Sometimes it happens in life that you do the thing you originally intended to do, but for a very different reason. It’s like in the saying that things don’t necessarily happen for the best, but you can make the best out of them. This pretty much sums up my recent trip to Belgium, which was originally supposed to be a private worry-free visit, but turned out to be a solo tourist trip.
I saw no reason to get a travel agency involved in organizing my trip. Firstly, I wanted to keep my expenses low, and secondly it’s not really that much effort to organize your own trip, and you get the freedom to go anywhere you want and see what you please. I succeeded on both fronts. I planned my own trip and spent only 200 euros for everything – transportation, food, lodging – during my week-long stay.
Being Ukrainian, my first challenge was obtaining a Schengen visa at the Embassy of Belgium, a European Union nation and the country where I planned to spend most of my time. The visa interview had to be booked 45 days in advance through the embassy. Make sure you leave plenty of time, since receiving a visa can take three more weeks.
Despite all the negative information we’re hearing about the visa process, I believe that if one gets all the documents in order and answers every question honestly, the chances of obtaining a visa are high. I was pleased with the work of the Belgian Embassy.
The first step is not the visa interview, though. You need to book your hotels and transport as reservation confirmations are in the list of required documents for a visa interview. As I tend to do everything at the last minute, I saw the visa process as a way to stimulate my self-discipline to get everything done early. So I picked the cities I felt like visiting, and started to plan my tour.
The three things at the heart of every trip are transportation, rooming and entertainment.
Thanks to the growing competition in the airline industry, flying has now stopped being one of the largest expenses of the journey: a round trip to Dortmund, Germany, with WizzAir cost Hr 714. After making a small study of ways to travel to Belgium from Germany, I figured going by bus was the easiest and cheapest option: booking is easily available online (www.eurolines.com). A trip from Dortmund to Antwerp cost me about 20 euro.
For traveling within Belgium, local trains seemed to be the best way. They run frequently and the stations are always easy to find; to move within the city obtain a daily pass for a subway (around 5 euros).
I chose “couch surfing” and sleeping at hostels as my ways to make a halt. CouchSurfing is a network of people willing to host a traveler at their home free of charge. To become a part of this community, you need to create a profile on their website and after that you are free to look for someone who could host you or get requests from fellow travelers in your city.
I got introduced to this way of cooperation between people following my best friend’s advice. She has both hosted and stayed over and had a great experience.
One might think that this idea sounds risky, but this is all about trust, though, and taking time to look carefully at the profiles, and reading references other people leave, and trying to get a feel of what they are like.
As for me, the idea of staying with a local sounded awesome and I searched for somebody in Dortmund. I came across the profile of a guy, who couchsurfed and hosted many times when he was traveling around the world for 11 months. He seemed to be trustworthy so I contacted him wondering whether he could host me. My experience turned out to be very positive: my German host Joerg met me at an airport, showed me around Dortmund, treated me with German food and made me feel welcome at his house.
Another low-cost type of accommodation is hostels. I have never had any trouble with hostels. You get to meet young travelers from all over the world and learn not only about the country you are visiting but also about other cultures.
My first stop in Belgium was Antwerpen, where I arrived at 10 p.m. and needed to find my way to the hostel. I was pretty lucky, because I got off the bus in Antwerpen together with a woman who happened to live on the same street my hostel was on.
In the hostel in Antwerpen I picked up free maps of the cities I was planning to visit, produced by “Use-It” – a non-profit organization, supported by local governments which makes “non-commercial, no nonsense, made by locals” guides and maps. In Belgium, guides for six cities are offered: Brussels, Antwerpen, Brugge, Leuven, Ghent and Mechelen.The idea behind the project is to have locals provide tips on where to go, what tourist traps to avoid and what is really interesting to see in their hometown.
On each map, you will find a section called “act like a local” with “hints and survival guidelines about local behavior.” In Brussels you are welcome to go to the “Use-It” office, talk to a friendly worker and find out tips for the evening, use free Internet and enjoy a free cup of coffee. You can print all the “Use-It” guides from the Internet (www.use-it.be).
Belgium is famous for chocolate, its large variety of beers, waffles and French fries. The Belgians consider it to be their duty to inform every tourist that they, not the French, had invented fries, and that someone needs to rename them Belgian fries.
The chocolate is sold everywhere and the prices vary considerably. After surveying a few locals, who all spoke very good English, by the way, I learned that the best place to buy chocolate was a supermarket: the price was good and so was the quality. To get something fancier, go to one of those little chocolate shops, for example Leonidas chain store.
You can get a huge variety of chocolates for a great price. Take note that pretty much every store in Belgium closes at 7 p.m. and you won’t find any store open on Sunday. Belgians seem to have no problem with that – it’s only the tourists who pay attention to such details.
Nobody knows how many types of beer there are in Belgium. The locals say that “there is anything between a couple of hundreds to thousands of kinds of beer; let’s just agree there is 1,000.” Even though drinking beer is a big part of the Belgian culture, what fascinated me was that I did not see a single person walking on the street with a bottle of beer, let alone drunk. Sadly, a tourist in Ukraine would see quite the opposite.
Waffles are sold everywhere and strictly labeled. Here is a bit of the Brussels Use-It guide advice: “Learn the difference. A real Brussels waffle is square, and a Liegeois is round and caramelized. You put sugar on top of a Brussels one, and nothing on a Liegeois (the sugar is baked into it). If you want the real thing: look for a place with lots of grandmothers (they always go for the real thing).”
I had a good experience, but in order to get a real sense of what any country is like, one must live there for many years. My impression is that Belgium is a country of beauty and high standards. Old castles, buildings and monuments are clumped together with new business centers, old bars and tiny coffee shops. It all blends well with the Belgian people, who know how to work hard and how to have fun.
Useful links:
www.diplomatie.be/kiev/ – Belgian Embassy in Ukraine
www.use-it.be – Tourist guides made by locals
www.eurolines.com – Booking of bus tickets to travel in Europe
www.couchsurfing.org – Worldwide network of travelers and locals, offering free stay
www.hostels.com, www.hostelworld.com – Hostels booking websites
Flight Kyiv-Dortmund-Kyiv Hr 714
Bus ticket Dortmund-Antwerpen € 19
Bus ticket Brussels-Dortmund € 22
Hostel (Antwerpen) € 12
Hostel (Brussels) € 20
All-day metro pass (Brussels) € 4.5
Train ride € 5-15
Lunch € 3.5-10
Chocolate bar € 2-7
Nataliya Horban can be reached at [email protected].
