Hello fellow Redditors, I'll be sharing photos from doing a full trip through Belgium and the Netherlands, covering pretty much all large cities and some hidden jewels.The program:>15th Maastricht>16th Liege + Dinant>17thBrussels>18th Mons + Tournai >19th Gent>20th Antwerpen>21th Rotterdam + Den Haag>22th Amsterdam>23thUtrecht >24th HertogenboschWeird order, idk, but that's how logistics work out best for us. I'll be sharing a few photos every day. If you have recommendations, just drop them, these countries are so dense and well-connected you can go anywhere any day, really.>waaaaa waaaa why should I care about european jewels im here to read about thai street prostitutes Just ignore the thread then. The rest can subscribe, like, upvote, give me Reddit gold and comment.
>>2711112Looking forward to it
As long as you don't post them in the /nederdraad/ as well, Karl-Heinz
>>2711124Of course not, I won't take owls to Athens.Unless I see a really really nasty ghetto, then its /int/ tradition to post it and pretend its your whole country now.
>>2711112I wanted to do something similar last winter but it turned out a concert was on for a several days in Maastricht and any hotel within range (about half my plan) was a few hundred euros a night so I fucked off to Paris instead
>>2711112 Man the architecture in Belgium is top tier. Check out leuven as well.
>>2711130Yeah, Dutch hotel prices are eye-watering. I tried to stay in Belgium as long as possible, using it as basis do see Dutch border towns.
>>2711112Stay out of my city OP.
1 day for Amsterdam is definitely not enough. I've gone there 10 times so far and I still can't get enough.
>>2711231What’s so special about. I get the pretty canals, but1. every dutchoid city has them and 2. you don’t need a year to see them all
Not exactly related, but my nightly stop on my trip towards the Low Lands is Frankfurt. The skyscrapers look way more impressive on ground level than they do on panorama. There are also some bit of old architecture left, which give a glimpse of what marvel the city probably was before WW2. While the main streets were lively, side streets were sometimes seedy as fuck. Probably prepares me for Brussels, which can supposedly even get dangerous.
>>2711771Post the liege pics
>>2712176Yeah, I just arrived today. On my way to Liege, I drove through Wallonia. Belgium has this reputation of being a flatland with no nature, so imagine my pleasant surprise when I saw lush green hills and broad rivers. Nothing special to someone widely travelled, but way better than most of continental Northern Europe. Wallonian villages were a weird mixture of pastoral beauty and genuine ruins of industry. It’s the Belgian rust belt, after all. Sorry for using a googled image, but it’s better than whatever I could shoot through the hazy windows of a moving train.
>>2712184>Sorry for using a googled image, but it’s better than whatever I could shoot through the hazy windows of a moving train.Wait, was the image I made myself. Here’s the googled one to illustrate my point lol. That’s what you see from the train window.
So Liege, it’s the #3 city, the biggest in Wallonia (there’s also Charleroi, but … lemme just ignore that). It doesn’t have the great reputation amongst Belgians themselves and few tourists pay attention to it. Statistics say it’s actually even more seedy than Brussels. Ah well. The train station is brand new, designed by a Spanish architect. It feels expensive and stylish, but is it beautiful? Idk. However, it’s a great gateway to the city, as it lies on an elevation.
your photos suck
>>2712191Anon, you took a pic from the wrong angle. Liège station is great. Underrated city overall imo. I like to go there every once in a while.
>>2712202YOU suck
>>2711112The Cathedral in Antwerp is a nice visit, it's a nice cathedral with a few Rubens' paintings.If you like Flemish masters, check out the newly renovated KSMKA likely the best museum in the region.What kind of food do you like?
Netherlands motor trip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rAYxaRwMEs
>>2712210Netherlands suck
So yeah, I had to pause for a few day because I wanted to focus on the trip. I still do. I have a lot of photos and thoughts I’ll gradually share. So, Belgium … there’re this stereotype it feels like northern France and the Netherlands mashed together. And, yeah, that’s exactly what it is in most parts, but there’s some uniqueness to it. I mostly spent the first half of the trip in Wallonia, namely Liège, Mons and Tournai. Then I visited Brussels for a day (already was there once). It’s a gorgeous country in terms of architecture. I think every single „bigger“ city with the exception of Charleroi is worth a visit.
The biggest city of Wallonia is Liège - it’s still not very big at merely 200k. Most of Wallonia is countryside. While not nearly as rough as the dreaded Charleroi, Liège is definitely „first world poor“. Think Marseilles or Naples, that kind of vibe. Even in the old town, you feel some sense of disrepair and slight unease. It has the same issues as the worse bits of France: a large and only partially integrated black population, a failed business model. Many beggars and homeless. Garbage disposal is … garbage. Nonetheless, life here continues. The train station area saw large and recent improvements. There are still nice shops and restaurants opening around it and in the old town. It’s French influence is very much felt in this fact. The old town is much bigger than Google images suggest, but lacks coherence and maintenance to be as beautiful as it could be.
