Belgium 2021

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Day 1 in the books! After a long night/morning of flying, we hit the ground running and went to Waterloo to see where Napoleon was defeated in 1815! 236 stairs later, at quite an incline, and my girl climbed herself to the Lion statue to see the views. 🇧🇪

Day 2: Brussels! We walked about 5 miles today and saw tons! The Royal Palace, the Grand Place, St. Michael’s Cathedral, Manneken Pis, Rue Neuve, and The View, a beautiful Ferris wheel with amazing views of the city, to name a few🎡🇧🇪

Day 3 was quite a long day! We first drove out to Ghent to see Gravensteen, a castle from the 1100’s. Skara got to experience her first castle 🏰 and she took the spiral staircases like a pro! We walked over to St. Bavo’s Cathedral to see the Adoration of the Lamb, a very famous painting/altarpiece by the Eyck Brothers.

Next we hit the road and headed out to Brugge to see the “Venice of the North”. A beautiful little city surrounded by rivers which had more of an Amsterdam feel to me than Venice. We saw the Basilica of the Holy Blood, Belfort, and Church of Our Lady to name a few of the beautiful structures we saw.

We ended the day off in Ostend, right on the Atlantic Ocean. We walked on the beach and got to see some bunkers and pill boxes from the WW2 era. Very humbling.

Tomorrow is a surprise for Skara, can’t wait to see how she reacts! Stay tuned!! 🙃🇧🇪

Day 4: Today was a surprise day for Skara! We spent the entire day in Paris. We all had 4 hours of sleep, we walked 10 miles, with a 3 year old and no stroller. My girl kept up like a champ! You name it, we saw it! She LOVED the Eiffel Tower. Awesome day all around! Paris always brings back lots of good memories 💕🇫🇷

Day 5: Today we got to see some pretty awesome WW1&2 locations. First we went to Ypres and saw the Trench of Death, an actual trench used in WW1 by the Belgian soldiers. We then headed over to the In Flanders Field Museum to see some more artifacts from the war. We also saw the Tyne Cot Cemetery and Menin Gate, both memorials for the missing British and Commonwealth soldiers who died during WW1 and bodies were never recovered. We then drove out to Dunkirk, France to see the Allies Memorial there for the Battle of Dunkirk in 1940. Plus I got some kitty lovin’ in 🤗🇧🇪🇫🇷

So day 6 was quite unique. We got to see some very cool WWII sights. We drove over to Luxembourg (new country 🤗) to see General Patton’s grave at the American Cemetery and a Memorial for Jews that were deported to concentration camps from the local train station.
We then headed over to Bastogne to see the War Museum. The really cool parts of the day though lied in the surrounding little towns. In La Gleize there was an abandoned King Tiger Tank that the Germans abandoned during the war. There’s only 8 of these left in the world!! And in Foy we got to see actual Fox Holes used during the Battle of the Bulge. We may have nerded out just a tad but it was so cool! 🇧🇪🇱🇺

Day 7: Today was a relatively slower day for us. We headed out in the direction of Antwerp to see Fort Breendock, a fort turned concentration camp during WWII. It was very somber walking through the rooms, the torture chambers, and execution corner where so many lives were taken unjustly.
We then headed over to explore the city of Antwerp some and hit the Hard Rock.
Finally we headed back to Brussels to go up in the Atomium, a structure standing 102 ft tall giving pretty awesome views of the city. 🇧🇪