A year and a half of not traveling during covid really made me starve for travel and this year we’ve been traveling as if on a mission! Normally for teachers’ convention (if you are lucky enough to live in New Jersey, you know what I am talking about – two days off second week of November!) we stay local but this year we decided to go somewhere fun and after a good amount of deliberation, Belgium emerged as a winner.

Even with kids missing one day of school we only had 4 days for this trip and I had buyers remorse pretty much as soon as I hit the ‘buy’ button on those airplane tickets – taking a 7.5 hour flight and suffering through jet-lag for just 4 nights did not seem to be worth it. But I should’ve had more faith because we had the best time!

We split our time between Bruges and Brussels, which worked out great because these cities are so different from each other.

We walked narrow cobble stone streets in Bruges and took a canal tour, made and ate lots of chocolates, checked out beautiful churches and cool windmills, enjoyed a VR ride and birds eye view of the city.

And in Brussels were in absolute awe of The Grand Place (we’ve seen a lot of main squares but I think this is is the fairest of them all!), churches (one of them Mia Dubbed the Notre Dame of Brussels as it looked very similar to the one in Paris), took in some culture at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts and cool architecture.

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We got our fill of mussels, chocolates and Liege waffles (well, maybe not Liege waffles as I can eat them all day every day). It was a great trip!

And if you are planning your own trip to this beautiful country here is practical info that should be helpful.

PRACTICAL INFO

Bruges

Getting There

We were going to take a cab from the airport to Bruges but every travel forum I asked about getting to Bruges recommended taking a train. I am glad we did – it was SUPER easy – we took it directly from the airport and less than 1.5 hour later we were in Bruges! From there it was a 5 minute cab ride to our hotel – easy peasy!

Hotel

We stayed at Hotel De Castillion and absolutely LOVED it! It was right in the old center but tucked away from all the hustle and bustle so it was nice and quite in the room. We stayed in a family suite, which was a duplex and it worked out great – highly recommend for families.

Restaurants

House of Waffles – despite a very touristy founding name, this place (recommended by the hotel) was AWESOME! The decor was very funky, great location (not far from the main square) and most importantly – the waffles were SO GOOD! We got savory and sweet and I don’t even know which ones were better – I am getting hungry just thinking about them!

St Paulus Bakery – we were in a rush to get to start sight seeing so one morning we got a breakfast on the go from this place and it was wonderful – so many delicious morning pastries and breads!

Jet ‘Joe restaurant – if you are looking for a Michelin star experience this is the place to go to. You definitely need reservations way in advance (and them you need to confirm and reconfirm them) but it was worth the hassle – the food was great, the decor was inviting and the service was wonderful.

Pur Chocolate – when in Belgium one must buy chocolate.. There are lots of places there – literally tens of chocolate stores on each block.. this place is a bit different – it’s off the beaten track – we found it during our meanderings .. and it is not touristy . Highly recommend!

Things to Do

Canal Tour – when in Bruges you gotta do a canal tour. There are plenty options available – we did the first one we saw and it was fine:)

Belgium Chocolate Workshop – another must-do when in Belgium is a chocolate workshop. I picked this one based on good tripadvisor reviews and it did not disappoint – it was 2 hours of delicious fun! And we were sent home with lots and lots of chocolates that we made – and that I’ve been eating for last few days:)

Historium – this was a super fun place where we did a VR ride through Medieval Bruges (it sounds a bit cheesey but was so fun!) and climbed a tower for super cool views of the city – definitely check it out!

Brussels

Hotel

I did a lot of research on places to stay and eventually decided on Juliana Hotel – so glad that I did. It’s the newest boutique hotel in Brussels – after a 3 year renovation (Covid did not help!) they finally opened in September of 2021. The place is stunning – beautiful decor, funky (but not too funky) rooms with high ceilings and a great location. I would stay there again and again!