There’s some soul-achingly beautiful streets here around Place Saint Lambert. The beauty of the architecture in general is very gothic: dark red, grey and black dominate. It fits the cloudy weather of Belgium. Its a very disjointed old town - actually large, but you cannot walk many streets without stumbling upon disrepair and straight ugliness as well. The atmosphere is relaxed, but also kind of seedy at the same time. Liège locals love their city, tourists do not. You can definitely understand both.
i liked the van gogh museum and the rjiks in amsterdamMr Meat in the jewish quarter is greatsee red light districtHAVE FUN !
>>2713723it's the Mosan architecture (from "meuse"), you can find it also in sister city of MaastrichtYes Liège is gothic central, I feel that eastern Belgium to Cologne is very gothic in vibeunfortunately a lot of Liège architecture has been destroyed, not much by war than by modernity
If you have the time for it try and visit Diest, it's a nice little city and it has the most monuments per square meter out of any Flemish city. It's close to Leuven so if you plan on visiting Leuven the detour might be worth it.
>>2713973I'll post some more pics
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>>2713976
>>2713977There's also a cool citadel you can visit and old city walls overgrown with nature which makes for a nice little hike.
>>2713723I am a tourist that actually loves Liège. Same architecture as Maastricht. But noone of the tourists.
To complete my portrayal of Liège: it is, in many places, a poor and seedy feeling city. That just gotta be said. The promenade is and leads into the very disheveled and poor, yet large and prominent neighborhood of Longdoz. It’s one of the worst I’ve strolled into in Western Europe. The high rise neighborhoods in Liège are overall really to be avoided as a tourist, but they explain why Wallonia has this reputation. And issues aren’t limited to skin color here - there are really poor looking Belgians amongst the mostly immigrant folks here as well. Urbanism played a huge part here. This could’ve been a gorgeous promenade, of which there are many in Benelux countries. Instead it’s this suffocatingly ugly wound in the middle of the city.
>>2713985Believe it or not, I actually took the short trip from Liège to Maastricht. And despite liege feeling like 2x poorer and 30 years behind in urban development, I’ve returned to Liege (where my hotel was) way sooner than expected. Turns out SOVL is a real thing, Liège just had more of it. And dining options were way better obviously, French vs Dutch cuisine isn’t even a comparison. But as a place to live and raise a family, you’d ought to be a lunatic to pick Liège over Maastricht, that I admit.
Nice pics anon. I will be flying into Amsterdam for a two week trip starting mid October. Any advice for an itinerary? Dont have much of a plan, but I would like to ride IC rail into Belgium and possibly NE France if I have time to see the WW1 and WW2 sites. I figured I would rather fly into Amsterdam than Frankfurt this time as it seems like a more convenient location and the flight was cheaper. I am an Ameriburger who is willing to walk, but would prefer not to rent a car. Obviously not looking to stay in the Netherlands for the entire trip.
>>2714241Not OP but checking out the WW1 sites probably requires you to rent a car. I did a ww1 trip this January by car. I caught most of the Flanders WW1 spots. I based myself out of Yper. Next spring me and a buddy will go to Verdun. You could go by train to Yper. From Amsterdam that would take you about 4 hours. But most of the sites that are near Yper aren't accessible with public transport and they're not really walking distances either. You could just spent a day in Yper I guess. But i don't think Yper alone is worth it. Dunno anything about WW2 sites. But if you go by car to Yper Dunkerque is about an hours drive away.
>>2714285Thanks for the tip anon. Maybe this trip I will stick with Arnhem, Nijmegen Bridge and the Market Garden WW2 sites. I also would like to see Verdun some day
>>271422870's urbanism killed the city + very bad maintenanceit looks like the city got no money and just doesn't evolve
>>2714430The revitalization efforts for the area around the main station provide a glimmer of hope for the city. But I have to note: during my 4 or so days so far in Flanders, not a single beggar harassed me. In the three days in Wallonia, there were six - I’ve counted.
>>2714562The new tram tooyou didn't see it?
