Updated: What to do in Mechelen, Belgium

[Logios]

I am going to Puurs (outside Antwerpen) for one week in march and one week in may to attend a course. I think I have the late afternoons/evenings off, but I might be too mentally washed out to go see those places in Flanders I would like to see if I went there for an actual holiday.
I think I might visit Fort Breendonk, since it is close to the place where the course is held, and I am pretty interested in all kinds of WWI/WWII stuff and remains of the National Redoubt. I am also just looking for a nice place to have a good beer and some moussels n' fries or some waffles.
Any suggestions from people familiar with this part of Belgium?

May update: I am staying in Mechelen the second week, see my latest post

[Hobbes]

Visit the Duvel brewery, they make some of the greatest ales in the world. It's very close to Breendonk and you said you want good beer so there you go.

[sabaku_no_gaara]

ah Duvel, it made the nurses call the cafeteria and instruct them to never give me alcohol again after another patients dad bought me one when I was 14 at the hospital! I ended up racing in the wheelchair and singing loudly in the halls of a few floors.

Other than that I know nothing of Puurs, outside the fact it's somewhere in the province of Antwerp.

If you find the time, go to Tongeren, Belgium's oldest city, the Gallo Roman museum has an exhibition on the Vikings right now.

[lolIsuck]

It's pretty far to Tongeren. You're right between Antwerp, Ghent and Brussels though, all very nice cities.

[Logios]

If you find the time, go to Tongeren, Belgium's oldest city, the Gallo Roman museum has an exhibition on the Vikings right now.

It is stuff like that I would do if I went there for an actual Holiday. It is great enough to have something on the list.

It's pretty far to Tongeren. You're right between Antwerp, Ghent and Brussels though, all very nice cities.

I hope to get a chance to go all three, or at least just to Antwerp. It will probably be just a few hours, dinner somewhere, and then back to Puurs. Any ideas about what to see and where to eat would be awesome.

Looking at Puurs on Google maps, it seems I can take a bus from the hotel to the course Facility (rather than taking a cap like those arranging the course recommends), but I don't know the belgian ticketing system. Can I just pay cash to the driver, or do I need to get a ticket/card/tokens somewhere else? I will probably need to go 5 times back and forth each week + perhaps trips to Antwerp, Ghent or Brussels (trains here?). If I go there Again sometime, I will most likely bring my car.
I can also see that there are several restaurants/cafes in Puurs, but most look like what I can find in the Copenhagen area, so maybe not a huge chance for cultural chock there. I can also see that several smaller "frituur" Places exist, but they don't seem to have webpages, and look closed on the street view. Are those recommendable as something genuinely Belgian, or just like takeaways anywhere. Are there good and bad ones?

[sabaku_no_gaara]

you can pay on the bus, you can pay by sms or you can buy a ticket at the terminal in some places

a frituur is well, a frituur you buy fried fries there and fried meat snacks, very tasty, very Belgian. very unhealth, my favourite snack from the frituur is a "boulette" my fiancé's favourite is a "bicky burger"

If I can give you one culinary tip: you should eat "stoofvlees" at least once, you can get stoofvlees sauce at a frituur for on your fries, but albeit tasty, not the same as eating it in a restaurant.

You are a Dane, so I don't think there is much culture shock to be had, I guess Belgians are a lot more chaotic than Scandinavians. My sister lived in Sweden for a few years, and allthough not Denmark I assume you are somewhat similar?

She liked the neatness and order and efficient bureaucracy in Sweden compared to the chaos that is Belgium, and she loved how Scandinavians are open and blunt and stick to themselves (one of her examples was that in Sweden during a conversation, people will just turn and walk away if they lose interest, it was a kind of honesty she appreciated and you'd never see here) on the other hand, there was nothing to do, and people in the north are quite boring apparently?


One word of advice, don't let the people from Antwerp corrupt you, don't believe a word they say, especially about the rest of the country, people of that area have a saying: "Antwerp is THE city and all the rest is parking space" meaning only they are relevant and the rest of the country is worthless.

I despise people from the Antwerp province almost as much as people from Liege or Brugge

[lolIsuck]

The amount of snacks you can choose from in frituur's in Belgium and the Netherlands is far higher than what you can get in most takeaways elsewhere, althouh less focused on burgers than in other places.
I'd recommend you try a videe/pasteitje/konninginnehapje (unsure how they call it in Belgium, sabaku will hopefully help), they are divine. It's usually an entree so you could eat it before the stoofvlees sabaku recommended.

Do they have zuurvlees in Belgium, sabaku?

[sabaku_no_gaara]

what is zuurvlees? Maybe under a different name, but I've never heard of it

koninginnenhapje I know, it's called "vol au vent" over here


Here are examples of what kind of fried meat snacks you can get at a frituur:

Spoiler for huge picture: 

Seeing this is making me hungry lol


Sidenote: lolsuck, Since moving to the Maaseik area, I'm in a Heerlen quite often in the Ikea over there I must say it's a lot cleaner than the one in Zaventem near Brussels (just noticed you are from Heerlen)

[Adar]

Given the geographic proximity it may be a good idea to look at my old thread about Ghent.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...avel-report%29

Apparently the sister of one of the site officials have (or had) a vegan restaurant in Ghent. May want to PM Jom about that if you want some TWC flavour.

