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Over the day, Tuesday,he would talk for periods normally and eagerly about the tour sites but then become quiet and withdrawn from conversation.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.