Belgium, the Trip Home, and My Reflections

Hello Everyone!

My apologies for taking so long to get this last World Cruise post out! Today is  Sunday, 17 May 2026 and I've been back home in Ohio since the evening of Monday the11th. I've been consumed with the business of getting back to reality and taking care of things I've put off for the last 4-1/2 months! Nothing overwhelming, just the normal trivia of mundane chores. Doing laundry, petting the cats, replacing batteries in just about every device in the house, getting rubbed on by the cats, grocery shopping and restocking the pantry, picking up prescription refills, getting pinned on the couch by the cats, cooking my own food, visiting friends, learning to drive again (not really!), sending stuff out to the drycleaner, picking up my own towels, getting my hearing aids fixed (I got the case wet during the trip and killed them), going through a mountain of mail, and so on.

So, let's see if I can catch you up on what I did between leaving London on 6 May and getting home on the 11th!

My Time in Belgium

In my last post I told you about disembarking from the ship and taking a Eurostar high-speed train to Brussels to reconnect with my friends Digno and Lieve who live near there in the village of Tremelo. I had a wonderful visit with them, catching up on all that's happened with them since I last saw them in November, and telling them anecdotes about my cruise. As always, they thoroughly spoiled me with outstanding company, great local food, wine and beer. 

My Welcoming Repast

We did a bit of touring around, and as often as I've visited them before, we still managed to find new places to go and things to do. I've seen so much of Belgium and surrounding areas that I think I could give Rick Steves a run for his money!

Royal Military Museum

Digno and I spent several hours going through the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History in Brussels. It is one of Europe's largest military museums, covering Belgian and European military history from the Middle Ages through the modern era, with extensive collections of aircraft, tanks, armored vehicles, weapons, uniforms, and World War exhibits. Its huge aviation hall, with aircraft suspended overhead, is one of its most memorable features. It is adjacent to the Royal Military Academy, from which both Digno and Lieve graduated.

Royal Military Museum

Triumphal Arch of the Cinquantenaire at the Museum

As retirees of our respective Air Forces, one of the perks Digno and I both enjoyed was free admission to the museum!

Free Admission for Vets!

First Belgian F-16

Supermarine Spitfire Mk V

Cutaway Rolls Royce Merlin V-12

Fouga Magister Trainer

Mil-Mi-24 Hind D Attack Helicopter

British Mark IV "Male" WWI Tank

Royal Military Museum Interior

Supermarine Spitfire Suspended
from Ceiling in Museum

View from Atop the Cinquantenaire Arch
at the Museum

Brouwerij (Brewery) Batteliek 

After a few hours at the museum, we'd worked up quite a thirst (Ik heb dorst!), so we proceeded to a relatively new brew pub Digno knew about called Batteliek. It's in an old church and is very nicely appointed. Because it is owned and operated by Het Anker (The Anchor), a sizeable commercial brewery in nearby Mechelen, they had the resources to create a first-class microbrewery. We sampled several beers and enjoyed some tasty small bites as well.

Brouwerij Batteliek

Batteliek Beers

My Typical Pose in Belgium

Batteliek Brewery Interior

Zennegat

Then we took a short drive to Zennegat, a lock on a canal where the Senne river ends and joins the Dijle river. The name Zennegat breaks down roughly as:

• Zenne = the Zenne River (called Senne in French)
• Gat in Dutch can mean hole, opening, gap, or mouth/outlet

So Zennegat is literally translated as “the opening (or mouth) of the Zenne”. However, local Flemish humor makes the translation more like the "hole" at the other end of the alimentary canal, if you catch my drift...

There's a small pub there that we'd hoped to patronize, but it was closed for renovation. 

Zennegat Lock

Brouwerij Rodenbach and Roeselare, Belgium

The next morning we originally set out on a day trip to visit the St. Sixtus Abbey in Westvleteren to have lunch and sample my favorite Trappist Beer, Westvleteren 12. Following that, we planned to drive to nearby Roeselare to tour the Rodenbach brewery. Along the way though, we found that the Abbey's tasting room was closed on Fridays. So, being the ever-flexible, Semper Gumby, military retirees that we are, we pivoted to a leisurely coffee in a sidewalk cafe in Roeselare, lunch at the Rodenbach brewery, followed by a guided tour. 

Central Roeselare

At a Sidewalk Cafe in Roeselare

Rodenbach is a unique beer, at least by American standards. It's a "sour" beer, aged in oak casks, and inoculated by a proprietary strain of bacteria that inhabits the century-old casks. When first brewed, the beer is a malty brew with normal pH and flavor (not sour). A portion of each batch is directed to the oak casks where it ages for about two years and picks up the distinct sour flavor. That "old beer" is mixed in varying proportions with "young beer" before being kegged or bottled for sale. The blend that Digno and I liked the best is called Rodenbach Grand Cru and consists of 2/3 old beer to 1/3 new beer. This particular blend is made only in small quantities and isn't generally available on tap in pubs. The most common variety is Rodenbach classic, which is 1/4 old beer and 3/4 young beer. But even that is hard to find on tap anywhere outside Roeselare.

