how to be a traveler

1. Weather in August is warm but not uncomfortably hot.

It was significantly cooler in Brussels and Bruges than Paris, which makes sense since the two cities are more North and closer to the water.

2. Tipping is not customary, similar to most of Europe.

The service charge is already included so a tip is not expected unless you feel it was an exceptional service. You can always just round to the nearest Euro.

3. Both Brussels and Bruges are small enough to walk to most places.

Public transportation is available but we didn’t use it too much. In most instances, we found it was quicker to walk from A to B because the walk to the train station + train time would have taken longer than just walking. We only took the metro once in Brussels, to get from the train station to the hotel. We took Uber a few times, which was relatively inexpensive.

4. The official languages are Dutch, French, and German, but English is also spoken.

5. Currency is the Euro but credit cards are accepted in most places (though American Express isn’t accepted as widely).

6. No Visa is required for American citizens for stays up to 90 days.

7. In Brussels, we stayed at the Novotel City Centre in the Pentagon neighborhood.

It was a great location. It’s located close to Grand Place, but not too close that you’re always dealing with crowds. In this neighborhood, there are a lot of Chinese and Middle Eastern restaurants. In Bruges, we stayed at Hotel Navarra in the Steenstraat Quarter. It’s close to the Belfort and a lot of little shops.

8. We spent 4 days in Brussels and 1.5 in Bruges.

The original plan was to use one of the days in Brussels and do a day trip to either Ghent or Antwerp, but it ended up raining that day so we just hung around the city. I wish we had used that extra day in Bruges. 1.5 in Bruges was enough to see everything but it was jam-packed. 2 days would have been the perfect amount. There are so many day trips you could do, depending on what you’re interested in. We were traveling from Paris, which is only about two hours by train.

9. Look into the Brussels Card.

It was totally worth it for us. There are 24, 48, and 72 hours options, which allows you access to a list of museums. Most of the museums we wanted to go to participate in the program, so you do need to do a little research and planning. Each card has a public transportation add on option but since Brussels is so walkable, we didn’t end up adding it on.

10. There’s also a Bruges Card.

But there weren’t a lot of museums we were interested in, so we didn’t think this one was worth it for us.

11. There are lots of cobblestoned streets, especially in Bruges.

Something to keep in mind with your luggage. The walk from the train station to our hotel was 20 minutes, and it was a rough 20 minutes dragging a luggage down those streets. I remember Ubers being expensive in Bruges, which is why we didn’t take one but in hindsight, we should have just looked into a regular cab.