Brussels: Waffles, Fries, Chocolate, and A Lot of Beer

We started our Belgium/Amsterdam trip in Brussels the last week of July 2013. The train from the airport to the city runs often, and it was easy to buy tickets at the ticket window there. We stayed at Hotel Villa Royale which was a great budget option about a 15 minute walk from the Brussels-Nord station. We had some time to wait before we could check-in, so we set out to find a place to get some lunch and have the first of many delicious Belgian beers. We spent the rest of that first day walking around, enjoying the Grand Place, eating some chocolate and, of course, drinking more beer. 

The beautiful Grand Place. Pictures do not do it justice. It really is quite grand.

Gare du Midi Market in Brussels

Our second day in Brussels was a Sunday so we took the subway to the Brussels-Midi station for the Gare du Midi Sunday market. It was a huge, colorful, wonderful market. We had some amazing chocolate croissants for breakfast and bought some nectarines from a fruit stand. We were glad we were there on a Sunday! We weren’t quite marketed out yet after leaving there so we headed over to the Jeu-de-Balle flea market: the most eclectic collection of things I have ever seen. We had lunch at a café on the Rue des Renard before wandering through the Marolles neighborhood, which we really enjoyed. The rest of that Sunday was spent in Ghent for the Gentse Feesten, but that awesome afternoon deserves a post all its own. 

Jeu de Balle flea market

 

A nice place for lunch at the top of Rue des Renard.

Our last day in Brussels, we did a lot of walking, but we also took a lot of breaks. And by “breaks,” I mean stopping to have beers. Being in Belgium is like being on a constant beer tasting adventure. The historic buildings, bustling squares, and beautiful parks are an amazing bonus. 

I haven't been able to find an accurate number, but there are hundreds of different beers in Belgium (around 200 breweries), and they take their beer very seriously. This makes sense because it is delicious.

Many Belgian beers have specially designed stemware.

We went to the Parc du Cinquantenaire and had a nice picnic lunch and some coffees. We walked through Parc Léopold to the EU Parliament building. The open courtyard of the Parliament building had pictures of Croatia displayed to commemorate its entry into the EU. It was fun for us to look at those pictures because if everything goes according to plan (it rarely does), Croatia is the next trip we'll take in September.

Parc du Cinquantenaire. The arch was designed after the Arch de Triomphe in Paris and was meant for the 50th anniversary of Brussels in 1880, but it wasn't finished until 1905, 25 years later. 

 

 

 

 We did walk by the Manneken Pis late in the afternoon on our last day in Brussels. The best part about seeing that weird little statue is that we got some great waffles nearby for 1 Euro. Brussels was a great first stop on what ended up being an unforgettable 10 days. 

This is a good picture of Manneken Pis because of the perspective. It is a tiny statue. There are many different stories explaining the historical reason to design a statue of a little boy peeing and they're all kind of silly. I like the story about the boy's urine helping to prevent the king's castle from burning down in a fire. Often the statue is dressed but not on our visit. There is a female counterpart statue but we got distracted by some waffles and didn't walk over to see it.