on the original arch in Paris. Many of the monuments are fully mechanical as well; moving Thayls train, turning windmills from Kinderdijk, and boats you can maneuvre yourself.

Mini Europe uses some of the most high tech electronics in their models. For example, that truck in Bruges that looks like the model car in your son’s toy cupboard; moves itself thanks to “on board electronics and batteries”. This little guy cost more than my first vehicle.

Arrival

Since this whole vacation was powered by public transit, we choose to take the Hop On Hop Off bus to get from the hotel to the park. According to the pamphlet, there is a discount available for purchasing multiple park tickets, as well as the 24 hour HOHO bus. We saw a few neat places, took some great photos and disembarked before the little ones lost interest the perfect start to the day.

As per usual, we had baby girl and the toddler in tow. This time, however, we had the pleasure of introducing my in-laws to the magical world of Brupark – that’s the name of the entire installation, which houses 3 attractions and a common Village in the centre. The bus let us out in front of the Atomium, from there is was a quick walk across the parking lot and we were in front of the Brupark walls. This particular entrance was not handi-friendly (that I could see), as if we had taken public transit, we would have been dropped off around the other side, with much few stairs.

I would have to say, nice and early is a great time of day to visit. They open at 9:30 am, but since the bus didn’t start until 10, we didn’t arrive until 11. This was still a fairly quiet time to visit. The Mascot was so patient with us, munchkin was scared to get too close but we managed to get a nice family photo out of the kids. The photographer was great too. How he managed to get these little ones to look, and smile, at the same time, and in unison, I will never know.

As seen on; 70 day trips from Dusseldorf 

Exploring

Once inside the park, it was all ramps. Wonderful. My mother-in-law required this and the stroller can only handle so much, these easy walkways were perfect. Also allowed the munchkin to run around ahead of us without having to worry if he would fall down a flight of stairs during his excitement – it wouldn’t be the first time.

My little 4-year-old tour guide pointed out each of the monuments, pressed all the buttons, made all the moving parts move, and followed the clearly marked arrows on the ground so we knew where to go next. It was important that we didn’t step off the path or take a wrong turn, for fear of punishment from our tiny ‘tour guide’.

We brought snacks for the park itself but goldfish and juice packs can only go so far.  At the end of our journey, we stopped by the cafeteria for some lunch before moving on. I have to say, good food and even better prices. I don’t generally like to stop at amusement park restaurants, but they had a nice selection and the hall was empty. Again, perfect timing since one or both of the children were starting to get tired, which equals loud.

Tourist info

All of the signs have English on them, the staff could speak English and the pocket guide was available in English. If your French/Dutch/German is rusty, don’t worry about it. It’s Brussels. I choose to practice my french, but as a Canadian (Quebecois), I often had to switch to English because they didn’t understand what I was saying – this is true in most French speaking areas, not just here. I find this extremely amusing, however. I have a hard time speaking with my British friends and now I can’t converse with French retailers. It’s almost like the Canadian/American dialect is not the universal dialect. Who knew. *I jest*.

What I really liked about the park was the openness of it. Even though it was quiet, I could see the potential for a large crowd but due to the nature of the park, I don’t suspect a lot of traffic or bottle-necking at each monument. Without earpieces to keep a group at any spot for an extended period of time, the flow was quiet even. There was enough room on the walk way to support the faster walkers – like our little guide – as well as provide the space needed to slower walkers or those taking photos.

I can also see myself visiting here in less than perfect weather. Something about authenticity. It rains a lot in Europe, why not visit mini-Europe in the rain, it just seems… right. We were lucky enough to have slight overcast, as you can see from the photos below.

An excellent resource for planning all of Germany can we found with the Lonely Planet Belgium Guide. 

Plan Your Trip – Stay and see everything

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