Belgium

This is part three of a series chronicling my solo heritage through Europe. If you’ve stumbled upon this page first, I recommend starting here.

Picking up where we left off, I left Lille, France and continued my drive toward Bruges, Belgium. A few well-traveled friends have all raved about how much they loved Bruges, so I figured if I was only a couple hours away anyway, I might as well make a visit. I had booked a room at Hotel Velotel, and pulled up in the early evening. It’s outside of the city center, and I had already had a full day, so I called it an early night and just settled in my room. The room itself was pretty bare-bones, nothing fancy, but it did it’s job and I felt safe there as a solo female traveler.

May 2, 2026

I’m an early riser, so I was up and out the door by 8:30 and checked out of my room, packed up my car, and drove into the city center. My only real plan for the day was to take a canal ride, which everyone recommended I do. They don’t start until 10am, so I had some time to explore on foot first. I walked up and down the main street near where I had parked, just on the perimeter of the old town, and it was so peaceful without any other tourist out and about yet. I popped into a souvenir shop to take a mental note of the options and prices to compare to the busier parts of the city, and then naturally made my way to one of the many waffle shops for breakfast. It was probably a bit of a tourist trap, I imagine they all were, but it was a delicious start to my morning along with a speculoos latte.

In one ear and out the other, I honestly couldn’t tell you a single thing I learned on the canal ride, but it was still such a fun way to see the city. Like my friends, I would absolutely recommend you do one, but by the time I was done the line was around the block, so definitely get there early. By the time I was done with the canal ride, a little flea market had set up shop along the canal. I had fun looking at every table, and ended up buying myself a little windmill salt shaker as a small keepsake. I kept walking and happened upon The Church of Our Lady, which was stunning.

With no real agenda for the rest of the day, I started walking toward the main marketplace when I came across one of many lace shops. It probably doesn’t surprise you to learn that the only other people in the shop were closer to my mom’s age than my own, but it was neat to look at the intricate details of so many handmade lace pieces. I ended up just buying myself a little lace ornament, as I’m not one for doilies or table runners or anything like that.

The quiet, peaceful, stroll along the canal before 9am seemed like a distant memory by the time I turned the corner and found myself at the main market place around noon. It was so busy with lively groups of tourists, I honestly felt like I was in a completely different city. I continued walking until I found the town hall, and just as I got there a crowd erupted in cheers as a bride and groom walked out its doors. Intentional or not, their friends and family did a great job of keeping a protective circle around them, so that the other tourists and I couldn’t be looky-loos. I did manage to find a park bench nearby and spent some time people-watching (not the wedding), which is always somehow more fun in a new place.

Right next to the town hall is The Basillica of the Holy Blood – a small church which claims to have a relic of Jesus’ blood. I decided to get in line and check it out. No photos are allowed inside, but after climbing a set of stairs, you enter a small, yet ornate, chapel. The supposed relic wasn’t much to see, it’s just a capsule with a piece of cloth, and a nun was watching over it and praying her rosary. I won’t go too in depth on religion here, but while I am a Christian, I have my doubts about the legitimacy of the relic. That said, it was still moving to see a physical representation my beliefs, and knowing that the relic has been in Bruges since the 12th century, I also found it interesting from an anthropological sense.

By this time in the day, that breakfast waffle had lost its sticking power and I was ready for a late lunch. Two other things I knew I wanted to eat in Belgium: mussels and fries (sorry, frites) with mayonnaise. Conveniently for me, these are often served together. I found a little restaurant patio and placed my order. This is going to sound contradictory, but I’m not a huge fan of fries (or any other form of potato), but when in Rome Bruges. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll eat them from time to time, I just think they tend to be overhyped. The mussels really hit the spot, and the frites were nice and crispy and the balance was pretty nice. I loved having them with mayo instead of ketchup, and they were also good dipped into the wine sauce from the mussels.

By this time, it was late afternoon, the city was getting even more crowded, and I decided to continue on my way, but not until I first bought myself some chocolate, of course. There were so many chocolate shops, and I just picked a random one to pop into. Floor to ceiling full of chocolate. I knew I didn’t have a lot of room to bring much back, and being only one person, I could only eat so much. So I just picked out a small 6-pack of truffles for an evening treat.

Before getting too far down the road from Bruges, I popped into a small town grocery store. One thing I opted not to buy was caramel apple flavored potato chips. But I did buy some ketchup-flavored ghost-shaped chips, and some other kind of chip just called “Grills“. When I was initially planning my trip, I thought I would maybe spend half a day in Bruges and the other half in Ghent, but I loved Bruges and spent way more than half a day there. So instead, I continued on my way to my hotel in Brussels.

For the most part throughout my trip, I had no problems with the driving portion, despite all the languages and different road rules. The one exception was Brussels. Just before I got to my hotel, I went through a tunnel which made my phone lose service. When I came out of the tunnel, it took quite awhile to reconnect and at that point, I had missed my next turn. The roads were a bit confusing to me as well, as lanes going the same direction were split by a median. I finally found my hotel, but not the parking garage. I then circled the block two more times before I found it – to get into the parking garage, I had to drive onto a plaza that looked like a place cars did not belong.

My room was at the Hotel Indigo. The room was really nice and spacious, easily one of the fanciest rooms of my trip. It was early evening by the time I got there, and after the driving debacle of finding the hotel, I no longer had any desire to venture into the city for dinner. (Exploring Brussels was not something I had in mind for this trip anyway – if I had had time, great, but I wasn’t expecting to.) The hotel had a restaurant attached, so I went down to just get something to eat there, but for some reason it was closed that night. At this point I realized I wasn’t all that hungry anyway and since the room was so nice, I decided to just have a little night in and have my snacks for “girl dinner”. The Grills chips were so good, they tasted exactly like the smokey flavor of anything that’s grilled, not a specific meat or barbecue flavor or anything like that. I really wish I could find them here in the states.

This hotel had an actual iron, so I was able to get the wrinkles out of my next day’s clothes, and I spent the evening catching up with friends back home, reading, and making a plan for the following day in Luxembourg.

To be continued…