Brilliant things about Belgium!

[belgo]

Just so we don't feel left out, and we need cheering up with this weather and economy etc.

I'll start with the obvious:
the food! Reliably decent restaurants.
The fact that we get the new Playmobil here 6/12 months before the UK

Don't forget the guns, belgo!

belgo, I only ever met friendly, helpful people. DH had the opposite experience a couple of weeks ago though. Some very unfriendly people stole his bag and, by extension, his life. Passport, CCs, keys, phone, iPad, DL. id card etc.
I would still choose Belgium over Switzerland any day of the week.

That's awful Kreecher. Did he have a good experience with the police when he reported it?

The windmills

Bruges

second Plopsaland de Panne

belgo, not especially. It happened at Antwerp station so he reported it there. The police couldn't or wouldn't give him a pass to get on the bus, so he had to walk 11Km home.
The next day he went to the local police station and told them that he'd found a signal from the iPad and it was in Brussels. The police told him to go and get it himself.

sounds fairly typical of the police unfortunately. Apart from our local 'bobby on his bike' who is very sweet.

pinkthchaffinch - it's Holland that has the windmills. There aren't many in Belgium.

The fact that you can stumble across a little restaurant in the middle of fecking nowhere (outskirts of Verviers) and you will be fed the most exquisite food for virtual pennies.

That when trying to send a bunch of ebay parcels from a very French, very rural post office the woman behind the counter will announce "you don't need to struggle in French you know, I used to live in Birmingham".

That you can get melt-in-your-mouth chateaubriand from carrefour for a few quid.

That when you've ridden your horses over the ski slopes and your friend has fallen off and broken her wrist the local German-speaking hospital will pull out all the stops to treat her and make her feel good and then post the bill to her home in Liverpool so she can get it sorted with the insurance then rather than making things difficult on the night in question. Oh, and never mind the fact that they'll speak fluent English in the world's smallest hospital - and not just the doctors, but the nurses, receptionists and tea ladies too!

That if you go out to St. Vith and its environs you feel like you're in Austria.

That if you're ever feeling a little shaky in the self-esteem area, that you can stroll in to Celtica at 2am and be treated like a GODDESS!

That if your dog gets hit by a car :( - the vet will charge just over 100 euros on a friday night to put it right - even though her husband's not home and her 4 kids have been dumped in front of the TV with microwave meals.

Chips and mayonnaise!

So many things I love about living here (this is more specific to Brussels I suppose):
The chocolate (of course)
The fact that whenever you order a coffee in a cafe it comes on a little tray with a free biscuit
Exki
Le pain quotidien for breakfast
All the parks
The child friendliness that we have encountered (almost) everywhere
Crevettes grises
Bumba the clown and, especially, his friend Gwido the penguin
The fact that we get the "proper" BBC channels on cable/digital and not just the rubbish export version you get elsewhere
The great restaurants
Bilingual families everywhere
Real old fashioned ice cream parlours where you can sit down and order a sundae
All the hidden gardens that so many houses in Brussels have. The streets look like boring brick terraces but behind them are some incredible "secret" gardens
The Art Nouveau gems
The musical instruments museum
Planckendael
Technopolis
I could go on...

well, excuse me , but I've been to Belgium many a time (dh's sidecarmotocross -don't ask) and I've always noticed and admired the massive windmills gracing the roadsides. Sometimes they even have names- I'm sure I spotted one that said 'I'm really big' or something!

You don't get that in the UK, just off shore ones.

and I've been in an old fashioned windmill just outside Bruges

To be fair pinkthechaffinch, our relocation agent told us that windmills originated in Belgium and the pesky Dutch came and stole the idea.
I am not sure how much of that I belive thought TBH, he made some other outlandish claims about Belgium.

I do know of a couple of old fashioned windmills, and I have to admit, there are quite a few modern windmills along the E40. I have no idea if they were invented by the flemish or dutch.

Apart from that, thank you everyone for reminding me of the good things in Belgium!

ah yes, the e40 that's the name of the road I've been on all too many times.

I also like the lovely flat landscapes and the sunsets.

Yes the lovely flat landscapes. How on earth have I managed to buy a house at the top of a hill? My children always complain walking up it.

It always saddened me when people talk of flat Belgium, because obviously they didn't get to see much of the country. West flanders is not Belgium. I lived at 2000' feet...

Lots of hills in Belgium. There is even skiing! Well sometimes...

I like going to Spa!

Atonium is impressive to look at from a distance.
www.earthinpictures.com/world/belgium/brussels/atomium.jpg

Definitely better from the outside! I can see it out of the window at work.

There was even skiing down my street last winter!

'Atonium is impressive to look at from a distance.'

sums it up very well

Mannekin Pis (?sp). I don't know of any other statue that has a whole wardrobe of clothing that is changed regularly.
The LA putting on special events for children during school holidays. Not as good as where we are living now, but great nonetheless.
The number of parks and open spaces which are free to use also.

mannekin pis has clohehs? I didn't know that - he was def naked when I saw him!

Oh yes - he has an extensive wardrobe. He must also be the most underwhelming tourist attraction ever

Portofino, I used to live by one of the ski hills, first winter I was there we had 5 months of snow on the ground. Plenty of skiing, langlaufen and downhill.

What's with the lying down statue by the grand place that people stroke?

The dazzling array of 'window ladies' when you pull in to north station.

The witches of ellezelles.

Brunch in o'reillys.

Pssst eupen shopping centre, all my favourite shops, never seen a queue in my life! ;)

You can get crevettes grises in Morecambe and Parkgate, too