Some trips I play the tourist. Some trips I hide in a room and relax. And some trips — my favorite, truth be told — I visit friends. This trip I’m visiting friends.

I flew to Belgium because TUI started cheap direct routes from Miami to Brussels. And the only real thing on my schedule is a larp I’m attending in a little over a week in Florence. So the next week is going to be an unhurried trip down the face of Europe, hanging out with people I haven’t seen since the plague hit.

My flight left Miami midafternoon and landed early Sunday after eight hours in the air. I thought I had managed to avoid the worst of the jetlag by sleeping on the flight¹ but despite going to sleep around midnight in both countries I’ve gone from sleeping six hours back in the USA to sleeping eleven hours here. At least I’m better rested.

I had plans to meet up with some academic friends in Antwerp on Monday to see some museums, which was stupid, since all the museums are closed on Monday. Instead I hopped a train direct from the airport and met them Sunday, the same day I landed, stuffing my luggage in a locker at the station.

Antwerp is worth more than the single day I had to wander around. Even if you just transfer trains there, do yourself a favor and try and spend a couple hours. The train station is justly famous as one of the most beautiful in the world, a bizarrely eclectic design from the turn of the 20^th century you might call “Baroque Beaux Arts."²

Antwerp was the home of Peter Paul Rubens. I never really thought of painting as a way, historically, of getting really filthy rich, but apparently you could if you were good enough. We got a chance to tour Ruben’s house and studio — Rubens designed it themselves — and it’s expansive and lavish, featuring an Italianate garden and fancy arches and a small indoor parthenon to display the Greek and Roman statuary Rubens collected. The house doesn’t feature any of the particularly large works Rubens was known for, but you can stroll over afterwards to visit the cathedral, where three of them hang.

Monday and Tuesday was spent back in Brussels. And I hung out with another friend for dinner on Monday, and spent most of the rest of time just rambling around the city when I wasn’t trying to get some work done. I’ve been in a lot of walkable cities — most European cities are walkable compared to cities in the United States — but it seems like every city I’ve traveled to in Belgium is ridiculously good for pedestrians, from the nearly unbearable charm of Bruges to the elaborate architecture of Antwerp to the unfussy calm of Brussels.

It can be tempting, when traveling, to book cheap accommodations on the outskirts. I often do. But it often means you’re stranding yourself on the end of a long taxi or tram ride. I’m happier if I can be in the heart of the city when I step outside. I see more. I do more. Save the outskirts for when you need to lock yourself in and get some work done.

I’m now heading to Berlin. I couldn’t find a train ticket that wasn’t twice as long and twice as expensive as a flight. I’m consoling myself with the fact that I’ll be flying in to the brand new airport they finally opened.³ It cost six billion euros. I’m glad I’ll finally get a chance to see it. Now do the rail system.

Next: Berlin to Zürich
Prev: Miami (MIA) to Brussels (BRU)

Footnotes

¹ I have, or at least I had, a prescription of Xanax to help with anxiety when I fly. I’ve been trying to avoid using it, but I find it’s great when I’m traveling long distances and want to sleep on flights. I stay calm through mild turbulence and I get drowsy. What’s not to love?

Unfortunately, it can be a pain to get doctors to prescribe, so I’ve been nursing the single prescription I have for the better part of two years. I’m down to five pills.

² Historicism is what they call the style when architects just grab a bunch of stuff they liked from different periods and jam it all together.

³ Well, it was opened back in October, 2020. But I can’t imagine it saw a lot of traffic until this year.