The beer is an acquired taste, and with a pH of around 3.4, I found it quite sour at first. But after several sips, it grew on me and I came to like it a lot. It was especially good with food.

Entry to the Rodenbach Brewery

Digno and Me Enjoying Our Grand Cru

Portions of the brewery date back over 200 years, and they've preserved some of the original buildings.

Original Brewery Buildings

There are 294 large oak "foeders", or casks, used to age and sour the beer. These are enormous and can hold up to 8,000 gallons of beer each. Some of them date back to the 1830s and are still in use. They have an onsite cooperage (maned by two artisans) to maintain and rebuild the foeders. An interesting fact is that the price of the oak timbers they use to make the barrel staves has quadrupled in price as a result of the enormous amounts of old growth oak needed for the restoration of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

Oak Foeders (Casks) for Aging

On Site Cooperage

Foeder Repairs, Before/After

Oak Staves for Foeders

The brewery has a nice event space located in one of the ten the aging cellars. It looks like it would be a fun and interesting place to host a formal dinner.

Event Space

After the tour, we were treated to generous pours of four different varieties of Rodenbach beers, accompanied by frites. If I'd consumed all the beer they served me, they'd have had to strap me to a hand truck to get me back to the car!

Rodenbach Beer Sampler

Frites at Cheff

The drive back to Tremelo was long (two hours or so) and was prolonged by heavy rush hour traffic. None of us felt like cooking dinner back home, so we detoured to a cozy frituur (French fry stand) called Cheff that is owned by a family friend named Jeff. Jeff is the same age as Digno and Lieve's son and daughter (Sander and Laura) and went to school with them. Jeff and his girlfriend started the frituur a couple of years ago and it has become quite popular. They serve frites along with a wide variety of burgers and other specialties, including some of the best stoofvlees (Flemish beef stew) I've ever had. We each had frites, stoofvlees, and beer, plus a nice visit with Jeff.

Visit with Laura, Sander, and Indra

We spent a quiet Saturday at home. I went to a local chocolate shop (Leonidas) to buy some Belgian chocolates to bring back for friends, but spent most of the day catching up on this blog. That evening, Digno and Lieve's children Sander (with his delightful girlfriend Indra) and Laura came by for a family dinner. It was nice to catch up with the three of them and enjoy a fabulous meal together.

Museum44 Meensel-Kiezegem

One of the things I especially treasure about my visits to Belgium is that Digno and Lieve always seem to show me something special that a normal tourist without any local connections would never know about. This time it was a Sunday visit to Museum44 in the small village of Meensel-Kiezegem, not too far from their home. The museum is dedicated to the memory of a particularly ruthless German reprisal against the Belgian Resistance during WWII.

In the summer of 1944, with Allied forces pushing across Europe after Normandy, tensions in occupied Belgium were high. In the small village of Meensel-Kiezegem, local resistance fighters killed a Belgian collaborator tied to the German occupation. The response was brutal. Rather than target only those responsible, German forces, assisted by local collaborators, carried out mass reprisals against the entire village.

On August 11, 1944, they surrounded Meensel-Kiezegem and rounded up men and boys from homes and farms, many with no connection to resistance activity at all. Around 70–80 villagers were arrested and deported to concentration camps, mainly Neuengamme in Germany. Most never came back.

Among those arrested was Canadian pilot Squadron Leader E. W. “Teddy” Blenkinsop. He had survived being shot down over Belgium months earlier and had been hidden by local families and the resistance. Rather than simply waiting for rescue, he became involved with the people helping him. During the raid he was captured alongside the villagers and ultimately died in the concentration camp system, sharing the same fate as many of those who had protected him.

The tragedy left deep scars because the losses fell so heavily on a small farming community. After the war, the village was filled with wives who had become widows, mothers who had lost sons, and children who grew up without fathers. In some cases entire households lost the men who had run farms and supported their families. Liberation came only weeks later, but for many families the losses could never be undone.

What makes the story especially moving is that it did not end in 1944. The people of Meensel-Kiezegem continue to remember. Even today, the village holds gatherings and ceremonies to honor those who were taken and those left behind. Descendants and extended families of the prisoners come together each year to remember the feats and fates of their forebears. Some ceremonies focus not only on the men and boys who disappeared, but also on the mothers, wives, and families who carried the burden afterward. While I was there this year, for example, people gathered on Mother’s Day to honor the mothers who lost sons in the raids. I was honored to be able to take part. It served as a reminder that the effects of those August days echo across generations and are still remembered more than eighty years later.

