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Tour Guide Belgium & The Netherlands

Tour Guide Belgium & The Netherlands

Tour Guide Belgium & The Netherlands
5
About
Hi to everyone, my name is Patrick Huysmans and I'll be glad to be your guide during your stay in Belgium. We will visit the most beautiful cities of Flanders and Wallonia, The Netherlands till Luxembourg. I am also specialised in tours of WW1, Flanders fields, and WW2, The Battle of The Bulge tours.
Brussels, Belgium

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Tours and Tickets by Tour Guide Belgium & The Netherlands
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Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.

Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as wait time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.

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5.0
5.0 of 5 bubbles141 reviews
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Steve M
United States3 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Sep 2022 • Friends
We hired Andrea to provide a Battle of the Bulge Tour, prior to a Viking Rhine River cruise. He picked us up in Brussels, took us to Bastogne and the villages in the area where the heavy fighting took place. Then to Luxembourg and the American Cemetery and Payton’s grave. Next to Market Garden on our way to Amsterdam. Recommended great restaurants. He was very informative and very personable. We would highly recommend him for a guide in Belgium 👏👏👏
Written October 14, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Widdy H
Brookline, MA60 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Apr 2019 • Friends
We, 4 of us sisters had the most wonderful 2 days of private tour with Andrea touring all over Netherlands. Andrea is a true professional, his English is flawless and a safe driver. He was so humorous and made us laugh constantly while showing his critical thinking skills. He speaks Dutch of course, plus Russian, Italian, German, Bulgaria and French. We were impressed with his intellect and his knowledge of world events as well as history not only about Netherlands but also Europe. We also discussed about science. It is unusual to find young people of his age with such wide ranging knowledge and able to carry on intelligent discussions on various topics.
On the first day, we were scheduled to visit Keukenhof Garden, the tulip fields and Kinderdyke, but Andrea was so kind and also stopped by Rotterdam, Den Hague and the North Sea coastal resort area on the way to Kinderdyke. It was indeed a big bonus. He did not have to do this but he graciously did. Andrea was eager to show us additional great places of Den Hague and the MarktHall (food court) in Rotterdam at which we had a great lunch.

The second day we went to Gouda, as suggested by Andrea previously to go there on a Thursday at which it has the most wonderful cheese festival showing the cheese traditions of Gouda. It was amazing with cheese farmers and helpers in traditional clothing bantering around the prices of the cheese just in the olden days. Learned a great deal and took lots of beautiful photos of the town hall and the cheese festival! Another amazing place we went was Giethoon, what a gem hidden up in the north! Andrea was so nice he treated us to a canal boat ride manned by him. We felt like back in the middle ages with all those wooden bridges over the labyrinth of canals! We also stopped by Volendam at the end of the day even though it was not originally scheduled!!!
On both days, we did not finish until 8 p.m., again, he went beyond the call of duty to make sure we are having a great time and see as much Netherlands as possible, for which we were very grateful and appreciative.

We strongly recommend Andrea to anybody who wants to have a fantastic day of laughing while touring all the great places of Netherlands. Last but not least, he told us he also is an expert and tour guide of Belgium and the history WWII and all the battle sites in or around Belgium and Netherlands.
We absolutely will hire him in a heart bit if and when we visit Netherlands again and Belgium if the opportunity arises in the future. We had fond memories of Andrea as a kind and smart guide and thanks to him, we had the most wonderful memories of Netherlands !

Widdy
Written April 18, 2019
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Peter A
New York City, NY220 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Jun 2019 • Family
This is the ONLY way to see Belgium. Took this tour to Luxembourg, Waterloo, Battle of the Bulge, Bastogne, the American cemetery and George Patton's grave site. Tour guide speaks fluent English, Italian, French, German, and Flemish. Tour guide is really knowledgeable, explains everything, and does all of the driving. This tour was safe, worth the price and would recommend it to anyone. The tour guide Andrea was super friendly and showed us amazing castles, statues, tanks, etc that you would never see on a bus tour or that stupid free tour (DO NOT take any free tour, they are horrible, unsafe, and a waste of time).
Written June 20, 2019
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Barbara B
2 contributions
2.0 of 5 bubbles
May 2019 • Couples
After reading the 122 “Excellent Rated” reviews on Andrea Belfiore, we are at a loss to explain the unusual experience we had with him over a two-day period. Starting in Bruges, my husband and I spent Tuesday, May 14th with him from 9:00 until about 5:30 and Wednesday, May 15th, from 8:30 until after midnight. Tuesday focused on WWl in East Flanders area and Wednesday on WWll and the Battle of the Bulge. Early on he did tell us that WWll was his area of expertise, not so much on WWl… he went on to even say that anyone could do the tour on their own with Google Maps and internet info.

