We’re back after a fabulous, action-packed four days in Belgium with the kids! Our itinerary was pretty full, but we felt like we got to see a lot of Belgium in a very short amount of time. And enjoyed lots of chocolate, fries and Belgian beer, of course! Our first trip of the year was a bit of an impulse decision, booked when I randomly saw $41 flights to Brussels’ Charleroi airport for a week where Chris already had Monday and Friday off. As usual, I wish we’d had time to cram more into our itinerary — in particular I wish we’d had one more day in Brussels and at least four more hours in Ghent — but it was a lovely short-and-sweet trip. I’m going to do a day-by-day recap of our Belgium itinerary in the next few days, but here’s an overview of our four-day itinerary … and a bit of a story about our flight to Belgium at the end. It was an interesting? flight.

Our Four-Day Belgium Itinerary

Four days in Belgium, Day 0: Arrived late, late, late

-Drove 50 minutes from Charleroi Airport to our apartment in downtown Brussels, then straight to bed after midnight.

Four days in Belgium, Day 1: Brussels

See here for more on our day in Brussels with kids. 

-Self-guided tour of various chocolate shops
-Fries at Chez Pappy
-Grand Place
-Mannekin Pis
-Autoworld to see hundreds of vintage cars
-Dinner at Namaste Indian restaurant
-Back to Grand Place to see it all lit up at night (and have an epic meltdown over a balloon)

Four days in Belgium, Day 2: Bruges

For more about our visit to Bruges, click here.

-Visit to the Markt Square to look around, seek the famous frites truck
-Canal ride
-Visit to the Freitmuseum (Museum of fries!)
-Lunch at Le Panier d’Or
-More chocolate!

Four days in Belgium, Day 3: Bastogne and Orval Abbey

For more on our day trip to Bastogne and Orval Abbey, click here.

-Bastogne War Museum (incredible!)
-Mardasson Memorial
-Orval Abbey — touring the grounds and sampling their beer and cheese

Four days in Belgium, Day 4: Ghent

For more on our visit to Ghent, click here.

-Gravensteen Castle (loved it!)
-Gruut Brewery (there’s a story here)
-IN Choc chocolate shop
-Andddddd … we ran out of time and had to drive to the airport.

Where we stayed: Appartbrussels, an apart-hotel about a 15-minute walk from the Grand Place. I picked this one specifically because the location looked good and it was, ahem, only 8,000 Chase points per night on a day I was feeling cheap. Shortly before we left, Chris noticed that it appeared to be located directly above a sex shop. This actually ended up being a non-issue (I didn’t even notice if it was there?), but the four flights of terrifying spiral stairs we had to climb proved to be somewhat daunting. OK, a lot daunting. The owner, Amir, was very nice though — extremely responsive and hauled our suitcases up the insane stairs for us at 12:30 a.m.

How we got around: We rented a car from Avis (not the cheapest option, but it was the only one open until 11:30 p.m.) at the Charleroi Airport. We street-parked it near our hotel for two nights we got back to town late because parking was free between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m., and the other two days we stashed it at a Q-Park very near our hotel. Driving in Brussels was a bit of a pain in the ass — there are a bunch of tunnels that confused Google Maps and us — but outside the city it was perfectly pleasant.

Our flight: We flew from Comiso Airport, about an hour and 20 minutes to the south of us. What is it like to fly out of Comiso? It is … interesting. The thing to know is that Comiso was a former military base, first during WWII and then it was rebuilt during the Cold War to house nuclear-armed cruise missiles. The U.S. Air Force had a presence there throughout the 1980s until 1991, when the base finally closed as a result of the signing of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Force Treaty in 1987. The base housing there was used briefly after that to house 5,000 Kosovar refugees, but since then it has been vacant.

The result of this is that the airport seems kind of creepy? It is in the middle of nowhere, and as you are driving in you pass all this overgrown former base housing where the land is clearly taking back what was hers. Inside it is fine, but tiny — probably the smallest airport I’ve been to since Fiji in 2007. You just walk out the door onto the runway, and about 100 feet from there you hop aboard your plane. You’d think that since ours seemed to be the only flight leaving at that time it would be pretty organized, but … not so much. Pretty much mob-style of lining up.  At any rate, however, the flights were insanely cheap and on the way there the drive wasn’t terrible, so it wasn’t a bad option by any means.

If you are going to Comiso airport, you should know that parking is extremely easy and right next to the terminal. On the way out, however, know that the machine where you pay for the parking is INSIDE THE TERMINAL, not outside in the parking lot. Also, this machine ONLY ACCEPTS CASH. Yes, I’m shouting. It will save you half an hour of aggravation at Comiso airport when you just want to get the hell home.

And finally … the flight itself.

Weirdest one I’ve been on. Not the plane itself — standard RyanAir situation — but the actual flight. You know in the movies when they ask if there is a doctor in the house on the plane? That actually happened! Except no one seemed to be a doctor. A young woman on the plane got sick in some way, and they ended up  stretching her out in the back near the bathrooms. They made an announcement to tell people that they really, really weren’t joking about that no smoking thing because they were giving oxygen to the woman in the back. Do people really take the ‘no smoking on planes’ thing as a suggestion? Eeeeeek.

Anyway, this flight was already a bit odder than most we’ve been on. People were letting their kids stand and jump on the seats while we were in the air (what about the turbulence?!) and some dude near us turned on Indiana Jones on his laptop in French and was blasting it at full volume, no headphones. But after the “doctor in the house” question, things kind of broke down more. People were standing in the aisles talking as if it were a bar instead of a plane, while others were not at all subtly craning their necks to get a glimpse of the person stretched out in the back. Meanwhile, the flight attendants not dealing with the woman in the back resumed their walks down the aisle trying to sell people snacks or perfume (?) incessantly, as if it were just any other flight. People got out of the way just while they were passing through, but apparently weren’t told to sit the hell down. It was just … weird.

For our part, Chris and I spent a lot of time marveling at our fellow passengers and hoping that if we got diverted, that it would be somewhere good. Our kids, meanwhile, sat quietly playing with toys and watching movies on the the iPad. Owen fell asleep, but since Fiona is some kind of mythical creature who doesn’t need sleep she obviously just stayed awake.

Oh, and if you are wondering I’m guessing the sick person in question is probably OK — they had three ambulances waiting when we landed, but she was able to walk down the stairs and over to them with someone supporting her.