After a back-to-back-to-back season of hitting rock bottom, a season of rest or, better yet, a summer time adventure was just exactly what I needed. I knew I didn’t want to travel too far and keep it more lowkey than flying across the world. My boyfriend and I decided that a cross-country road trip would be perfect. The adventure started on a mid-July Saturday in Wuppertal, Germany, and continued to Delft, Netherlands, then to Bruges, Belgium, and finally back to Wuppertal a week later.

If you read my previous post, you will recall that I mentioned how grateful I am to now have a job that allows me to work from wherever I want. I don’t think it’s fully sunk in yet—considering myself a nomad who can’t stay in one place for long. Because I work for a company that is based in Dubai, I had the luxury of taking a week off for Eid. Thankfully my boyfriend was able take a week off from work so we could take advantage of some vacation time together. At first, we thought about flying out to Croatia or Spain. But Spain is a high-risk country right now for COVID transmissions, and the fact that he had just received his second dose of the vaccine the same week, we didn’t want to travel far with all the hassle that comes with not being fully vaccinated yet, and spend money or plan a more involved vacation if he had a bad reaction to his shot. Plus, if we have the option to sit back and drive rather than fly, we’d prefer that! Road trips are a lot of fun and a great time to sing along to some music, joke around, and talk while taking in new scenery.

It is only about 3 hours from Wuppertal to Delft, which is a great distance to not get a tired butt or leg jitters. Both Delft and Bruges aren’t crazy insane busy in the summer, compared to other cities we could have chosen. Even better, the high temperatures are only 20C and lows are still a comfortable 14C. We really didn’t think too much about what we wanted to see in these cities. We set out of July 17^th and just waited to see where our plans would take us!

Delft, Netherlands

For the reason of wanting to save money, we based ourselves in Delft and gave up our original plan to stay in Den Haag, our supposed main destination. Not that we weren’t expecting it, but lodging in and around Den Haag is prohibitively expensive. Anyway, we reasoned that since Den Haag is only a 20-minute train ride from our Airbnb in Delft, we had nothing to gain but more mini-adventures.

Arriving in Delft, Netherlands

After driving the three hours to Delft over 270 kilometers, we were ready to explore. We stayed a darling room in a townhome AirBnB that even provided chocolates on the bed and a parking space for us.

Delft is the image that most people have of a Dutch town. Canals, tree-lined streets, and quiet nooks. Only its blue pottery, which can be seen being made at De Porceleyne Fles, is famous throughout the world. This canal-ringed former seat of the royal House of Orange has an impressive, ornate City Hall in the city centre, and Old Church and a New Church that are fun to explore and climb the towers of. It is also the birthplace of painter Jan Vermeer, who painted “The Girl with the Pearl Earring”.

We had a great time strolling through the pedestrian district with ice cream in hand, eating fries with joppie sauce, and chatting as we meandered around the canals. It also piqued my interest when we came across an Argentinian restaurant serving empanadas, as I had been craving them for several weeks. But the best part of it all was watching the sun set in the pretty little town and having so many options for good Chinese and Japanese food! There were no crowds or a large number of tourists, which was a big plus, especially with the summer humidity clinging to you.

Of course, the thought of summer conjures up images of a relaxing day at the beach. After driving to the city the day prior, we thought a beach day would be fun (the only reason we had to stay in Den Haag). We took the train to Den Haag, Kurhaus and walked to De Pier, getting surprised by the crowd, which made me wonder if COVID was still around. Nonetheless, we ate some delicious seafood and strolled around until we came across Uitkijktoren, a beautiful viewpoint overlooking the beach and dunes. We had to climb a short distance from the Zwarte pad parking lot, but it was worth it to feel the cool breeze and enjoy the view of the ocean without bumping into other people. Of course, we had a few dudes behind us partaking in smoking weed, but I guess that’s just what happens when you’re in Netherlands!

On our third day in Delft, we had to see the city just like the locals! So naturally we had to rent a pair of bikes. We thought we’d only do an hour or so before exploring more on foot. But nope! Three hours and 32 kilometers later, we had done a scenic tour of the city. We rode along the canals and through the green public spaces and felt like we were truly Dutch. These bikes were very reasonably priced at 10 euros a day.

Overall, I am so happy we chose this city over other cities in Netherlands. We were able to explore the city without the crowds that you would find in Amsterdam (I believe) and get a true taste of Dutch life. The city has a vibrant culture that we tried to grasp in the three and a half days we were exploring and walking around.

