August 2015
Bonjour from Brussels!
Yonks ago when we first arrived I was
determined that we booked some travel. I didn’t really care where, just
somewhere. And so, having clicked our way through Skyscanner, we settled on
Brussels and Amsterdam.
When we each told our workmates where we
were going we were typically met with a quizzical look and asked ‘why?’ For some
reason the British don’t really see it as a holiday destination.
We set off after work on Friday 28th
August for a long weekend in Belgium, capitalizing on the last Bank Holiday of
the year, which was on that Monday. We whizzed through the French countryside on the
Eurostar and arrived in Brussels-Midi station in a comfortable 2.5 hours. After
a short walk we found our apartment booked through AirBnB and ventured out for
dinner at a small Lebanese restaurant down the road. This was our first experience
with AirBnB and we were pleasantly surprised. Although we’d only booked a room,
the owner wasn’t at home so we wound up with the whole place to ourselves.
Apparently there was a Spanish guy in the other room but we never saw him. All
up it cost £95.00 for three nights in a very central location.
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| Our character apartment found on AirBnB |
Day 1
We woke up the next morning to beautiful
blue skies and the mercury sitting around 30 degrees which is where it bobbed
about the whole weekend. We bought some fruit and water from the local grocer
and wandered down the cobbled streets to the Grand Place, which was absolutely
gorgeous. Essentially it’s a massive square surrounded by the different
guildhalls and the town hall, which was built in the 1400s. When it was all constructed, Brussels was a very wealthy trading city which you can see in its opulence.
We decided to join a Sandemans walking tour which was ‘free’, and you paid however much you thought it was worth at the end. Our guide, Mick, was very informative and covered all the history of Brussels including the messy colonial part in Congo that’s usually glossed over.
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| Our tour guide, Mick. And a cathedral. |
We visited the town mascot ‘Manekkin Pis’, which translates as ‘Little man Pee. Let’s say it does what it says on the can! Any town who’s mascot is a little boy peeing is alright by me. This day he was dressed in a jacket, one of his hundreds of costumes that the town people dress him up in!
The tour was so good that we decided to
join the beer tour that evening by the same company.
After the tour we made a bee-line for the
frites shop that Mick had recommended on the tour, ‘Fritland’. Best. Fries.
EVER. They were phenomenal. Mike had the traditional mayonnaise and I tried
burger sauce. Usually the sauce is on top, but it was best served on the side.
These little beauties are fried in beef fat (suck it, vegos!), and are soft and
fluffy on the inside and perfectly crunchy on the outside.
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| FRITES! |
We retired to the Square with a couple of Belgian beers (Affligen - a 'blonde' beer, and Chimay blue) and stumbled upon a parade of stilt walkers, musicians and giant dancing puppets.
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| Mike's 'two blondes'. |
After this, it was time for a waffle (very good) and a nap to escape the sun.
We emerged for the Beer tour with our
leader, Charlie. Perhaps not the most informative tour, but we met some great
people and had some great beer. Belgian beer has a very high alcohol content (often 8% plus) and is very rich. The Trappist beer is fascinating, it’s brewed by monks in monasteries and they aren’t allowed to profit from it. Besides that, we also
tried blonde beers and a lambic, which is a quite watery wheat-type beer. We continued drinking at Delirium where they have a
phenomenal amount of beers on tap.
Day 2
Mike went for the full beer experience
complete with shocking hang-over the following day :-) On
account of him being worse for wear, we hopped on a train and spent a very
cruisy day wandering around Bruges. We’re going to go back and see it more thoroughly
when come back to see Flanders Fields and visit Tyne Cot Cemetery to find my
Great Uncle, Thomas Gain. Bruges is very picturesque and with a grand bell
tower and postcard perfect canals.
On arriving back in Brussels, we went to a
very popular restaurant called Fin de Siecle to sample some traditional fare (besides
frites)! I had carbonnade (beer stew) and Mike had stoemp (mashed potato full of veg + sausages and gravy). It was very hard to decide who had the
better meal – they were both amazing!
Day 3
We spent the day wandering around Brussels
eating (more) frites, (more) waffles, buying beer and chocolate to take home. These waffles were definitely a cut above the street waffles from a couple days earlier, but the price tag was a cut above as well!
We had intended to go to the musical instrument museum but unfortunately it was
closed. After a bit of searching about, we found Mannekin Pis’ lesser known
sister, Jeanneke Pis! We also tried to find the final 'Pis' statue, a dog, but unfortunately it had been removed for repairs after a car damaged it a couple of months earlier...
We swung by Mannekin Pis and much to my delight he was
naked ;-)
All in all we had a wonderful weekend and would
highly recommend it!
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