>>2714241>WW1 and WW2 sites.WW2 you have Bastogne in the Ardennes, which is easy enough to reach by public transport. There's a few labour/transit camps around (Westerbork in NL and Breendonk plus Kazerne Dossin in BE but the first two aren't easy to reach by public transport). Raverszijde has a cool open air Atlantikwall museum and can be reached by public transport, even though you'll have to go to France for more imposing sites, and I don't know if these are accessible by public transport.WW1 sites you could visit Diksmuide, easy to reach, you've got the IJzertoren there's plus a few small sites including some partially restored trenches named Dodenhoek.Truth be told, you'll find many small sites and memorials all over the place. Some would be easy to reach by bike if you're happy to rent an (e)bike for a day, as both countries have decent cycling infrastructure.
>>2714565Oh, I did. Wallonia really invests a lot in infrastructure (relative to other, more neglected things) and it’s very visible. Man, there’s something about liege. While I visited multiple cities considered far more beautiful - and probably really more beautiful indeed - there’s something about it that stuck inside the back of my head. Haube im making things up.
But yeah, we still gotta move on. In continued discovering Wallonia. I’ve decided to purposefully ignore Charleroi: the seediness I saw in Liege really was sufficient, any more and the place wouldn’t have been enjoyable to see anymore. So I’ve came and went to a cute Walloon town named Mons. Not very known within Wallonia, basically unheard of outside of it. Very small, compact, with a feel similar to British towns in how most of it consisted of red brick rowhouses. In much state and far safer feeling than Liege. The town core is small but pretty. The photograph accurately reflects the weather - it’s still Northern Europe, after all. The combination of gothic architecture with subdued colours and grey skies created a sad mood found in Picardy or Scotland otherwise. But the highlights of the city still waited for me further ahead.
>>2714566Thank you for the advice, anon.
>>2712202Your photos are great OP
>>2714241>>2714285>>2714309In the Netherlands you do not need to rent a car. You can just take the train and rent bikes (electric ones if you want to ride quick and easy). Most if not all of the WW1 sites should be reachable by bike.
>>2714802I am Dutch. And there are no WW1 sites in the Netherlands. I was talking about Yper which is in Belgium. >>2714309If you could rent a bike in Yper it would actually make a lot of sites accessible. Not everything though.
>>2714607>Man, there’s something about liege. While I visited multiple cities considered far more beautiful - and probably really more beautiful indeed - there’s something about it that stuck inside the back of my head. Haube im making things up.because liège is real, it's a really lived in city, and you can feel that it's old, not always in a good way, but it's old and historical, it's real... most other cities in Belgium seem more superficial. You can feel that if you dig you'll find Carolingian era shit
Seeing some of these posts makes me if I should just pass straight through Belgium without stopping? Apparently Brussels is a dump, and even the train station is dangerous. Is it so bad that I shouldn't even transfer trains there and do that in Ghent or Bruges instead? I'm the anon flying into Amsterdam mid October and taking the train after that south to France.
>>2715612It's massively overblown. I spent seven years commuting to Brussels on a daily basis plus would take trains late at night for concerts etc, and had exactly zero incidents.Not saying chances of problems occurring are zero as they are effectively higher than in the rest of the country but it's not nearly as bad as /trv/ makes it out to be. Sure, some areas are a bit rough, but most people here have never been there despite still posting nonsense, and the vast majority of those who have been there have barely scratched the surface before booking it out of there because they got scared when they saw muslims.
>>2715612the areas around gare-midi and gare north are pure shitholes. not necessarily dangerous, but shit, the usual package of beggars, drunks, arab youths, filth ...the train stations themselves are always busy and therefore safe
>>2714608... so keep in mind, Mons is a tiny town of 100k, not even all Belgians heard about it. Nonetheless, its cathedral is one of the grandest in the country. It is located behind the initial old town, you have to climb a small hill to see it. Some gothic defence towers from medieval times frame the hill.The views from up there ... I'll just leave them here. Notice hills in the background, barely visible on photographs but very present to the eye.(1/3)
>>2715846(2/3)Find me a more SOVLful small town panorama. I dare you.
>>2715847(3/3)I've had to hurry to the train to Tournai after taking these, but these turned out to be some of my favourite photographs from the whole journey.Perhaps these illustrate why Walloons, despite being a small and not very affluent part of Western Europe, still have an immense amount of local patriotism?
Hey man, cool photos, cool stories! I'd love to hear the rest.I just booked a trip with my sister, we'll fly for a weekend in November for Ghent and Brussels. Three nights, two days. Probably not enough to fit Bruges in. Perhaps we should replace Brussels with Bruges, since Brussels is easier to reach later? Or maybe we should leave Bruges for later in some lovelier weather?
>>2716248just skip brussels and head straight to Brugesit's not worth it
>>2716248Mind you, i have never been to Belgium, but isnt Brussels notorious for being a really ugly city?
>>2716461In what parallel universe is it ugly? It’s like tiny Paris with sprinkles of Amsterdam It just has safety issues