My friend Lieve has a personal connection to the story, which is why we attended the ceremony this year. Her maternal grandfather was a cousin of Maria Duerinckx, the mother of one of the young men taken in the raid. Many of the other widows were his first or second cousins. Their entire family still attends each of these gatherings. Lieve brings her mother to the remembrances each year. Also, Lieve's brother Peter, a retired Belgian F-16 pilot, wrote a book about Squadron Leader Blenkinsop. It's titled "One Who Almost Made it Back" and is available on Amazon.com.

The museum is adjacent to a small church that has a portion of its cemetery dedicated to the people lost in the raids.

Grave Markers of the Victims

Squadron Leader Blenkinsop's Grave

Burial Vault Used as a Shelter During WWII

Mothers, Orphans and Widows of the Victims

Concentration Camp Uniforms

Belgians and Europeans in general still have vivid memories of the rise and fall of the Third Reich and its impact on their countries and ancestors. The far right movement is again active throughout Europe, as it is in America, and the people I met while I was there are acutely aware of parallels between the events of the 1930-40s and those of today. One stark reminder was this list of some early warnings of fascism that I saw in the museum.

Fascism Warning Signs

I found this flyer interesting. Circulated by the resistance, it ostensibly depicted four pigs. But when folded in the correct order along marked lines, it morphs into a likeness of a fifth pig, Adolf Hitler.

No gathering in Belgium would be complete without local beer, served in its signature glassware. This was no exception, and I had a wonderful Belgian Tripel (Hagelandse) which was new to me.

Hagelandse Tripel

Headed Back Home to Reality

Monday morning we left the house dark and early so that I could get to the Brussels airport in plenty of time for my international flight to Atlanta. I knew it was going to be a long day - it always is traveling back to the States from Europe. My schedule included a 4-1/2 hour layover in Atlanta before flying from there to Cincinnati, so this trip was no exception. By the time I arrived in Cincy, it was 1:00am back in Belgium, and I'd started my day by rising at 5:00am the day before.

The trip went pretty well overall, but I must say, the worst treatment I had at any customs/immigration facility in the four and a half months I was gone was at the Atlanta airport. Everything was going fine up to the point where we had to process through TSA security again after first passing through passport control and claiming/rechecking our luggage.

It was like a Walmart checkout - there were (no kidding) 10 security screening lanes, but only one was open. There were signs for Pre-Check lanes, but they were all closed. Our long line was at a complete standstill for over 30 minutes. The agents ushering people through the queue were extremely loud and rude, berating passengers and generally being jerks to everyone. At one point they opened up a second line, and a different agent came out to announce that anyone with a U.S. or Canadian passport could use the newly opened line. Trouble is, he shouted the instructions in a very loud voice and was very condescending in the way that he told people with "foreign" passports that they were not allowed to use the new line. He'd say things like, "If you have a U.S. passport, look at the passport of the person in line ahead of you. If it's a foreign passport, tell them to move out of the way so you can move up in line." He shouted instructions like we were unruly kindergarteners. 

The TSA agents at the baggage screener were no better. They too shouted the same instructions over and over in a very condescending tone. There were no bins available, so they had everyone stuff outer garments, phones, wallets, and all pocket contents into whatever bag they were carrying before running it through the scanner. This caused problems for people with bags that were already full. I have to think that the overstuffed bags got only a perfunctory scan because they were so stuffed. No one was required to remove electronic items such as laptops and tablets. They were not pulling any bags out for secondary screening either, which is very unusual. It had the appearance of nothing but performance theater.

After being greeted warmly in every foreign port I went to during my cruise, I was ashamed to see the way non-U.S. citizens (and even U.S. citizens!) were "welcomed" to Atlanta. 

Things got a lot better after that. I only had to walk one concourse over to get to my connecting flight, and there was a Delta lounge near my gate. I grabbed a G&T and a bite of food, then settled in to read my book until it was time to board my flight home.

Gin & Tonic in the Sky Club

I got a nice surprise upon arrival at the Cincy airport. Two friends (Alex and Cheryl) from my Alzheimer's support group made the trek all the way from Dayton to greet me with a huge "Welcome Home" banner as I exited security. Their gesture warmed my heart and reminded me how wonderful it is to have good friends who genuinely care about me.

Another friend, Kelli, was waiting outside to give me a ride home. Bone tired, I settled in for the last leg of an incredible journey around the world.

Back Home

I wondered what kind of greeting I'd get from my three cats. I figured they'd scatter to the four winds when this "stranger" walked in. I needn't have worried. Shelley heard me unlocking the door and was right inside when I opened it. Porky came trotting in right behind her. Petunia, the shy one, looked at me warily across the room, but as soon as I spoke to her, she too came over for some pets. All three were purring. Life is good.

