Flemish Masters Travel Passports Baggage Please ensure your 10 year British Passport is not As with most trains, passengers are responsible for out of date and is valid for a full three months carrying baggage onto and off the train. Baggage beyond the duration of your visit. EU, Andorra, can be stored on overhead shelves or at the Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino or Switzerland entrance to the carriages. Trollies are available at St valid national identification cards are also Pancras and Lille, but bags do need to be carried on acceptable for travel to Belgium. to the platform. Porters are sometimes but not always available at St Pancras. Visas Travel Editions recommends a luggage delivery British and EU passport holders are not required to service called thebaggageman, where your suitcase have a visa. can be picked up from your home before departure and delivered straight to your hotel; therefore For all other passport holders please check the visa removing the worry about carrying your cases onto requirements with the appropriate embassy. and off the trains. Belgian embassy: 17 Grosvenor Crescent, London For further information: SW1X 7EE. Tel: (0)20 7470 3700. http://www.thebaggageman.com [email protected] For visa information: Tel: 0871 376 0023, or visit www.vfs-be-uk.com Labels Open Mon-Fri 0900-1200. Please use the luggage labels provided. It is useful to have your home address located inside your suitcase should the label go astray. Tickets Transfers You will be issued with return train tickets. On arrival in Brussels transfer to a local train to Please take care not to lose your tickets and please Antwerp. Then travel on foot to your hotel (100 check that the details on your tickets are accurate. metres). Your ticket is non-transferable and non-refundable. No refund can be given for non-used portions. Standard Premier on Eurostar tickets is indicated by Special Requests two asterisks in the class type section in the top If you haven’t already, please notify Travel Editions right hand corner. A light meal will be served to of any special requests as soon as possible to allow passengers travelling Standard Premier on Eurostar. sufficient time to make the necessary Standard class Eurostar tickets do not include any arrangements. food or drink on board, although there is a buffet car serving drinks and snacks. TGV tickets do not include any food or drink on board, although a buffet car is available. Train Seats On all legs of the journey you have reserved seat and carriage numbers which are shown clearly on your ticket. Accommodation Radisson Blu Astrid Hotel, Antwerp and bars, and no further tipping is required, The Radisson Blu Astrid Hotel in Antwerp is a lovely although if service is considered excellent, it is modern, centrally located four-star hotel, well customary to round up the bill. positioned in the city of Antwerp, right by the station. The hotel facilities include breakfast room, restaurant, bar, sauna, Jacuzzi, health and wellness centre, massage therapy, indoor pool, Wi-Fi and Drink even an in-house aquarium, Aquatopia, boasting Over 400 beers are brewed in Belgium – ranging 10,000 exotic fish and reptiles in natural from the mass-produced lagers like Stella Artois to surroundings. Bedrooms have been recently the local, artisanal microbreweries. You will find refurbished and boast free high-speed wireless everything from brown ales, amber ales, white internet access, flat-screen televisions, private beers, Flemish reds, Indian pale ales, to stouts and bathroom or shower, telephone, safe as well as Lambic beers. Trappist beers, such as Chimay, views of either Astrid Square or the historic Achel, Orval, Rochefort, Westmalle and cityscape. Westyleteren, are brewed in Trappist monasteries, with monks taking an active part in the production For more information, please go to the hotel’s process and the profits supporting the monastery. website at: Bières d’Abbaye, the best known being Leffe and http://www.radissonblu.com/astridhotel-antwerp Grimbergen, however, are commercially brewed, just using the name and recipe of former monastic breweries. Try a Hoegaarden for a white beer, Lambics and Guezes for oak-aged beers, a Duvel for Food a blonde ale, a local Cantillon (microbrewed in Belgium’s food specialities extend far beyond just Brussels), or if you prefer something sweeter, the beer, chocolate, chips and waffles. This small cherry-flavoured Kriek. country has rich local resources with fish and mussels harvested from the North Sea, pheasant, The local spirit is Jenever, similar to gin, originally rabbit and venison from the forested hills of the flavoured with juniper berries. Ardennes, and excellent beef and lamb from the Flemish polders. Traditional dishes include moules frites, stoemp Meals included in the price of your holiday are: (mashed potato with leeks and carrots), witloof en oven (endives wrapped in ham and covered in Breakfast – daily cheese sauce), waterzooi (fish or chicken