Melanie Tam

We came by the museum on a Thursday at almost 5 and there were very few people there. It might have been because the closing time was 6 pm. We asked the person selling tickets if she thought an hour would be enough to see everything, and she said yes. So we trusted her and she was right. We spent about 45 minutes walking around.

It was cool to see all of the telescopes/gadgets/inventions they used back then, not only by Galileo but by other explorers as well. It was fascinating to see how they came up with the technology back then. After a while though, all of the telescopes kind of start to look the same. Maybe I just don't have the attention span for museums like these but I can see how someone could love it.

A must visit when you are in Sorrento. It’s located in the town center and you get views of the Gulf of Naples and Mount Vesuvius. Also the perfect spot to watch the sunset. There’s access to get down to the beach area, which isn’t bad on the way down but it’s a trek back up - although there is a paid elevator you can take back up.

Dont miss it!

What a beautiful church! I can only speak for the outside, becaue we only peeked inside since there was a small fee. Thait seemed like what most people were doing, but just the facade is a sight to behold in itself. There's plenty of tilework on the exterior of the church to admire and the blues are so pretty! We came by on a Monday at around 4 PM and it was pretty quiet at that time. Good stop to make while in Porto if you're into unique tilework.

The Belfort or Belfry is the iconic landmark in the center of Bruges. It’s a medieval bell tower built around the year 1240. We bought tickets online for a Tuesday 9:40 time slot. The booking system is super easy because it tells you how many tickets are left for each time slot, and you don’t need to book too far in advance. There weren’t too many people when we went but there were already people coming back down.

There are some areas of the climb that are narrow, so just be mindful of that. It took us about 15 minutes to get to the top and when you get up there, it is so cool! You see the actual bell (beware, it’s LOUD, obviously since you’re right next to it) and you can look down on the square. Although it’s not a complete 360 view since the bell blocks some of the access, it’s still a sight to see. The whole experience from going up, taking photos at the top, coming back down took us about 45 minutes. It did start getting a bit more crowded when we were heading back down, so my recommendation is to go early.

Definitely a must see if you’re in Bruges!

We called on a Sunday to make reservations for the same night at 8 pm (FYI - ressos are important in Brussels because once they’re full, they’re full - you can’t even wait). We showed up at 7:30 to see if they would be able to seat us and they did. I initially found this place on Google because we needed some Chinese food and this place had good reviews/was close by our hotel.

I’m not sure if the food was worth the 40 minute wait, but it satisfied the craving. We had the steamed pork dumpling. This was pretty meh - you could get similar quality in the freezer section. We then had the black pepper chicken. I was thankful for the huge portion but it was pretty salty. It definitely needed more than the bowl of rice it came with. Finally, the best dish of the night was beef chow fun. I didn’t have high expectations for this one but it tasted pretty close to the ones at home in NYC, with plenty of wok hei. I’d definitely recommend this dish and if I were a betting woman, I would guess that their other noodle dishes might be pretty good too, so maybe just stick to those.