Andrea seems knowledgeable on locations and Belgian history to a point but doesn’t weave a broader story of the tour topic as so many other guides can do. Generally we like to start the day with a guide by asking what to expect the day to look like…he seemed put off by that question and said we would “see everything”. My husband clarified what we were asking and he then told us where we would start. Tuesday on the way to our first stop he did show us some charts on Belgian’s economy, population, etc. and a brief history. He shared with us that he was Sicilian-Bulgarian and spoke a variety of languages. We did have difficulty understanding his pronunciation of many places and often asked for clarification. He said he spoke five languages, but English was not his strongest, at least as it related to Belgium city or site names. For example, we could not figure out that we were going to the Polygon Woods battlefield site, until we stepped out of the van and read the signboard.

Over the day, Tuesday,he would talk for periods normally and eagerly about the tour sites but then become quiet and withdrawn from conversation. At the different stops he would basically say here is this monument or this is XYZ with limited explanation and little historical insight. On a lot of questions we had he had no answer, many of which I did find by reading the signboard info at the site. Around 1:00 my husband asked if he had a spot for lunch in mind…he really seemed surprised that we expect to have a quick lunch and he picked the next small café we walked by in Ypres. Over the course of a quick lunch he shared his opinion on different ethnic groups and their control of the world and financial institutions…sounding very “conspiracy theroryish” sighting the internet and articles he read and would be happy to share by email with us. Such as, the Jews control all the banks, the Lebanese are the rich cockroaches who control how to get the money, the Kennedy assassination, the Sicilians and the average Belgium worker were all lazy and not reliable, George Bush being given the presidency, etc. My husband finally said let’s just get back to our tour info and focus on that.

Our last stop of the day was to the notable Passchendaele WWI Museum. (The previous stop was to see a WWI tank…it turns out the tank had been removed 2 years before and all that was left was a plaque). We arrived there about 4:45, he knew they closed at 6:00. But he did not know, as he should as an experienced guide, that the last entry to the museum is at 4:30 and the museum staff would not relent and let us in. He was very upset by this and let them know how ridiculous he thought it was and it didn’t take everyone the same amount of time to visit the museum, he even told them he was a certified guide and would report this to the Minister of Tourism. He did this in a very loud and unprofessional manner. It was unfortunate for us to miss this site, but my husband and I assured him that while we were disappointed, it was not a big deal to cause a fight about and we were fine just heading back to Bruges. He was not able to let it go, continued to stew about it and continued to bring it up even further on Wednesday.
By the time my husband and I returned to the hotel we weren’t sure how we felt about the day, we did see some great sites but just didn’t feel he was up to the guides we usually have from you, due to the lack of historical context provided. We did have higher expectations for Wednesday and WWll since he told us that was his area of expertise.

He asked to start the day Wednesday at 8:30 instead of 9:00 saying we had a long day ahead of us. Wednesday Andrea did bring me a box of chocolates which he said was to help apologize for the previous day…not getting in to the museum. Once we got into the van, he informed us that we would not be back until 10:00 pm! Which definitely was a surprise. Shortly after starting on our way he turned and looked at My husband and asked him what his name was saying he had forgotten. Once again he seemed to know locations but didn’t share much information above what might be on the site sign. On another topic / rant early on this day ensued as he talked about an individual who promoted “free” tours where the guides just worked for tips, with the guides having to pay the promoter for the advertising, flyers, etc. He became very agitated about this subject and continued bring it up throughout the day, going so far as saying he had written the Minister of Tourism three times with no response and eventually went to his office and was thrown out. He called the guy a Lebanese cockroach who was stealing business from other tour guides by lying about the “free” tours.

He took us to some amazing and historical WWII sites as expected, but again, he shared info about these sites but not much about the Battle of the Bulge, tactics, characters or the relation of one important location to another regarding the battle. Most of what we learned, we learned in a film at the WWII museum near Bastogne. Disappointing.

In trying to him get off his personal subjects, I asked about who what languages he spoke and what nationality he did the most tours for. He spoke of one group of people who really “pissed him off” because all they wanted to do was shop. They were the Mooks/Arabs who are apparently “cockroaches without wings”. He told us he was very proud of his accomplishment of being the main tour guide called in from the Brussels Hilton….then he moved into a complaint that anytime a concierge makes arrangements he has to pay the concierge 20% ( this comes up later in the evening as well). On a morning stop for restroom and a quick coffee we tried to stay on non-controversial subjects to no success…when we said No, we really didn’t eat much fast food other than taking our grandkids to Chick-Fil-A, he then went off on do you know how those chickens we raised. At this point I decided that there was really no safe/ non-controversial subject with him. As the day progressed he was once again was engaging then not very talkative, going from motivated to silent, hard to engage.