Restaurants

Wolf Market – if you love food markets you gotta check out this place! It’s a scaled down version of Chelsea Market in the city or Time Out in Lisbon. There are about 20 vendors – from Vietnamese and India street food to truffle pastas, poke bowls and dim sum. It’s a covered place with plenty of tables – a perfect spot for a quick meal.

Les Petits Oignons – this place came up a lot in my reviews and the concierge said it was on his list as well so of course we had to check it out. We ended up going there for lunch and it was lovely!

Nuetnigenough – this restaurant was rated very highly and was another one that the concierge recommended so naturally we had to check it out. Be warned – you NEED to make reservations way in advance (you can only do that via email) – this place is tiny and they get booked up. When we went there for dinner there was a sign that they were booked up for the night – as Mia noted, if there was a sign it meant that being booked up for dinner was a common occurrence for them. The food was SO GOOD – I think it was my favorite meal of the trip – even better than an outrageously expensive Michelin restaurant we visited in Bruges. So long story short – go check it out!

I don’t really have many recommendations for things to do because all we did was just walk all over place – stopping anywhere that tickled our fancy – beautiful cathedrals, a giant ferris wheel, Museum of Fine Arts (definitely worth a visit). We even walked all the way to Horta Museum, which apparently gets sold out – we learnt it the hard way. There is definitely lots of see an explore in Brussels!

If you’ve been following me for a while you know that I LOVE to travel! Just a few days ago I ran into a friend who I have not seen in a while and she told me that it looked like I travel more than I worked:). Not quite true but close:)

This summer for our extended family trip we chose Costa Rica. To be honest, I was not thrilled about going to Costa Rica – Victor and I were there in 2004 and although we liked it (and we did see all the tourists must see – Arenal Volcano, Monteverde Cloud Forest, sloths in Manual Antonio park and nice beaches at Jaco) we did not LOVE it. So when my sister proposed Costa Rica I tried to talk her out of it. But being a great and flexible person that I am, we decided to go there after all. And I am so glad that we did because we did not only like it, we LOVED it! It was such an amazing trip! Partially it had to do with the company (not that I did not enjoy my husband’s company back in 2004!) but this time around it there was a lot of us – my sister’s family with her 3 kids, my parents, my in-laws and four of us – a total of 13! And I think it also had a lot to do with the area we visited – Playa Potrero in Guanacaste area.

We’ve seen beautiful beaches all over the world – from the Caribbean to South East Asia to Australia and French Polynesia yet the beaches we saw on this trip were some of our all time favorites. I love the fact that they were not commercial – where were a few beach front restaurants but other than that – not much else – just the endless oceans with little islands rising from the ocean, beautiful cliffs along the beach and hardly any people! We only had two ‘beach days’ in our busy schedule and we checked out Playa Potrero as well as Playa Prieta, which was our all time fav. Playa Prieta is a black sand beach set in a cove surrounded by trees – a few times we walked to that beach (it was walking distance from our house) we had it pretty much to ourselves with exception of a few people and some monkeys.

We were there only for a week and that definitely was NOT enough time – especially considering the activities I packed in the time we had together. We went fishing (and reeled in a 48 lbs amberjack) and sailing/paddle-boarding, we saw seeing sloths and crocodiles, we took walks on the beach and hiked to a beautiful turquoise waterfall, we saw whales, sea turtles and dolphins and got chased by monkeys, we saw beautiful sunrises and stunning sunsets. I would love to go back there and already tried to convince my kids to return but they said they would rather try something new:)

So if you are looking for a rustic place with lots nature related/outdoor activities and stunning scenery definitely check out this area of Costa Rica!

PRACTICAL INFO

Getting There

We flew into Liberia airport (an under a 5 hour direct flight from JFK) and then rented a car and drove on mostly paved (and some dirt) roads to the airBnB.

AirBnB – because there was a lot of us and one of the main objectives of this trip was for us to stay together we knew that we wanted to stay in the same villa. We found this awesome house on AirBnB – and it was even better than what it looked like on the listing. Great location, stunning ocean views from pretty much everywhere in the house, walking distance to the most amazing beach we’ve ever seen and a short drive to town with its many restaurants. So if you are looking for a house for a large group in the Playa Potrero area I cannot recommend this AirBnB highly enough.

