Netherlands - Antwerp - Brussels - Netherlands

Ok, so being Australian, we're used to driving on the left hand side of the road.  Borrowing a car from our landlord, and after a cursory lesson, my husband took charge of the driving and delegated the navigation role to me.

Getting from Groet to Antwerp wasn't actually difficult.  Basically, you just follow the signs.  The roads are amazing.  Better than anything I've experienced in Australia.  The traffic flow is great, and the on/off ramps are smooth and don't interfere with the traffic at all!

Getting around Antwerp, without a map, proved a little difficult.  There are one-way streets everywere!  Couple that with driving on the opposite side of the road to what we're used to and it certainly made for a few laughs.

Eventually we found a street near Centrum - Paardenmarkt - that we could park in.  And becuase it was Sunday, parking was free.  (BONUS!)

From there we bundled our 1yr old daughter into her pusher and headed off the explore Antwerp.

Two things that you absolutely MUST see are the Central Station and Cathedral!  I'll let you look at the photos yourself, but suffice to say that the architecture is totally amazing!

Don't stress too much if you don't have a map.  Once you're on foot it's easy enough.  There are civic maps spread every few blocks, so it's impossible to get lost!  And all the major attractions are listed.  Had we more time, we would have stayed for the 5pm mass at the Cathedral, but we were headed to Brussels for the night so we had to make tracks.

Oh, and you MUST try real Belgian waffles in Antwerp too!  Any small vendor will suffice!  Fresh, hot, tasty waffles smothered in your choice of fruit and cream (slag), chocolate, or jam!

Mmmmm, lecker!

Driving from Antwerp to Brussels wasn't so difficult either - once we found out way OUT of Antwerp Centrum.  But once we were in Brussels the story was different.  If we thought getting around Antwerp was difficult, Brussels was downright impossible.

It appears that no one planned the erection of the city - that it just sprang up.  Consequently, there are streets that curve, one way streets, dead ends...  You name it, it's there just to confuse tourists!

Still, the locals must have a hard enough time of it too... Even though we made some pretty serious navigation blunders, we were only honked at once.  It seems that everyone who drives in Brussels has a difficult task and is therefore pretty lenient with others who appear to have the same problems.

Your best bet to finding accommodation is to check out Europe's verion of lastminute.com  We were able to get a 295Euro/night double room (of generous proportions) for 55Euro - Breakfast included!  Gotta be happy with that.

But by the time we'd found the hotel (remember, we had serious navigation issues), got all our stuff up to our room, fed Aaliyah and put her to bed, it was close to 9pm.  And we'd not had dinner yet.

Mark hurried down to the lobby to get recommendations for take away food places (and directions on how to get there)... I didn't see him until about 10:30pm!  It'd taken the poor bloke an hour and a half to navigate a dozen blocks and back and find the restaurant.  In the end, the restaurant he was looking for was no where near where the hotel receptionist had written on the map!

Mark was so frazzled by his harrowing experience that by the time he got back (with cold Indian take-away of dubious edible quality) he wasn't hungry anymore!  We ate it anyway and it was delicious!

The next morning we were up early with Aaliyah and down to breakfast, then checked out and off for the day.   Again, we got free parking but this time by sweet-talking the hotel lobby chick into letting us keep it in the hotel's reserved section right out front!

Brussels is amazing.  Rue Royal/Koning Strasse is right by Central Park AND the memorial to the unknown soldier.  Both of which are totally amazing.

We also checked out Brussels Cathedral (you HAVE to check out the photos!), the Law Courts (Mark and I couldn't believe the wasted space.  Just oodles of empty space everywhere), the Royal Palace (Europeans love decorating everything with gold!), and a gorgeous Chocolate Boutique!  Snaking our way through the back streets, we finally came across the gastronimic centre of Brussles.  A strip of Cafes, fast food shops (just a hint: "Quick" burger chain, modelled on McDoalds, isn't that quick... we had to wait about 15 minutes for them to cook us 2 cheese burger eequivalents!)  What a delight!

And trying to find our way back to the car, we also uncovered the most amazing shops containing couture fashion and accessories!  I got some great inspiration!

Finally back at the car (after walking about 50 kilometres) we collapsed and headed out of the city (or so we thought).  A friendly cab driver informed us (after we'd rolled down our window and ascertained that he spoke a little english) that were were driving in the wrong direction, but that if we stayed on this 'ring' road, eventually we'd come across a sign and have to turn off there!

So, that's what we did.  And we followed signs all the way home to Groet, Netherlands.

It was about a 3 hour trip from Brussels back to Groet, and Aaliyah was pretty sick of sitting in a car seat/pusher after two days of the same.  But we'd all had a great time and seen some amazine things!