I took a perfunctory look around the house, admired the impressive pile of mail that I'd have to go through, then headed to bed. I went out like a light and got a solid eight hours of sleep. I awoke refreshed at about 6:30am and tried to remember what my usual morning routine was. Of course, I fed the cats first - they'd have it no other way!

Beard Trim

I finally got tired of having the long beard, so I trimmed it! I polled several people onboard the ship about it, and after seeing pictures of me with the shorter beard, all agreed that the short one looked better. I'd have done it on the ship, but I didn't have the right attachment for my trimmer and I wasn't confident enough to do it freehand. So, if any of my shipmates see this, let me know what you think!

Trimmed Beard

Reflections

Now that the trip is behind me, I guess it's time to get a bit reflective.

Overall, I had a great time. I enjoyed myself throughout, saw places I've never heard of, ate new and different foods, met some wonderful people, and had some unforgettable experiences. I never really missed home (well, maybe the cats, a bit...) but I was glad to come back just the same.

Almost miraculously, I didn't gain any weight (didn't lose any either🙁). I never got on a scale the entire time I was gone, but weighed myself on my own scale the first morning I was back. Less than 0.5 lb difference from when I left in January. I think I probably overate for about the first week, but then settled into a routine of (usually) two meals a day and half portions at dinner. I usually had dessert at dinner though - they were hard to resist! I walked a lot during excursions, and I would walk about 3.5 - 4.0 miles around the ship on sea days. I tried to take the stairs rather than the elevator. My cabin was on the sixth floor, so that helped!

I had no problems with illness or seasickness, despite norovirus making a major showing onboard for a couple of weeks, and a really rough crossing of the Tasman Sea that had us confined to our cabins for the better part of a day.

Many people have asked me why I wanted to go on such a long cruise. Frankly, it was pretty much a spur-of-the-moment decision last summer. I think just about anyone reading this knows that Ellen, my wife of 37 years, passed away just about exactly a year ago (May 2025) after a long journey through advanced Alzheimer's and ovarian cancer. I was by myself for the first time in four decades and felt adrift. I needed a "reset", a chance to get away from reality for a while, and time to reflect on what I wanted out of this next phase of my life. Or as I told some folks, to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I also needed a vacation from 24/7 caregiving. Viking sent an enticing offer late in the game because I'm sure they were trying to fill the last few cabins, and I bit.

Did I get what I wanted/needed? In a word, yes. I've always been a introvert, and this cruise helped me develop a new confidence that I can mix, mingle, meet new people and develop new friendships. I learned that I'm in quite good health for my age and that I want do do as much with my life as I can in the time that I have left. Although I once thought I needed no one else and that I was completely self-sufficient, both Ellen's illness and this trip showed me the importance of friends and relationships, and the beauty, richness, and value that they bring to life. 

Although there were times on the cruise where we seemed to be going non-stop, there were also long stretches at sea where I could relax, reflect, have long discussions with new friends, and start to heal. A two-week vacation wouldn't have done it - I needed the extended period to fully think things through.

I met people on the ship who've gone through similar personal stories, enduring the pressure of caregiving, losing spouses and other loved ones, dealing with the trials of dementia, and so on. I learned that I'm not alone, that others came on the cruise for reasons similar to mine. I also learned that most people not only survived those trials, but thrived. Many have found new opportunities and formed new relationships that have helped them heal. I can see light at the end of the tunnel now. All of that was enlightening and empowering. 

I'm glad I went.

What's Next?

I don't have any near-term travel plans, although I'm looking at a few possibilities. I did book a 60-day Viking Arctic Expedition cruise in early 2028. I would have booked it earlier, but they were already full. I'm hoping to trade the 60-day cruise for an open slot in an earlier 90-day Arctic/Antarctic cruise in the fall of 2027, but it remains to be seen whether anything will open up. I may also do a 30-day land tour of New Zealand and Australia sometime late in 2026. Also, I'll likely make some shorter out-of-town trips to visit friends and family. Some of those may be international.

I plan to keep this travel blog going as I make journeys in the future, even if they're just short getaways, so stay tuned. If you haven't signed up for notifications of new blog posts, you can do so by looking for this box on the right side of the blog page.

Fill in your e-mail address and click on "Subscribe". Then when I do go on another trip and blog about it, you'll be notified.

So that ends these blog entries for the 2026 Viking World Cruise! Thanks to all of you for following along. Writing this has been good for me because it forced me to pay attention on the excursions, learn, ask questions, and dig for more information afterward so that I could fill in the gaps in my knowledge. Plus, I now have a chronological record of a truly remarkable journey.

All the best,
Jim