After the anti-climax of the eurostar we arrive in Brussels, the unofficial capital of Europe. When you go to cadbury's world in Bournville the first thing you smell when you get off the train is actually chocolate. In Brussels i swear to you the first thing you smell are waffles. We took the metro to our hotel (yup hotel! im a working man now...ha), freshened up and headed out to explore and find dinner. Our hotel was smack bang in the centre, just a minutes walk from the grand square (grand place - right). I hadn't really thought about the great achitecture of Brussels but it really is massively impressive. Detailed sculptures and gargoyles are all over the place hanging off most buildings that tower over the square. Once we finished staring in awe at our surroundings we returned our attention to food. First meal in Belgium couldn't be anyhing other than Mussels, which just about every restaurant happened to sell. Mussels and fries don't really seem like they go together and well... they kinda don't. Well they do and they don't. They taste great together; the mussels are gorgeous and the fries are a massive notch up from our own. It's more that they're not really a practical combination. You can't mop up the juices from the mussel pot with fries. But then so what. They taste good.
The next day had an awesome start. I walked over to a big bus with a picture of a cake on it and a very nice lady (very very nice) asked if we would like to come inside and eat some cake for free! You couldn't write a better start to a day. Turned out that it was a taste test where we had to eat three identical looking cakes and fill in a questionnaire on our preferences. We were even given free chocholate for participating! After briefly pondering the potential of a new career path in food tasting i quickly got sidetracked onto the thought of breakfast. Breakfast ofcourse was waffles with chocolate sauce and cream... This brings to question a shared observation of Belgium; there are hardly any fat people?! In the land of chips, chocolate, waffles and beer, girls and guys alike are stick thin and beautiful.
Waffles on the street |
The first sight to see for the day was one of the most famous statues in Brussels... a little boy taking a pee (Manneken Pis - below). Following the road signs we find a whole load of tourists with camer
as crowded round what clearly must be Manneken Pis. Having seen a number of pictures on post cards of the weeing boy a knew what to expect. Or atleast i thought i did. The first words from Batesy's mouth on seeing the boy was "its tiiiny!". He was ofcourse talking about the statue as a whole, not what the statue was holding. It wasn't just us as i am sure if we could read the minds of all the tourists around this boy (i'm surprised he could go with so much attention) there would be the overwhelming sound of "is this it?!". At least we ticked it off. We did a lot of ticking off and site seeing on foot in brussels; from churches and parks to the first ever shop to sell pralines.
Early evening we caught a train to Bruges where we had two nights booked at a place called the Leopold. We had our own little flat between four of us with stone walls and an old cottage feel. All i knew of Bruges was from the film so i knew that there was a bell tower to climb and canal boats to ride. Old cobble roads line the whole of Bruges with several churches, cathedrals and Bruges own unique architecture (above).
We spent that evening drinking quality beer in a bar overlooking the canal and had dinner (snails and rabbit) in the market square. Our full day in Bruges again was busy. We climbed the Belfry (below left - in the background) which was a lot of steps but not as difficult as i anticipated (or as the film makes out) and the views from the top were pretty standard. Bruges is pretty, seen from the ground or from up high.
So we did mussels, we did beer, waffles and frites. But so far chocolate had not come up so much and so we decided that a visit to the chocolate museum was necessary. It was alright... we only got one piece of free chocolate.
Hi Berny, I founf your blog thru the LP site and I think it's a really inetresting combo of food and travel, like!
ReplyDeleteI lived in Belgium for a year and I have great memories of that tiny country! I was in Antwerp (also worth a visit) and of course I visited several times Brussels and Brugues and I loved both of them for their architecture.
Chocolates and Waffels were delicious (I'm not so into moussels) and the frituur was great! You choose the size of your fries and then choose a sauce from an incredibly wide range ... sounds cheap (and it's actually cheap) but somehow, Belgians manage to make their fries taste very different from every other fries you've tried before!
Greetz!
I wouldn't say the Kwak glass is pointless. In fact, it's because of that glass that the beer derives it's name.
ReplyDeleteAt a certain point, while drinking, the beer will slosh over due to its shape, making a distinctive kwak sound.
Hi Berny - a very entertaining read! When are you coming back to this country - I can give you some tips of what else to eat!
ReplyDeleteDenzil
www.discoveringbelgium.com
Nice sharee
ReplyDeleteYour cultural experience really made me feel great. I was badly stuck in https://www.huffpost.com/archive/ca/entry/to-pay-or-not-to-pay-someone-to-write-my-essay-for-me_b_14793970 presentation preparation but your post really turned me back to life.Thank for this post.
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