Adventures of David and Paul: Belgium Coasters and Culture: Part I

I kicked off my 5 day coaster tour of Belgium on a Saturday morning. Kyle and I were in one rental car, and our five other coaster friends were in two other cars. We set off early from Brussels for the one hour 20 minute drive to Bellewaerde Park. This was a pretty decent family park with a sizeable number of animal attractions and several sections themed to different parts of the world, like Canada, India, and Mexico. It has a good family coaster collection, and some bizarre elevated dueling alpine coasters with no hand brakes, but doesn't have a stand out thrill coaster. The most impressive ride was the new "Amazonia" river raft ride. I won't spoil the surprise, but there were several unique elements. Probably my favorite water ride I've ever been on. Crowds were relatively light, so we had time for re-rides on several coasters. We also rode the train, which had plexiglass windows and went right through the lion and tiger exhibits.

Welcome to Bellewaerde, the first park of the trip!

I loved that many of the rides had great theming.

Just some coaster nuts on the kiddie coaster! :)

The weird double lift of the alpine coasters.

Why yes, Canada is known for its tea rooms.

Wheeee!

The train going right by the lion.

I hope those windows are sturdy.

Getting close with some lemurs.

Awwww.

The boat ride, which was... not exactly PC.

But it did have capybaras!

I loved that multiple parks on this trip had a Mexico section.

Yes, the river raft ride has a big drop. Very cool.

WHAT departures? Oh, canal.

Now that's a fun element!

Leaving the park, it was less than an hour drive to our hotel in De Panne. Along the way we stopped in the town of Veurne, parking just outside the center and walking around for about half an hour. It had an impressive square, with a live band playing and lots of people gathering to watch the Belgium Euros game that would start in a few hours. Our hotel was the Ibis in De Panne, a seaside tourist town. We walked to dinner at Le Voilier on market square, on the recommendation of the hotel's front desk staff. It was good, but very busy with people eating prior to the Belgium game, so we had quite a wait for food. From there we walked to the beach, just a few minutes away, and saw the sunset after 10pm. Walking back to the hotel we caught bits of the game playing in bars along the walk; Belgium was winning 1-0 and ended up beating Romania 2-0.

Veurne is an old fortified town, and still has it's moat/canal.

Very cute!

The main square.

Love the architecture, and it was bustling with people.

People hanging out and drinking on the square before the game.

Lori and Steve found a spider statue in De Panne!

Where we ate dinner in De Panne.

Another geocache!

Sunset on the beach.

No lies detected.

The pedestrian sea front in De Panne.

Catching some of the Euros.

The next morning, we were able to sleep in a bit since the next amusement park, Plopsaland DePanne, was only a 5 minute drive away. This was one of the nicest parks on the trip, almost to the level of a mini-Disney with several well-themed sections. We had great weather all day and got in lots of coaster rides as well as the log flume, train, and dark rides. "Ride to Happiness" is the star attraction, and is an absolutely unhinged launched spinning coaster. Going down a near-vertical drop backwards was certainly a new experience! We definitely could have stayed longer and rode more, but like most European parks it closes early (in this case 6PM). The plus side is days aren't as long and exhausting, and there's more time to do non-coaster things.

Quick breakfast at a cafe before heading to the park.

Wunderbar! Although, spoiler alert, Belgium would not last long in this tournament.

Welcome to PlopsaLand.

Ride to Happiness is wicked looking.

It's themed to an electronic music festival (Tomorrowland).

Yay, theming! More of this please, US parks.

What a cool coaster.

Lunch time. Had some bitterballen and frites.

More excellent theming, this time on Anubis the ride.

The old school dark ride.

And the new kids dark ride, based on a TV show.

Viki the Viking!

The log flume was huge, prehistoric themed, and had a great double-down final drop.

The parade floats were bicycle powered! Cool!

Leaving PlopsaLand, we made a short detour to France, which was only about a 10 minute drive away. We drove another 10 minutes to Dunkirk, parked, and walked around for a bit. It was pretty quiet since it was a Monday evening, but we saw the main square and the marina before driving back to our hotel in Belgium. We had a quick dinner at a doner place and went to sleep, ready for the longest drive of the trip the next morning.