Tag Archives: first impressions

adventure, BeNeLux, Brussels, Champagne Bucket trips, Cologne

Pardon My French: Brussels and Paris 2026… (part one)

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.

I had a caramel macchiato… first time for me, I think!
Bill’s cappuccino. It looked like a well spanked ass.
What, me worry?

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. 🤭

First class seat…
First class husband…

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.

I wish we’d gotten one of these “two tops”… He was too slow on the draw.
A European river cruise ship I am going to investigate.
Locks of love
Always a provider!

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!

We stayed here for Labor Day weekend in 2008.

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.

Bill was excited by these books.

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.

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Champagne Bucket trips, Regent Seven Seas Cruise Lines

All aboard the Regent Splendor…

The featured photo is of the hapless guys trying to load the luggage. They’d lost about half of the load pictured when I took that photo from the ship.

On June 23, 2023, Bill and I embarked on our very first Regent Seven Seas cruise. This was an unusual experience for us, because although we do cruise on occasion, our cruises have overwhelmingly been on much smaller and older vessels. Aside from our very first cruise, which was a short Baltic cruise in June 2009 on Royal Caribbean’s Vision of the Seas, we’ve only done cruises on SeaDream I or Hebridean Princess. SeaDream’s ships carry a maximum of 112 passengers each. Hebridean Princess maxes out at 49 passengers. Hebridean Island Cruises just acquired a new ship that is also very small. We haven’t sailed on the Lord of the Highlands yet, but she only carries 38 passengers!

Our first cruise on Vision of the Seas was fine, but we determined that we prefer smaller boats that are more all inclusive. So, for 14 years, we have avoided big ships. In fact, I hadn’t wanted to do a cruise at all this year. Originally, I’d hoped we could do a land based trip to Finland, which won our champagne bucket draw, and then go to the Baltic nations on our own. But, as I tried to plan the trip, I was confounded by the lack of easy transportation options in the Baltic countries. And although there are trains in Norway, Sweden, and Finland, they aren’t super convenient like they are in Germany and other European countries. Like, if you wanted to go by train from Bergen to Stockholm, you’d have to go to Oslo first.

At this writing, there aren’t any train connections between Tallinn, Estonia, Riga, Latvia, or Vilnius, Lithuania. If we’d done a land based trip, we’d have to rent a car and drive, fly, or take buses. Or… maybe use the ferries, which basically amounted to cruising, right?

Anyway, I noticed that Regent had a handy northern European itinerary available, and I’d been somewhat curious about luxury cruising on a big ship. It helped that the voyage was on sale. So we pulled the trigger, booked our spots on the Northern Folktales & Traditions cruise, and boarded the gorgeous Splendor on that auspicious June day.

Well… I don’t know how auspicious it really was. As we waited in the lobby at Nobis Hotel, I already sensed that we’d be rubbing elbows with people who had the potential to be irritating. I’d been sitting next to Bill and got up to use the ladies room. When I came back, there was a rather assholish looking older man sitting near Bill. There was enough room for me to sit down in my former spot, so I did.

The tall, distinguished looking man with the perfect haircut didn’t seem to appreciate that very much. After a few minutes of sitting near me, he got up and sat on the other side of his painfully thin and rather well coiffed wife, who bore a resemblance to Blythe Danner circa 1991 (when she was in The Prince of Tides). *shrug* I guess he has no respect for the “unwashed masses”… emphasis on masses. I’m sorry to say that COVID and the onset of menopause, plus my love of boozy libations, has done a terrible number on the size of my ass. It’s too bad I never learned to play tennis or golf. Maybe I’d be more the type of person that guy likes to hang around with. His wife, by the way, seemed a lot nicer than her (I assume) husband. We shared a shrug and bemused smile when there was a sudden crash outside.

I don’t want to dwell too long on this first impression of the other passengers. It’s just that this guy gave off serious narcissistic “boomer” vibes. He sort of exuded masculine power. He was handsome and tall, appeared to be very fit, and if I were to guess, I’d assume he comes from the southern USA (as I do) and has a longstanding membership at a country club (as I don’t). He seemed much like someone very privileged who doesn’t like to mingle with people who either aren’t physically attractive to him, or don’t share his level of financial success.

I could be totally wrong, of course, and I realize that I’m judging him as much as I perceived him judging me. But I’m pretty good at observing body language, and his body language told me to keep my distance. So I did that… but later, I also noticed him in the Observation Lounge with his very slim and attractive wife. She was always walking several paces behind him and seemed very much like a second banana to his self-presumed awesomeness. I guess he wanted her to keep her distance, too, lest she cast a shadow on his narcissistic glow. Yes, she was well dressed and very pretty, even in her (I assume) 60s. She and her husband exuded an obvious air of wealth and prosperity. But… I sure wouldn’t want to trade places with her.

We all clambered aboard the first of many tour buses. A beautiful Swedish woman wearing a Regent jacket and scarf took attendance, then wished us a pleasant journey and got off the bus. It was now her job to welcome the departing cruisers from the voyage before ours who were staying for a night in the Nobis Hotel. These were folks who’d had Regent arrange their air, or booked post cruise tours, which Bill and I did not do.

I was excited to catch my first glimpse of the Splendor, which was built in 2020-21 and carries a maximum of 746 passengers. Splendor’s godmother is none other than supermodel, Christie Brinkley. It seems very fitting that such a beautiful ship should have a supermodel as her godmother.

But before we could embark, we had to go through security and pick up our new ID cards. So we got in line and soon found ourselves talking to a very young man– I’d guess maybe aged 19 or 20– who asked us if we’d been vaccinated for COVID and wanted to know if we’d been feverish or had diarrhea in the days immediately prior to our sailing. Then, much to my amusement, he asked me if I was pregnant. Ordinarily, such a question might irritate the hell out of me (as it did in France back in 2014). But… since I turned 51 years old three days before that conversation took place, I simply had to laugh and say, “No, I’m not pregnant.” If I had been more on my toes verbally, I might have added, “That ship has sailed.” 😉

But instead, I added, looking at Bill, “And he’s not pregnant, either.” As one commenter on Cruise Critic pointed out, you just never know these days. 😀 We shared a quick laugh, and eagerly made our way to the gangplank.

Here are a few photos from our journey from Nobis Hotel to the port in Stockholm, Sweden.

Stockholm is lovely. We will have to go back and properly explore it.
Anchors aweigh!

I really wish we’d had more time to visit Stockholm. It was our second time in the city, but once again, we were unable to explore it because it was on the end of a cruise. Our 2009 Vision of the Seas cruise ended in Stockholm, and we had to rush back to Germany because Bill (still in the Army at the time) had a conference he had to attend.

This time, we missed a proper tour because I wasn’t able to easily book two nights there, due to our stay at the Nobis Hotel booked by Regent. It was possible to book a second night or simply stay in a different hotel, but that would have required some finagling and probably paying more than we needed to. As it turned out, we decided it was better to just relax in the hotel, since we were both battling colds, as were a lot of other passengers. More on that in a subsequent post.

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