His driving was becoming aggressive by mid-day Wednesday, with yelling, gesturing, honking and getting right up on people’s bumpers in traffic…this continued throughout the day and into the evening (more later). At some point during the day he got off on astrology, wanting to know what sign we were, and wanting to discuss the characteristics of that sign…we tried to shut him down…he continued bringing it up through the day and even showed my husband several pictures of people he knew who were the same sign as my husband. Finally my husband told him bluntly that we were not interested in astrology and did really believe in it. He then turned to my husband and asked him if he believed in God. my husband told him that was not a subject that he was going to discuss. Andrea wanted to know why and told my husband he likes talking about controversial topics. He also shared comments about has lazy Russian girlfriend that he had dumped recently and then went on to talk about the class/caste system in Brussels, meaning that there were certain women that would not date him because of his status. Wow! He said he quit college because he did not like following professors rules and that he also left police training because he did not like to be told what to do.

This was late in the afternoon and by this point we are really starting to feel more uncomfortable with him and really are just anxious to get back to hotel….we asked about timing and he told us it would probably be 11:15 pm by the time we were back and still had stops to make. He took us in to Luxembourg for a quick walk and very late lunch at 5:00 pm, much of the time he was talking on his phone as we walked through the city. I had to prod him to explain the old city wall and various buildings…once again he not sharing knowledge or city history other than about the casemates caves and the suicide bridge. I was finally able to see a sign with some info about the old structures. It certainly seemed a beautiful city.

We told him we were very surprised by how late the tour was going, and his reaction was agitated by me saying this, responding that there were still sites to see and that’s how the tour was set out. He wanted to know why we weren’t told ahead of this, who set up the tour for us, etc. He said whoever arranged the tour should have told us to start in Brussels, not Bruges and that they must have been stupid for not doing that, then he ask us if we arranged the tour with (his agent’s name). He brought the starting location up several times becoming more agitated as he spoke, like this trip from Bruges was somebody’s mistake, but not his.

Once we started the trip from north of Luxembourg, near Foy, and back to Bruges which he said would be several hours and his driving became much more aggressive to the point that we said something to the effect of no need to be careless to which he responded he had excellent fast driving skills. We told him we just wanted to make it back safely. (This was not like our German driver on the Autobahn, or a NYC cab driver…he was totally scaring both of us). About this time my husband and I were talking about going to our hotel in Brussels the next day. He wanted to know where we were staying and how we were getting to the airport. He said he would take us to the airport for 50 Euros. We told him no we had already made arrangements with the hotel for airport transportation. He said why would you do that? I already told you the concierge would take money from the driver! He was extremely upset and agitated and kept talking about that…to the point that My husband said I don’t care, our arrangements are done….by this time we were really uncomfortable and a bit concerned that he may just show up at the hotel anyway.

By this time it was close to10:00 p.m. and dark and he was driving up to 100 miles an hour, swerving, honking, and then all of a sudden would drive very slow (this was freeway type roads) at times we were scared he had fallen asleep. We encouraged him to pull off, stretch, get some coffee, etc. that we understood he had been on the road all day. Traffic came to a standstill as we were getting near Brussels and of course this set him off even more because there was construction. His driving was so erratic and anger filled, speeding down side streets. He claimed that all the Belgium drivers were stupid and did not know how to drive. My husband texted me from the front seat and said Andrea is out of control and he just wished we could get out. I then asked Andrea if the trains were still running to Bruges that we if so we could get on an train and save him the trip…. But he said the last train was at 11:00 and it was too late. He did finally pull over and get some coffee. Thank God. Once we got into Bruges metro area, an hour later, he was yelling about cars going too slow. When we entered Bruges old town, he was speeding through the streets and plazas and even went the wrong way on one way street near our hotel.

