Day Six: Belgium. More specifically, little towns located in Belgium.

When we started talking about this trip, about ten months ago, Belgium was our first consideration. At one point we were going to spend all two weeks there. It seemed like this somewhat unexplored country and culture was a mixture of everything we picture in a European vacation.

Paris stole our hearts in the six days we were there, and while were still excited to see Antwerp and Northern Belgium, we were kind of sad to get on the train. How ridiculous.

Now there's a bit of a backstory that needs to be told to explain our this leg of our journey. About tenyearsago, Carmen and her parents hosted a Belgian student, Tinneke Van Camp, who came to Saskatoon to do a practicum at MCC. As far as I can tell, everyone liked each other and a (so far) lifelong relationship started, including Tinneke's parents coming to Saskatchewan for a visit ten years ago. We emailed Tinneke and her boyfriend, Eric, for advice about traveling Belgium, which over time turned into us staying with her parents for two days. What a fantastic development it turned out to be. Piet and Carla picked us up at Antwerp Station and drove us to their tiny town of Wuustwezel, 20 minutes north of Antwerp.

They essentially appointed themselves our official tour guides and took the job very seriously. The first thing we did was drive an hour south to a little place called Lier. For the average Belgian, this would be like driving to a place like Taber. For Carmen and me, this was like two sixyearolds going to Disneyland. This place was the Europe we had in our minds.


Belgian towns, like most European cities, have a church in the centre and are built out from there. So Lier had a typical town square with most of the shops and businesses, kids coming home from school etcetc. But once we stepped even a block away from the centre it got strangely quiet. Narrow cobble stone streets, skinny rundown little rowhouses, junky bikes and peeling paint.








The biggest draw in Lier is a Begijnhof. A Begijnhof is a home for women who are kind of like nuns, but aren't really nuns. Just read up on it. In Lier, the Begijnhof is a Unesco World Heritage Site. And it's brilliant.

(Tourist shot warning ...)







Paris is a grand place. But this was small and charming. Dark and dreary. Old and simple.

I was planning on combining this post with Antwerp and Wuustwezel, but I'll save them. I'm also going to add a few pictures every day, in between these longer posts. So keep checking in. Next: beer ...