[lolIsuck]

what is zuurvlees? Maybe under a different name, but I've never heard of it

koninginnenhapje I know, it's called "vol au vent" over here


Here are examples of what kind of fried meat snacks you can get at a frituur:

Spoiler for huge picture: 

Seeing this is making me hungry lol


Sidenote: lolsuck, Since moving to the Maaseik area, I'm in a Heerlen quite often in the Ikea over there I must say it's a lot cleaner than the one in Zaventem near Brussels (just noticed you are from Heerlen)

As someone living in Belgian Limburg I'd have guessed you know zuurvlees/zoervleisj. It's like stoofvlees with a different sauce, despite it's name it's sweet due to the syrup and peperkoek. It's a local Limburgian specialty though so that might explain why you don't know it.

sidenote: Only reason most people go to Heerlen is the IKEA, we can't afford a crappy one.

[Logios]

Given the geographic proximity it may be a good idea to look at my old thread about Ghent.

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...avel-report%29

Apparently the sister of one of the site officials have (or had) a vegan restaurant in Ghent. May want to PM Jom about that if you want some TWC flavour.

Ghent really looks like the place to go. I hope I have time and oppotunity to do that. Brussels suddenly became third priority.
I like vegan food...next to the meat, so that restaurant is probably not for me.

Here are examples of what kind of fried meat snacks you can get at a frituur:

Ahh, now we are talking. The height of one of the quiter evenings will probably be picking out victims for the hot oil.

[Logios]

I am in Puurs now. We had an awesome meal at Puurs Lof and a beer at "Vierklover"? (four leaf clover-ish). It seems to be a neat little town where nothing much happends. It will be alright to have a few evenings here I guess, but I hope we can make it to one of the cities tomorrow.

Edit, monday: I passed the bar sober, it is spelled Vierklaver.

Spoiler: Rant about Belgium

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It is almost impossible to get a taxi in the morning. The taxi drivers come late, and overcharge you if they can get away with it. There is not a really good distinction between street and sidewalk. The Belgians all have cars, they drive like crazy right in front of each other, honking their horns all the time. They speak as Little English as I do German. When they think they are done talking to me, they just switch to Flemish. They are not at all the nice smurfy people I expected to meet, but instead the same kind of fecal matter exits as we Danes are in Denmark. The lunch at the course site was not impressive. My teacher made me feel like a moron, and she is probably right. Every bar and restaurant and most shops are closed on mondays (WHY?!?). Those little "frituur" places I found on Google maps are long gone. The only open shop I could find had rabbit on sale. When I tried to buy a candy bar, they would not accept my Visa card. When I found an ATM, I had to endure an annoying cartoon movie with two credit cards dancing around. I got a 50€ note, now where will I find change for that? The tv at the hotel only showed volleyball, and a weather report with lots of black clouds. This is Mordor! I had to rewrite my rant three times since the autosave conted is broken, or I am too big a moron to figure out how to use it. I need for someone to come and tie my sholaces and sing a bit for me or something.

Nevertheless, we found a generic pizza joint that was much better than a similar one in Denmark, and we had a few beers at the hotel. I feel much better.

Me having a belgian beer with my travel companions. For all you know, they can be my invisible friends:


Edit Tuesday:

Things are going much better at the course. We managed to get the Company to loan us some bicycles, which is somehow the ideal solution. We managed to get a bit more around the town, and found a restaurant that was actually open (t'Park, at the station). I had Stoofvlees (good), another Belgian beer (good) and a waffle with ice cream (fantastic). One of the others from the course had Paling in t'groen (eel in parshley sauce). I hope I get a chance for having that one of these days.
There might be no chance to get to Ghent or Antwerp or even the nearby forts, but maybe we will stay in Antwerp the next time around to be able to see some stuff.

Edit wednesday:

The course is back to worse, with my teacher saying she has never seen anything as miserable as our last group project. The weather has improved though - good for our bicycle trip - and food and beer is still awesome. I had a nice steak of horse this evening with a Triple Karmeliet. I finally got facetime to Work on my phone, and had a long chat with my wife about why I had not called her earlier this evening.

Edit thursday:

The course went much better, and I managed to do an ok presentation on a difficult subject. I got an applause and a piece of chocolate. Our teacher did stress though, that if we did nothing on our Projects, no-one would come and help us. We had a great tour of the factory, and a nice dinner with some of the others from the course. I had the Paling in t'Groen and a starter of smallshrimp on mashed potatoes and a poached egg. A Chimay and an Orwell to go with that. We finished with a Duvel Triple Hop, just released from this year. Good stuff, but I feel a bit tipsy now.

Edit saturday:

I am home in Denmark. Having that course might mean I will have a lot more to do at work, but nice stuff to put on my resume. The food and beer was awesome, and the Belgians at the course finally opened up to me yesterday (I leave in a little while and now you are being friendly). I never found time to go anywhere but Puurs itself, and I consider finding a hotel in Antwerp and renting a car the next time around.

[lolIsuck]

It's pretty common for most cafés, restaurants, and some shops too, to be closed on monday here. It's the day after the weekend and bussiness would usually be slow on monday. I mean, who goes out for dinner on a monday? It's the logical day to be closed.

[Diglytron]

Should have went to Ghent. Ghent, Brugges etc are amazing cities. So sad we lost them in the Belgium struggle for independence. Stupid King letting them take that beautiful historical piece of land

[Logios]

Updated: For my second week of the course in Belgium, I have decided to stay in the nearby town of Mechelen. Puurs, nice as it comes, is simply too small.
I have also arranged for car rental to be a bit more mobile, and I hope to be able to get around more this time.
Are anyone here familliar with Mechelen or the area around it? What to see, where to eat and stuff like that would be awesome.