48 Hours In Brussels: 5 Budget-Friendly Things Not To Miss

by Anna Brones on

Beyond beer and the European Parliament I wasn’t sure what Brussels had to offer. Oh wait, waffles, there had to be waffles.

Brussels often gets a bad rap. Maybe it’s because one of the iconic tourist symbols is a statue of a peeing boy, or maybe it’s because in having the headquarters of several major IGOs, it has a very business feel, but either way, if you choose to skip Brussels you’re missing out.

It may not have the quaint charm of Amsterdam or the romanticism of Paris, but spend a weekend in Brussels and there is plenty to do, even for those traveling on a budget.
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Only have 48 hours? Make sure these five budget-friendly activities get added to your to-do list.

1. A visit to Cantillon Brewery
As soon as you step into Cantillon, you know you’re in a brewery. Located off the beaten path near the South Train Station, it has been open since 1900, and barely anything has changed since then. The musty smell of yeast hangs in the air and the tasting room has barrels in the place of tables. If you’re into craft and specialty beer, this is the place for you. You can taste a variety of their lambic beers and it will cost you much less than a night out on the town. Buy a few bottles to take with you on your way out.

2. Eat fries at Maison Antoine
Whether it’s midday or late night, you can’t leave Brussels without stopping by the frituur Maison Antoine for a cornet of Belgian fries. Pick your sauces of choice and eat your fries on the go, or take your cornet to one of the nearby bars on Place Jourdan, which have no problem allowing you to sit down and enjoy your fries with a beer.

3. Explore the city’s comic murals
There are over 30 different comic murals around Brussels. Print off a map of all of them and start exploring; it’s an excellent way to check out the city and get a taste for the country’s comic tradition.

4. Get a rooftop view
There are a couple of places in Brussels where you can get pretty stunning views over the city. Start with the glass elevator at Place Poelaert. In the summer, the Beursschouwburg opens up its rooftop terrace for both movie nights and a picnic space everyday at lunchtime and if you’re a fan of urban gardening, you’ll want to check out the rooftop garden at the Royal Library. You can also hit up the Museum of Musical Instruments‘ rooftop restaurant for an afternoon coffee or beer.

5. Visit Parc de Bruxelles
Created in the late 18th century, Parc de Bruxelles has a classic European park feel to it and it’s right next to the Royal Palace. It’s perfect for a picnic or an afternoon stroll. If you’re visiting in July, with all of the official festivities, it’s a good place to be for Belgium’s National Day on July 21.

Smartphone Technology Getting Closer To What Travelers Want

by Chris Owen on

As smartphone technology continues to advance, travelers are being offered more connectivity choices. Making calls, sending text, voice or video messages and surfing the Internet is becoming commonplace almost anywhere on the planet. Now, pricing is coming in line too as service providers realize what it is we want when traveling.

“Our mission is for all travelers to have the freedom to use their mobile devices the same way as at home when traveling abroad, without having to worry about chokingly high mobile bills,” says Joacim Boivie, CEO and Founder, HolidayPhone, a leading solutions provider of roaming free mobile Internet, voice and text services for international travelers in a Breaking Travel News report.

Like Boingo, the worldwide connectivity company with over 700,000 Wi-Fi hot spots in over 100 countries, HolidayPhone also enables connection. Unlike Boingo, which automatically communicates then connects with local hot spots on your behalf, enabling connection using only an installed app, the HolidayPhone method is a twist on the SIM card pay-as-you-go trick that has travelers buying cards for each country they visit.Providing an easy, inexpensive way to call and access mobile Internet while abroad without roaming fees, HolidayPhone’s travel SIM cards are prepaid and sent in advance. Before departure, U.S. users forward calls to a provided U.S. landline number. On the plane, they insert the HolidayPhone SIM card in their smartphone. Landing at the destination, their phone is ready to use, at local rates.

Here is more on how HolidayPhone works:

Dueling Summer Garlic Festivals Find Common Ground

by Chris Owen on

Summer festivals and events often bring open-air concerts, barbecues, annual farm-oriented contests and more. The warm weather experienced in the United States from June through September has a way of doing that. To summer day trippers, it’s often not a problem of finding an event to attend, but choosing which one. Such is the case in Oregon where dueling garlic festivals had friends and neighbors at odds.

The Elephant Garlic Fest (slogan: “fun stinks”) has been held for 15 years in North Plains, Oregon. This year, organizers of the North Plains event decided to combine their festival with an annual barbecue and truck and tractor pull held in Banks, Oregon. Meanwhile, others in North Plains still wanted their garlic festival, so they organized one of their own, the Summer Fest and Garlic Out West (slogan: “where it’s chic to reek”).

With the events happening on two consecutive weekends, one week and less than 10 miles apart, community organizers worried that neither would receive the attendance needed to make them successful.Now, after months of battling that included intellectual property disputes, conflict-of-interest accusations and claims of impropriety, it will be the 2013 North Plains Summer Fest & Garlic Out West Festival in North Plains that prevails. To be held August 9-11, the event will feature live music, food and craft vendors, beer and wine garden, fundraiser runs, pancake breakfasts, a parade down Main Street and more.

The festival also features garlic beer, garlic ice cream, garlic milk shakes and more, as we see in this video:



Meanwhile back in Banks, the Barbecue and Tractor Pull will continue and be held August 16-18, minus the garlic.

Wondering what the big deal is about garlic in Oregon anyway? In 2010, the United States exported 18.6 million pounds of garlic, much of which was grown in Oregon.

French Vintage Carnival Rides Come To NYC

by Meg Nesterov on

If you are a fan of carnival rides, history, or just good old-fashioned summer fun, take a ferry out to NYC’s Governor’s Island this summer for a festival of vintage Parisian rides and carousels. Billed as a museum meets amusement park, Fete Paradiso will open on July 13 and run until September 29, and feature 19th- and 20th-century attractions such as a pipe organ, flying swings and a bicycle carousel like the one featured in “Midnight in Paris.” To add to the vintage French feel, there will be food from bistro Le Gamin and a beer hall and event space converted from a 1900 bumper car pavilion, along with special events opening weekend for Bastille Day.

Admission to Fete Paradiso is free and rides are $3 a pop. The free ferry to Governor’s Island from Manhattan‘s Battery Maritime building or Brooklyn‘s Pier 6 runs half-hourly until 7 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday. Learn more about Governor’s Island on their website, and follow the carnival set up on Instagram here.

Technically, Cruise Travel Is Safer Now: Do You Care? (POLL)

by Chris Owen on

After the grounding of Costa Concordia, the world of cruise travel took a good hard look at everything they were doing in the way of safety. A comprehensive Operational Safety Review of passenger safety measures resulted in new policies that promised to address safety concerns. Those policies were adopted by members of the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), which covered most of the major cruise lines we know about. Recently, the International Maritime Organization (IMO), which oversees those and other cruise lines worldwide, adopted the same rules for all ships sailing, effectively standardizing safety rules for all.

Cruise lines hope that refreshed safety rules as well as a new Cruise Industry Passenger Bill Of Rights will reassure first time cruise travelers having second thoughts after safety-related events turned them off.

But seasoned cruisers who have sailed a number of times, those who were undeterred by safety-related concerns, don’t seem to care all that much and have continued sailing, as planned, without hesitation.

What about you?

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