Brussels, Belgium

July 30, 2007 by Tiffany.

Andrea and I had a great time in Brussels today seeing the sights, eating, seeing more sights, eating some more, walking around, then eating again.  We took the TGV train, which is one of the high speed trains in France that truly hauls.  It cuts the travel time to Brussels in half when compared to a car, and that’s including a stop at the airport.

When we first arrived at the train station we had a bit of trouble getting our bearings and figuring out which metro train we had to take in order to get to the locations Andrea had found on the internet.  When we finally figured it all out we first saw this cathedral, (yes, it has a striking resemblance to the two Notre-Dame cathedrals I’ve already posted.  The design is apparently a common one among the monster cathedrals in these parts).

Eventually we made it to the main plaza, which we would end up walking through 50 more times before we left.  If the city was initially designed to have this plaza as a main hub, they succeeded immensely.

We would end up running back into the plaza time and time again without even trying.  We took a huge walk around the perimeter of Brussels to visit the Royal Palace, but it turns out that it is closed on Mondays.

Apparently, several things are closed on Mondays.  Bummer for us, but we still had more to see.  Namely: chocolate shops!

I bought some delicious chocolates, and we also visited the Cocoa and Chocolate Museum, which boasted facts and artifacts related to the cultivation and harvesting of cocoa beans in Africa and South America.  It also had an artisan present who did demonstrations on how he makes truffles, and examples of clothes made of chocolate.

Show-offs. 

Part way through the day, Andrea and I couldn’t help but notice pictures and references to a fountain of a little boy peeing.  Souvenirs shops are filled with this stuff: magnets, keychains, pictures, post cards, t-shirts, bottle openers, etc.  We could not for the life of us find this little dude, but after a while it became apparent that if we didn’t find him before the end of the day, we clearly would have sorely missed out on a ridiculous tourist monument and neither one of us would have been able to live with ourselves had that happened.  Anyway, after some trial and error we found the little fountain, and I mean little.  His name is Mannekin Pis, and I’ve already read a couple of different legends on why he’s famous, although I suspect he’s mostly famous because, you know, he’s peeing.

If you’re interested in one of the legends, check out this link.  Of course, we enjoyed Belgian Waffles, or gaufres, as they are called, and I couldn’t resist a genuine Belgian beer whilst in Belgium.

All were delicious.  Had a great time, walked a lot, ate even more, and will be sleeping well tonight.

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