Oostende, Belgium

Last week we took a small little family holiday to the waters of the North Sea. It was the perfect place to get away and relax. We rented an apartment right on the beachfront and made no plans for the week. But before we did our relaxing we had to check off one last Trappist monastery on our Belgian Beer list... Westmalle.

Westmalle is a small little town half way between us and the beach- perfect! We stopped and had a nice little lunch and a short walk of the area. J. and I have both had this beer before, and it is delicious, but we were surprised to see that this is the only trappist beer sold out of a keg... imagine having a keg of trappist beer at your house! (My pants would no longer fit!) Most Trappist beers are bottle fermented so this was a novelty for us as well as a nice little completion to our tour of Belgium Trappist beers- one left in the Netherlands to check off still!

And now for the fun: many a hour were spent on the sand and in the surf in Oostende with a few ventures inland and up the coast to see what was about. We did a lot of lounging and did our fair share of sampling the local cuisine and little of anything else. Although I did manage to fall into the ocean and kill my ipod. All in all it was a nice family trip that we will all look forward to repeating.

PHOTOS

Zeeland, NL

A little over two and a half hours is the Netherland coastline called Zeeland. It is a beautiful little beach spot, perfect to spend the afternoon with your family. The water was warm enough to wade and swim in, and the sand was perfect for basking; as long as you brought some shade! We enjoyed clear blue skies and a cool breeze. The ice cream man even made a little money off of us... yum, cold ice cream on a hot day! After our outing on the beach, we traversed over the dyke and filled our bellies with the biggest pot of mussels J. or I had ever had set before us. W. had her normal 'juice and nothing else' and T., well you all know what he eats!

Here's a little information about the place if you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeeland

And more photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=136524&id=758239743&l=47e7eb0d90

Brugge and the English Channel

This past weekend we packed the car and headed out once again to Belgium. Our destination only 2 ½ hours away, and a place where old Europe lives. Brugge, Belgium is about an hour from Brussels situated in the northwest corner of the country. The old part of the city is a beautiful reminder of times past where the streets are all break-your-neck-cobblestones and the roads have no discernable pattern. The houses are small but built well, and the churches are magnificent. There are several squares and many more chocolate shops. There are also horse drawn carriages that will take visitors around the old city and give a limited tour of what old Brugges has to offer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruges
Being the horse lovers that W. and I are, we opted for the buggy ride, and J. didn’t object. This time of the year day light is of limited quantities- because of the latitude and because of the constant cloud cover. Our ride was at twilight, the city shops were lit up and there were oodles of pedestrians out strolling the city streets. The experience was very fairytale, and W. and I enjoyed ourselves very much. J. not being much of a horseman was gracious the half our journey it took to tour the city.
Accommodations in Brugge are expensive, but we were able to find a reasonable hotel at the Hotel Groeninghe using a Rick Steve’s recommendation: http://www.hotelgroeninghe.be/ This hotel included a great European breakfast and was centrally located. The only disappointment I would point out was that you have to park your car at the train station and have a ten minute walk back to the hotel. But not that I’m complaining…
For us, a complete day was enough to see in Brugge, so we loaded back up into the car and drove another 20 minutes away to the Belgium shore town of Oostende which over looks the English Channel. This cute little town was once the vacation hotspot for royalty, but now is open to all sorts of tourists. The beach reminded me of an Oregon beach- cold and windy with drizzly rain. There were no boulders sticking out of the sea, but there were loads of misshapen rocks (small enough to fit into your hand) and all the sea shells a girl and her mom could carry. Belgium: a very fun place to visit!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oostende