I have never been so glad to get out of a van and return to my hotel at 12:15 a.m.!!! BTW, My husband did tip him quite well, because of the long day he had put in, but also because we were a bit concerned about what reaction would occur if we did not tip him. It was not a good tour experience for us, at all. Having spent thousands of dollars to get to that location specifically, it did not turn out as we had hoped or expected.
Written June 7, 2019
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Pat85
Melbourne, Australia9 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Jul 2018 • Couples
When we booked Andrea all we knew from the reviews was that he is a great guide. Little did we know that words cannot do justice to this experience we had with Andrea. What a wonderful family guide with an amazing sense of humor, knowledge and great work ethics. Andrea is very hard- working, patient and honest and would go out of his ways to show you around the best spots and give you the utmost experience! Such a pleasant and safe guide to be around with. We booked Andrea for almost a week starting from Paris, Belgium to Amsterdam and had the best time of our entire Europe trip! Andrea raised the bar of a guide so much so that we missed his presence throughout the entire remaining trip. Thank you very much for all that you have done for us. You truly cannot put a price to your service as what you do for your guests is priceless !!! Highly recommend Andrea to everyone seeking a once in a lifetime experience and cannot wait to come back to Europe and explore more of it with Andrea again :)
Written September 18, 2018
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Eduard P
Yerevan, Armenia23 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Aug 2017 • Friends
We took a tour to Brugge from Brussels and our guide was Andrea. Tour was very interesting with many beautiful places in Brugge and Gent. Also Andrea was telling interesting information about Belgium, citizens, cities and the history. He know many languages including Spanish, English, Italian, Russian... I never saw a guide that tells the same thing in many languages (like audio guide), it was strikingly. Time with such guide passes very fast and with lot of memories. You will not get bored with him.
Written August 18, 2017
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

susan davis
Gulf Breeze, FL8 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Nov 2019
With lots of knowledge and energy. He clearly loves what he does and does it well. He has passion and lots of enthusiasm for the history of sites, churches and art. Be prepared for a wonderful tour experience!
Written December 4, 2019
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

NYCTraveler047
New York City, NY20 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Nov 2019 • Friends
We hired Andrea for a private tour of Bruges and Ghent. Andrea was very accommodating and patient. He tailored the tour to suit our needs and requests. Andrea is a wealth of knowledge and provided important information about each city. In addition to the major tourist sites, Andrea showed us locations off the beaten path that we would never have seen on our own and that made a difference with regard to our experience in both cities. He provided thorough explanations of every place we visited and did so in a very clear and concise manner. He was open to our suggestions and even showed us sites in Brussels, that we would have never seen on our own. He made suggestions regarding the best restaurants in each city and took us to some amazing places to savor the local food, beer and waffles! I can’t say enough good things about Andrea and the tour! If you’re looking for a private tour while in Belgium, look no further, Andrea is your man. He is a true professional, extremely knowledgeable and very passionate about his job. He also made us feel very comfortable and by the end of the tour, we felt as if we had spent the day with a friend. It truly made a difference and we are so glad we booked him as our guide.
Written November 8, 2019
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

sherrylittle74
Sherman, TX159 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Aug 2019 • Family
Our family - my husband, our adult son and me - spent 3 days with Andrea. First, in Belgium, we left Brussels to visit Waterloo, Bastogne, a variety of WWII sites, and Luxembourg City. It was a long, but informative day. It was all the sites we had discussed plus a few. Andrea was knowledgeable, about the Belgian culture and the sites we visited. He chose a nice cafe with outdoor seating for lunch - very enjoyable. By the way, at our request, took us into Luxembourg and Germany and we saw sites we would have never found on our own. On day 2, we headed toward Flanders for our WWI tour. It was a great day. We went to multiple sites and heard about each, ending at the Paschendale Museum - what a great experience. We had seen trenches out in the open and to see the reconstruction and explanation at the Museum was great. Had lunch at the Museum cafe - try the Paschendale beer - before heading to Amsterdam where Andrea deposited us at our hotel. Next day we requested a later start to the day and Andrea had no problem accommodating us. He then did a tour of Amsterdam, hitting all the sites we had requested. Again, he had a great choice for lunch - one we would have never found - we saw windmills and then back to Brussels. Andrea communicated with us via email over several months, off and on, to understand what we were looking to do on these days and he did a good job of making that happen.
We had conversations on various topics on our drives from place to place, we feel like we made a friend.
Written August 10, 2019
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

baboo217
New York57 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Jul 2017 • Family
We were in Brussels last summer and I found Andrea on Trip Advisor.
We were a huge group 18pp and he was able to get a very comfortable bus to transport.
He was extremely informative and polite, and had a lot of personality. I was so happy we did this day trip, because although Brussels is beautiful you can knock it out in a day.
Ghent and Bruges are so different and beautiful in their own right, such a great experience. There is a lot of walking but nothing too crazy.
My family was very happy with this trip and we laughed a lot. I would recommend this day trip for sure!
Written February 23, 2018
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

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