I've decided to break up our glorious trip into two days. I feel its a lot of pictures and info to throw all in one long post!! We had an absolute blast and I learned so much. I only hope that I can begin to convey that in this blog!
Woke up Saturday morning at 6:30 am bright-eyed and excited for a 37 hour Belgian adventure. We were meeting at 8 because we had to check in no later than 8:30. Kerry and I both hop off the same metro at 7:45 and set out to find the Eurolines station. Turns out, its just off the metro so we had quite some time to kill. Why did we take a bus instead of the train you might ask? The train is 2 1/2 hours and the bus was 3 1/2 hours. The train cost $100 euros and the bus $50 euros. Doesn't take a genius to figure out the math of 23 year old girls on a budget.
The bus was quite comfortable and the ride wasn't so bad. We were able to see everything (well, not everything because it was raining) as we passed all the little villages and fun things outside of Paris. There are actually strip malls, (French) chain restaurants, gas stations, and free standing hotels....which I hate to admit but sometimes I forget they exist!! I let Kerry listen to "Dixieland Delight" on my Iphone to pass the time and she turned and asked, "What is a 'holler?'" hahaha...we both just died out laughing.
3 hours later, we spied the Atomium from our window. Our bus took us to Gare du Nord, which we were thinking was Gare du Midi (in the rain, I might add). We had looked up the Brussels metro before coming, but we weren't prepared for how few and far between the stops were. We walked towards the city center, thinking we would find a metro...but ended up at our hotel before one even crossed our paths. In Paris, you can walk 2 or 3 blocks and see a metro on any corner...therefore taking you anywhere in Paris from that point. Brussels metro runs certain directions, and except for 4 or 5 stops only runs the perimeter of the city. The first time we tried to use it, we bought our tickets, tried to figure out what our destination was and got so frustrated at figuring out how to get there we just walked! We are spoiled with the Paris metro and although its intimidating at first...its SO easy!!
The location of our hotel was 2 blocks from the Grand Place...absolutely perfect! It was very basic, but suited our needs just fine. Kerry took some pictures of our room so I will copy those as soon as I get them from her. We threw our bags in the room and set out to find some lunch. Came upon Mannekin, a nice little brasserie just off the Grand Place. After ordering our first glass of local beer, it was time to make a meal choice. Of course I try something I can only get in Belgium, so Waterzooï it is. It's a boiled chicken dish served with vegetables (leeks, carrots, onions, and potatoes) in a rich, buttery, cream sauce.
It was "the bomb." The chicken was so tender it just melted in your mouth. And the veggies cooked down so that basically you were eating a creamy veggie soup. Wash that down with a local lambic beer and ....Yum!
Chatillon Brewery was on our list of things to do and was closed on Sundays so we wanted to be sure and get that out of the way on Saturday. Well, as you can see from my pictures it was pouring down rain. Not to mention Chatillon Brewery is quite far from the city center. Attempting the metro, getting lost in a strange neighborhood, passing the TinTin museum, breaking my 'brolly' as Kerry would say, after walking 2.5 kilometers, we finally rolled into the brewery...looking like wet, soggy, dogs. There was no tour in English so we were on our own with a brochure, but it was quite informative and answered all our questions.
TinTin museum!
Storage room for the hops.
The "masher"
We learned all about lambic beer which is only brewed in certain parts of Belgium, one of them being this brewery. They produce lambic, gueuze and kriek. Lambic beer is produced by spontaneous fermentation and is generally very cloudy and sour. It is normally kept in wooden barrels for 3 years and is only found on tap at a few locations in the world. Gueuze is a mix of the young and old lambic beers. It can last up to 20 years if bottled properly. The last is Kriek, which is simply lambic refermented with cherries or raspberries or some other fruit. The ending of our tour was a tasting...so we were able to taste gueuze and kriek. I liked the gueuze even though it was sour...but the kriek can be left for someone else. It was sweet with a very dry and bitter aftertaste. Very unpleasant for me. Kerry didn't like either of them...to each their own!
This really pretty castle (now turned museum) was stumbled upon while wandering.
The Palais de Justice
This really beautiful garden near Place de Sablons but it was so rainy I couldn't take time to fix out the kinks in my camera.
Pierre Marcolini's store in Place de Sablons. This is quite the posh area of Brussels...only the best chocolatiers and boutiques are found here. Our wet, soggy, dog-selves felt quite out of place here.
I didn't leave Place de Sablons without having a Neuhaus praline! Neuhaus coined the phrase "praline" in 1912 and is the most famous praline shop in Brussels to date. To me, being from the south, when I hear praline I think of pecan/buttery/creamy goodness. But to Europe (or at least not southern Americans), a praline is simply a hard chocolate shell filled with endless types of fillings, some creamy, some liquid.
Beautiful Valentine's Day cake in the window display. Completely made out of sugar of course.
L'Eglise Sablon (not on our list but as we pass....pourquoi pas?)
And the best part of our day?!?!?!? WAFFLES!!! They looked immensely delicious...but only tasted better! You could get anything you wanted on your waffle...strawberries, bananas, nutella, cherries, sugar, jam, etc, or just have it plain!
I chose chantilly cream with chocolate. I ate most of the cream first, because there was so much I could hardly find the waffle. The chocolate was dark and rich, and oozed out all over the waffle dish. Once I finally reached the actual waffle, I couldn't wait to take a bite. It was crisp on the outside and perfectly soft on the inside. It tasted of butter and eggs...just as I expected. I have never eaten a waffle like this....and I'm not sure what can compare. Definitely not at Eggo I'll tell you that.
Excuse my appearance, but trekking around in the rain all day doesn't exactly allow for beautiful pictures.
We sauntered back to the hotel in silence, each of us stuffing our faces with our newfound Belgian friends, waffles. We put our clothes on the radiator for 30 minutes or so, tried to look a little more presentable (to no avail), and went menu searching for our dinner. The street below is full of seafood restaurants one after another. There must be at least 50 all with gentlemen outside trying to guess what language you speak and persuade you to come dine in their restaurant. Since that is a turn-off to me...we went in the one that didn't have a man yelling at you to come dine with him. Turns out, we made a pretty solid decision. Three course meal for 12 euros? Spot on.
I just had shrimp as an aperitif, salmon as my entrée, and chocolate mousse for dessert. Nothing too fancy and definitely not local...but for 12 euros-who can beat that?! We popped in the Delirium Café to check out the scene, but totes headed home early so we could get an bright start at our second day. Our list of things to do seemed like it was growing as the night went on making Sunday a little more formidable.....
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