Gent

One of the goals I had for Belgium was to buy a case of "The World's best beer", Westvleteren 12. To order it, you have to create an account on the Abbey's website and then wait in an online cue for your turn to order it. The pick-up date is several days later. I placed the order in Porto and then made some preparations to make the journey to the countryside to pick it up. Today, we picked up the rental car I ordered online. I was a bit worried that the car rental might be a problem. Despite the fact that I didn't bring my passport as ID, car pickup went perfectly. Hugh then provided navigation services. It was about an hour and fifteen minutes of driving. The drive also went perfectly. When we arrived, we found out that the cafe attached to the Abbey was closed for renovations. I was pretty disappointed. The cafe had a great menu. It also had a gift shop that sold smaller packs of the beer, gifts, and the Trappiste cheese. I was planning to bring some cheese home. To kill some time before the set time for the beer pickup, and to get some lunch, we drove to a town called Poperinge. We had a really nice time. The town was nice and we had a nice lunch. After lunch, we looked at a few points of interest and then picked up the beer and drove home. The car drop off went equally smoothly, and we took an Uber back to our apartment. Now I have to bubble wrap my prize to survive the flight home. The beer cost €76 for a case of 24. The cost included a deposit for the wooden crate and the glass bottles. The car rental was €68 and the gas to fill up the car was €23. All in the case of beer cost €166.Read more