Magnificent and magical experience - it was a sight for my eyes to behold!!! But I do think park…read moremgmt has to do a better job with parking and also getting more park benches, hence while its 5 stars showing, in reality it's more like 4.5 from me. There's a great park ranger blog you can follow (and best of all its in English) and they post videos + pics and so that's what I have been doing since mid-March, as didn't want to miss the hyacinth flowering like had done last year. Last Friday the blog showed a sea of blue and since they flowers have a short flowering season of 2 weeks, a group of 5 of us left around noon and then got to Hallerbos 40 mins later. Parking was really horrible and we finally got some a long way from the park entrance. We found the blue marker near parking lot #2 and set off down the trail, sorta disappointed not to see that many hyacinths covering the wood floor as had expected. Encountered lots of tree stumps along the trail way that had been converted into stools to sit upon. About the halfway point, there was a long steep hill and when we reached the top and from the corner of my left eye, to paraphrase the poet: When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of blue hyacinths... beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. I just stopped and stared in wonder and turned around in a circle because all around me, I was surrounded by blue undergrowth. I felt had wandered into a sacred, special place and luckily it wasn't too crowded, so we all just co-existed, marveling at natures bounty. The hyacinths were numerous in number now and we continued our walk, upto parking lot 8, where all the trails converged and had great ice-cream for an €1 per scoop which was totally worth the wait in the long line. This is when I sorta felt let down because here was this great open space, and only one park bench? C'mon!! Surely park mgmt can do better! However this is a minor gripe, cause if you live in Belgium and don't come and see this beautiful sight that welcomes spring you are totally missing out!

Hard to describe how pretty Hallerbos is. Twice a year, the wood is turned into a blue rug of…read morehyacinths. A lot of pedestrian, horse rider and bicycle ways exist to explore the wood and its surroundings (more extended than expected - my legs are still hurting ! ). Since hyacinths do need sun to grow up, the wood is bright and light. Walking, sun taning AND enjoying the smell of the flowers is the perfect combination for a Sunday afternoon a few minutes away from Brussels. Little tip : you can follow the blossoming of the flowers on the website http://www.hallerbos.be/.