Activities

I ‘ve used Justin from Costa Rica Wet and Wild to book all of our tours and he did such a great job. There are plenty of tour operators in the area and I am sure a lot of them are great but we had great experience with Justin and I will use his services again and again.

We booked the following tours through him:

Palo Verde – although it was a drive from Playa Potrero, it was definitely worth it – an hour on the boat seeing Costa Rican wild life doing its thing in the wild followed by Comida Tipica at a ‘local yokal’ restaurant.

Fishing – we did a half day ocean fishing trip that Jason arranged. The fishing boats were small (max of 6 people) so we had to get two and it was a bit choppy but fun was had by all and we got plenty of fish!

Sailing/Snorkling – we booked another half a day trip – this time at a much more luxurious catamaran. They took us to a secluded beach where we snorkled (although it was a bust because water was muddy), paddle boarded, kayaked, swam and had a lovely lunch.

Rio Celeste – I did a lot of research on hikes we can do as a family and while there were LOTs of options (I really want to go back to Costa Rica and explore them all!) we ended up going to Rio Celeste. One of the reasons was because it was considered an ‘easy’ hike – and since both my Mom and Mother-In-Law (they are in their 70s) wanted to go on a hike with us, we had to rule out hikes where you had to climb up steep terrain and swim/hike to get to the place you needed to go. Rio Celeste is located in the Tenorio Volcano National Park and is a beautiful turquise/glacier blue waterfall/river. We were visiting during rainy season and I’ve read that sometimes when it rains a lot, the water can be muddy and brown but we lucked out and were treated to a spectacular view of the waterfall.

Park of the group decided to go all the way to the end, past the water fall and we saw a few other cool sights. And another part of the group headed back and were changed my angry cappuccino monkeys! 🙂

Spring Paradise – when my sister did her Costa Rica research she said that she really wanted to do sloths. And the only place where you could see sloths close to where we stayed (Playa Potrero is too dry for sloths) was a private reserve of Spring Paradise. We booked a private tour there (that’s the only way to see this place) and saw a few sloths, which we never would’ve found them had it not been for the guide. The sloths were a bit underwhelming (they don’t move much so they just appear as a ball of fur up on a tree) but we did see really cool frogs (who would’ve thought that frogs could be so cool!) and it was nice to walk inside a cloud/rain forest.

Restaurants

Because there was so many of us, going out for dinner was a big undertaking so we did not eat out as much as we usually do. But we did try a few restaurants that I would go back to:

Nasu Restaurant at Bahia Del Sol at Playa Potrero – another beach front restaurant – service was good and food was fine – nothing to write home about but I would recommend it.

The Beach House – a casual restaurant with funky colorful chairs and good food set right on the beach. We got there right in time for sunset and it was pretty magical watching the sun go down.

Hemingway’s – another casual beach front restaurant. When we were there they had live music which was nice but also a bit too loud. Food took a while (again, there was 13 of us so it was kind of expected) but it was really good.

Ponciana restaurant at Santarena Hotel – one day we decided to check out Las Catalinas (a beautiful ocean front development) and had lunch there. The food was not – not terribly exciting but not bad.

Sentido Norte – one night we left all our kids with grandparents and escaped for an adults-only dinner with my sister and her husband. This restaurant (that I had to reserve over a week in advance) was really wonderful – set on top of a hill overlooking the ocean, with great service and delicious food. Definitely a nice treat.

What I would recommend in a heartbeat is hiring a personal chef. We hired Sharon from Life is Sweet and she was absolutely amazing! She worked with me to come up with a great menu, came with her two helpers and they cooked, set the table, served us and cleaned up afterward. If you are renting a house in the area (she does need a kitchen so this won’t work with a hotel room) do yourself a favor and book Sharon.

And that’s all guys! And if you are planning your own trip to Guanacaste area of Costa Rica and have questions definitely reach out to me – I would be happy to help!