Bruges, Belgium

While many people may head to just Brussels when they visit Belgium, we wanted to relax in this 13^th century Medieval city that has canals and beautiful architecture. In the city centre is the Belfry of Bruges, a Medieval bell tower that is striking. Across from this is the 14th century City Hall, which has a museum that you can visit, which had a lot of visitors during the time we were there, but which we skipped because, unfortunately, we’re both not fans of museums. You can even see an 11^th century hospital that has been converted into a museum right on the canal!

Arriving in Bruges, Belgium

From Delft, we headed about 200 kilometers down to Bruges, which takes about two and a half hours, and where we also stayed in for three nights. As we made our way to our AirBnB, I couldn’t help but get excited about what this trip had in store for us! The weather was ideal, as another sunny day greeted us when we arrived, and our feet were itching to explore! Lucky for us, our AirBnB host was kind enough to drive us around town and give us a quick tour, showing us where we should go and what we should do like locals!

We had a good start to our exploring past 15:00 by trying the recommended best burger in town, Ellis burger, which was good but couldn’t say one of the bests I had. Also thanks to our AirBnB host that was full of knowledge, we also knew to go check out Brugsbeertje, where will find more than 200 beers on the menu. It is not that crowded as many tourists do not know about it, which was ideal for us to peacefully enjoy each other’s company. And our first dinner in the city was a no-brainer: French fries, plain and simple.

Our second day was a little quieter. July 21 is apparently Belgium’s National Day. We drove outside of Bruges to the Belgian coast, Blankenberge and the beach, only to discover that everyone else had the same idea. We didn’t give up easily, but it took us more than an hour to find a parking spot (only it was away from the main beach point). Regardless, the part we ended up in had a few people around, so we were able to enjoy the calm and quiet beach. However, we had to keep an eye out for some (dead?) jellyfish that had washed up on the beach. As dinnertime approached, we returned to our AirBnB because our host had invited us to join him for dinner, where he served fries, the famous Delirium beer, and more beers brewed in a monastery. We couldn’t have had a more Belgian dinner anywhere else. He even gave me a bracelet that had been blessed by the Dalai Lama!

After our enjoyable scenic bike ride in Delft, we decided to rent bikes in Bruges as well, making our third day my personal favorite of the trip! Before hopping on our bikes, we went to Tito’s Filipino Street Food for lunch and ate the lechon kawali, which I did find very tasty even though it was a tad pricey.

We ended up going on an even longer tour this time, biking more than 50 kilometers for almost four hours! Our last stop before going back was the gorgeous dunes in the seaside town of Cadzand. Near the border of the Netherlands and Belgium, this charming city is surrounded by dunes and green grass, which makes for a perfect little day trip. Visiting this city was well worth the travel and to see more of the Dutch coastline. It was completely worth it to make sure we saw as much of the city as possible. Also, these bikes were 12 euros a day, which still fit very comfortably into our budget for the trip!

The drive home to Wuppertal from Bruges was the longest stretch of driving the whole week, about three and a half hours over 315 kilometers.

Final Thoughts

This trip, like all of the others my boyfriend and I have enjoyed together, continue to prove to me that you can definitely save money while still have the time of your lives—staying outside of the city centre is totally easy thanks to public transportation (bikes, most especially!), and buying our food from the grocery stores instead of eating out for every meal.

I’ve also never been so envious (not in a bad way) of other people! It truly is a wonderful privilege for Europeans to be able to easily jump in a car and drive across country borders during holidays, a long weekend, or a week off!

And on the experiences we had on this road trip, the two bike rides we went on may seem long to you, but they were unquestionably the highlights of the trip for me. It almost felt like I was in a dream, and it made me realize that it’s no surprise that the quality of life in these bike-friendly countries, particularly the Netherlands, is high. I mean, it wasn’t my first time in the Netherlands because we’d done a day trip to Roermond before, but I wish it was the same in every country! I imagined how nice it would be to call that place home.

This was exactly the relaxing type of vacation my boyfriend and I needed. Most of the time when traveling, we prefer to be snuggled up for the evening by 9 pm. I think choosing these less touristy cities allowed us to have those moments of relaxation we needed without hearing people shouting on the streets in the wee hours of the night. Overall, the trip was nothing short of perfect. It definitely helped me bring in some much-needed inspiration for my creativity and some passion projects that I’m planning to do.