and Dinner is included on two nights, with wine at the vegetable broth), paling in’t groen (eel cooked in a hotel. sauce of spinach, herbs and white wine), lapin aux pruneaux (rabbit cooked with prunes and beer), Faison à la brabançonne (pheasant cooked in butter with Brussel sprouts and endives), and filet américain (or steak tartare, raw mincemeat mixed with egg, onion and capers). You will find plenty of places to enjoy a meal or snack, ranging from the Michelin-Starred to the humble fritkot (chip stand). Watch out for restaurants offering a lunchtime special set menu – dagschotel or plat du jour – they offer great value for money. Usually, a discretionary service charge is added to your bill in restaurants Destination Antwerp Guilds which align the square. Those buildings are Antwerp (Antwerpen/Anvers in Dutch/French) is relatively new. The original houses were destroyed Belgium’s second city and biggest port. In the mid- in the fire of 1576. They were rebuilt in Flemish 16th century it had been one of Europe’s most Renaissance style, but were revamped again in the important cities and home to baroque superstar nineteenth century, resulting in the current lavishly artist Pieter Paul Rubens, as you’ll be so constantly decorated houses. But the most impressive building reminded. Despite many historical disasters on the Grote Markt is undoubtedly the magnificent thereafter and severe WWII bombings, the city Stadhuis (City Hall), built in 1565 in Flemish retains an intriguing medieval heart with café-filled Renaissance style. It is lavishly decorated with cobbled lanes, a riverside fortress and a truly ornaments and boasts a sumptuous interior that impressive cathedral. Today Antwerp’s top was redecorated in the nineteenth century. drawcards are its vibrant fashion, entertainment scene and startling architectural and cultural Rockoxhuis contrasts. The 17th century Rockox House, home of Antwerp mayor, Nicolaas Rockox (1560-1640) is a temple Bruges dedicated to the arts and exudes the atmosphere of If you set out to design a fairy-tale medieval town it a period town house. Rockox was an art and coin would be hard to improve on central Bruges collector and patron and friend of art icons such as (Brugge in Dutch). Picturesque cobbled lanes and Rubens. In the Rockox House works of art by Peter II dreamy canals link exceptionally photogenic market Brueghel, Jan I Brueghel sit side by side with other squares lined with soaring towers, historic churches greats - Peter Paul Rubens, Sir Anthony Van Dyck, and old whitewashed almshouses. Bruges’s Jacob Jordaens, and others. Furniture and other reputation as one of the most perfectly preserved 16th and 17th century art objects adorn the medieval cities in western Europe has made it the residence. The beautiful courtyard garden has most popular tourist destination in Belgium. recently been refurbished befitting the collection and atmosphere of the house. Ghent Of all the cities in Belgium, it’s hard to trump Ghent, Museum Mayer van den Bergh a vital, vibrant metropolis whose booming Fritz Mayer van den Bergh (1858-1901) dedicated restaurant and bar scene wends its way across a his life to art and collected an entire museum. An charming cityscape, a network of narrow canals array of masterpieces from the Middle Ages and the overseen by dozens of antique brick houses. If Renaissance, as well as a number of fascinating 19th Bruges is a tourist industry with a town attached, century works of art travelled to Antwerp at his Ghent is the reverse – a proudly Flemish city which, request. Paintings, sculptures, tapestries, drawings with a population of 240,000, is now Belgium’s third and stained glass windows were incorporated in largest conurbation. Mayer van den Bergh’s home, adapted to become an intimate gallery space. In each room, the Details of places of interest included in your tour: collector seduces with his refined taste, his exceptional knowledge and his eye for quality. The Grote Markt only Belgian museum to get a mention in the 'Great smaller museums of Europe Guide', it is well The magnificent sixteenth-century city hall deserved. dominates the relatively small Grote Markt. The square's triangular shape originates from the http://www.museummayervandenbergh.be/Museu municipal ground created during the era of the m_MayerVanDenBergh_EN Franks. The centerpiece of the square is a large fountain, built in 1887 by the architect Jef Lambaux. It depicts the protagonist of Antwerp's most famous legend: the mythical hero Brabo. The Grote Markt is probably best known for the beautiful houses of the Rubenshuis implements, hospital sedan chairs and a gruesome Step into the shoes of the leading Baroque artist of 1679 painting of an anatomy class. But it is much his era. Rubens and his family lived in this palatial better known for six masterpieces by 15th-century setting for well over 25 years and it is here that the artist Hans Memling, including the enchanting artist created the lion's share of his work.