Belgian Beer and Chocolates

Over the long Easter weekend, we spent 4 nights in Brussels where we managed to overindulge in very tasty Belgian beer, chocolates and flavourful cuisine. We made it to Bruges and Luxembourg, as well as touring Brussels itself. You can see for yourself all the photos we took while in Brussels, Bruges and Luxembourg.

We took an extra day off on Thursday, and caught the Eurostar train to Brussels from London in the early morning. The train was fast, taking just under 2 hours (including travelling through the Channel Tunnel) before we were stepping off in Brussels.
After checking into our hotel, and grabbing lunch (where Tanya learnt what ‘ananas’ means in French… the hard way) we took a walk into the centre of Brussels. We saw sights such as the Royal Palace, the Belgian Parliament, the Grand Place, the Manneken Pis, the Stock Exchange, the Palace of Justice, as well as a couple of Churches and Parks.
While in the Grand Place, we sat down outside a bar called Le Chaloupe d’Or, where we had a strong pint of ‘Golden’ each. We also found a traditional looking chocolate shop in the square where we bought an assortment of chocolates. Next door to the chocolate shop was a chocolate museum which we happily entered and indulged ourselves in tasting samples.
Another awesome store we came across on our wandering was a costume shop with 2 floors of craziness. It was full with masks, hats, swords, wigs, costumes and anything else you might need for your costume and party needs.
That night we visited a Belgian restaurant where where had some more Belgian beer, Tanya had the national dish of mussels and frites (chips), while I had a steak and frites. We were very satisfied by the end.

We spent the next day in the North of Brussels where they have some large park spaces and some interesting sites. We started by looking through some of their gardens which were immaculate and had some great views over the city. The gardens also had an elaborate monument to the late Belgian king Leopold I. Our next stop was the Chinese Pavilion and Japanese Tower which houses some interesting oriental art, ceramics and furniture.
We really enjoyed the gardens and the Chinese Pavilion, as it was pretty quiet, with only a few tourists about. However, that was all to change at our next destination, Atomium, which seemed to draw tourists like a moth to a flame. Its huge metallic structure could be seen from miles away, and they had a flying fox attraction that went from the top most globe down to the ground. We paid to go inside where we learnt that it was built over 50 years ago as the centrepiece for Expo ‘58. We also saw a family inside who all wore pink and purple singlets, and the kids (including boys) had checkered skirts on… a little weird.

On Saturday morning, we caught a train up toward the coast to visit the popular medieval city of Bruges. It is a beautiful city, however, we found it was spoilt a bit by the shear number of tourists filling the streets and the many tacky tourist ‘attractions’ which really took away from the ambiance of the city. We spent most of the day wandering around the city; we saw the central city areas such as the Markt and Burg squares, which were where the hoards congregated. However, we enjoyed the city more once we headed north away from the centre including touring a church and a lace museum (complete with a live demonstration room full of little old women making lace). We also had a nice walk along the river, which were lined with old style windmills. Before heading back to Brussels, we bought another lot of chocolates which we enjoyed on the train back.

Since Luxembourg looked very close on the map, we decided to head there on Sunday. When we bought our return tickets, we found out that the train took 3 hours each way, which meant we only had about 4 hours to look around the city. Once we arrived in Luxembourg, but before we began touring the city, we needed to visit some public toilets, but found they were all pay toilets complete with attendants. While I was trying to figure out the coin lock on one of the cubicles, a short coarse female attendant started pointing at me and saying “You piz! You piz!” over and over again. After a few moments of complete confusion, I realised she was pointing behind me at the urinals, which were free to use. I then said “Oh, no, no” while tapping my bottom to indicate that I didn’t want to shit in the urinal.

Feeling relieved, we got a walking tour map from the friendly tourism office, and were on our way. We saw a number of sights, such as the cathedral, a few statues, and a couple of palaces; but our favourite parts of the city were the old fortifications and castle foundations, and the gardens down in the bottom of the gorge. The castle area had sensational views over a section of the city known as the ‘Grund’, and the bottom of the gorge is a large park that follows the path of the small river with arches of the two bridges towering overhead.

We headed home on the Monday, but we had some free time in the morning before our train left to do a bit more touring. We ended up following an ‘Art Nouveau’ walk that was in one of our guidebooks. It took us around some of the south part of Brussels, where we saw some very interesting looking buildings.

Once the morning was gone, we made it to the train station and had some waffles before jumping on the Eurostar back to London.