Well, hello out there in Internetland. Long time, no read. It’s been over two whole weeks since my last travel post. We didn’t even do anything special for St. Patrick’s Day this year… although since that’s the day we lost our sweet beagle, Arran (in 2023), March 17th is now sort of a “day of infamy”.

The good news is, Bill and I just got back from our latest trip, so this blog is about to “spring” back to life. Well, it’s good news if you like reading about other people’s vacations, I guess. For me, it gives me something to remember when I can’t do this kind of stuff anymore. As our world gets more complicated, that day could come sooner, rather than later.

If you follow my main blog, you might remember that we had a really hard time deciding where to go for this trip. In fact, I even “lost” a family member over planning this vacation. That’s a really stupid story– how I got publicly “disowned” by my cousin over our decision to go to Belgium and France– so I’ll spare you the details here. If you really want to read about it, follow the link. My main blog needs the love.

I think I wrote at least three posts about the ridiculous fight I had with my alcoholic cousin over planning our spring vacation. 🙄 Yes, I know it’s “personal business”, but sometimes people enjoy reading about that kind of shit. If you don’t, though, no worries. I’ll understand completely!

Anyway, on with my story about Brussels and Paris, 2026!

This trip to Brussels and Paris was decided by a “champagne bucket drawing”. Regular followers of my blog might know that many times, Bill and I decide on where to go for our vacations by drawing slips of paper from our champagne bucket.

For this trip, we had initially drawn Croatia, which would have been amazing! But I didn’t think we had enough time to do what I really want to do in Croatia. So, we drew again, and picked Belgium. I was cool with Belgium, because I always have a good time there. I remembered how much fun we had in Brussels, when we went there in 2008. I wanted to go back there for more beer, frites, and chocolate. We added Paris, because we also enjoyed that city, last time we went there in 2009.

Although we often drive when we take our European trips, for this one, we decided to go by train. The main reason we opted for trains this time is because driving in European capital cities can be a huge, expensive, pain in the ass. The trains in Europe are usually very efficient and comfortable, especially in first class. However, using trains can also be problematic, our personal story of which I’ll get to in the course of writing this series.

In any case, on the morning of Saturday, March 21st, Bill took our dogs, Noyzi and Charlie, to their favorite Hundepension. Then, that afternoon, we took a taxi to the Frankfurt Airport train station to catch a mid afternoon high speed Inter-City Express Train (ICE) to Brussels. The taxi driver remembered Bill from a previous booking. I think he’s a local guy! He wanted us to book him for a ride back to our house yesterday… and kept talking about how he could drive us to Brussels. After what happened yesterday, maybe we should have considered doing that. But again, I’ll get to that part of the story later.

The taxi driver dropped us at the Frankfurt Airport train station and, as usual, we were pretty early. So we stopped for a coffee break… something I very rarely do.

The first time we went to Brussels, back in September 2008, Bill and I took an ICE train from Stuttgart to Cologne (Köln), then quickly caught a French/Belgian Thalys train from Cologne to Brussels. Thalys, as a brand, is now defunct; it’s since been merged with Eurostar, the folks responsible for the English Channel Tunnel (Chunnel).

Because we used Deutsche Bahn’s ICE train, we were able to take a train directly from the Frankfurt Airport station to the Brussels Nord station. Our convenient jaunt ran for just under three hours and included stops in Cologne, Aachen, and Liege before arriving at the Brussels Nord station at about 5:00 PM. Bill booked us first class seats at a four top table, with seats facing each other. He did that so that I would be assured of not having to ride backwards. My husband is remarkably considerate. 🤭

Below are some photos from the ride. It was a little bit rainy, and I was on the wrong side of the train for the best photos… I took these at the Cologne stop, which is where we were joined by a very tall man who was apparently a hacker. He kept looking at what I was doing on my iPad. I don’t know why the guy sat next to us. The car had plenty of empty seats, as well as a totally unclaimed “four top” at the front of the car. But he sat next to me and typed away while we made our way to Brussels.

We have been to Cologne ourselves a couple of times. It’s a great city! I wouldn’t mind going back there someday, if the fates allow. It’s not a long trip from the Frankfurt Airport station, but it has a different feel… plus, I enjoy their local beer.

As we passed the Aachen station, I was feeling a little wistful. I’d actually considered booking a hotel in Aachen, because we’ve never been there, and I have heard it’s an interesting city. But it had been so long since we last left Germany for any reason, and I was eager to go somewhere that felt different. Although our last trip to Belgium was in the fall of 2024, our last trip to France was in March 2022! We were way overdue for a visit!

I didn’t take pictures of the Aachen or Liege stations, because I didn’t see anything worth photographing from the train. However, both cities are places I hope to visit someday.

We arrived in Brussels right on time, and made our way out of the Nord station to find a taxi to our hotel, Le Fleur de Ville. This hotel happened to be a block away from The Dominican, the hotel we stayed in when we visited Brussels in 2008. I remember really liking The Dominican, which is a former abbey turned into a “design hotel”. I also remember watching Barack Obama and John McCain debating on the television in our suite… Wow… those were the days!

I decided not to book The Dominican again, though, because I wanted to try a different place. Hotel Le Fleur fit the bill nicely, although we didn’t get the greatest first impression. The hotel itself is in a very beautiful building: according to it’s official Web site– it was once the “Caisse Générale d’Epargne et de Retraite, an 1850s national savings bank.” But when we arrived in the late afternoon of March 21st, we found the front desk completely unmanned. We waited several minutes before two swarthy men in suits arrived to check us in. Unfortunately, one of them also really needed a breath mint. Sorry… I know that’s kind of a rude observation, but it did make an impression.

I booked us in a room they called The Beyaert Suite, which was on the fourth floor. It was a very large and well appointed room. Below are some photos from the hotel lobby and our suite, which offered everything but a great view. The window was too high up to see out of, but that was okay. We weren’t in a particularly scenic area, anyway.

We were very happy with the room, although it wasn’t cheap. I think for four nights, we paid roughly 2,000 euros, which I’ll admit is a lot of money. But that’s still not as much as what we paid in Paris. I’ll get to that part later. 😬

I know some people would be shocked by the price of the hotel lodging. We certainly didn’t need such a grand room. But when I go on vacation, especially now that I’m well into my 50s, I like to spoil myself a bit. We’ve spent many years staying in inexpensive places, so I figure we deserve a splurge now and then. We also really needed a proper vacation, since our most recent travels were for specific things like visiting our dentist, getting Bill into the Jung Institute, and traveling places for Bill’s work. Our last pleasure trip was in June 2025… which I know is more recent than a lot of people’s most recent pleasure trip has been.

Anyway, enough disclaimers and explanations from me. I do want to state for the record, though, that there are cheaper rooms at this property. And it is a very lovely hotel, convenient to Brussel’s most popular tourist sites.

After we got settled in our extravagant room at the hotel, we went for a walk around The Grand Place, and got some dinner. That story is going to be a lengthy one, so I’ll put that in part two.