Day 3: We woke up this morning, and had breakfast at the B&B, where we learned that our Michel, one of our hosts, was a previous holder of Belgium’s Mr. Leather title. Turns out that he won Belgium’s Mr. Leather competition the first of time he ever wore a leather get-up, which earned him a trip to the International Mr. Leather contest in Chicago. He got 21st place – and retired from competition. Now, he works for Brussels’ sanitation department. You can’t make this stuff up, folks.
Our first stop of the day was the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM), where we saw several beautiful examples of historical instruments, ranging from tribal drums that were more than 1000 years old to electronic instruments from this decade. From there, we made our way over to St. Boniface, which is in the heart of a trendy, diverse neighborhood with lots of interesting shops and restaurants. We stopped at one and had lunch, before continuing on to the Fortis district, which is near several universities. We window-shopped there for a while, particularly noticing the numerous second-hand comic book stores in the area (though comics weren’t invented in here, the Belgians are great aficionados of them). By then, we were ready to get off of our feet for a bit, so we found a bar and had some beers.
It was Saturday night, and that meant England v. France in the semi-final of the Rugby World Cup (held in France this year). So we picked up some take-away kebabs, and headed to Churchill’s, an English bar in Brussels, to watch this fierce match. It was truly an epic defensive battle, though fortunately, England came out on top with a 14-9 victory over the French hosts. Belgium is a popular destination for French holiday-seekers, so even though we were in an English pub, the fact that we were in Brussels meant that most of the other patrons of the pub were French. Aside from a few English ex-pats in the bar, we were pretty much the only England fans in the whole place. After the English victory, several of the French fans came over and shook our hands, wishing us “Bon chance” in the final.
Day 4: This morning, we got up pretty early (at least for us) and took a train to Bruges, a town whose history dates back to the middle ages. It is only about an hour’s trip from Brussels, and for the past 150 years, has long been a popular tourist destination. It is a little touristy, but the architecture is lovely, and weather-wise, it was a gorgeous day. Megan took a lot of great photos in town.
Our day in Bruges began by visiting the Markt (central square), followed by lots of wandering along the canals and through the parks, and stopping for lunch in a small square where we could watch horse-drawn carriages walking by. Here I had the chance to use some of my “advanced” French. Sitting next to us at lunch was a older couple with their dog, who were travelling around Europe in their “camping-car”. I complemented them on how well-behaved their dog was (he was sitting under the table during their meal), and told them that we also had a dog. They asked what kind of dog he was, but high school French didn’t teach me how to say “pug” en français… After lunch, we took the long way through Bruges to the Brouwerij De Halve Maan (“Half Moon Brewery”). We had a beer in the courtyard before taking a tour of the historic brewery – the original location of the Maes (a prominent Belgian brewer) brewery. On the tour, we met Nancy, an American woman who was travelling on her own. After the tour, we were given complimentary beers, so we invited her to join us at our table in the courtyard. We started chatting, and it quickly came out that we were both from Chicago. Crazily enough, this woman was also originally from Flossmoor (the tiny little town where I grew up)! She left the town when she was still in junior high, so she didn’t remember my family, but we still had a great time talking about our home town! File that one under “it’s a small world”…
After leaving Nancy in Bruges, we grabbed wafels, and headed to the train station for the trip back to Brussels. Tonight was the South Africa v. Argentina semi-final for the World Cup. Since we had a wonderful time at the pub the previous night (giant projection TV, delicious beers on tap, friendly service – what else do you need to watch a match?!?!), we decided to head back to Churchill’s for the second consecutive night. Unfortunately, South Africa crushed Argentina 37-13, making this match not nearly as exciting as the England/France match.
Day 5: Our last day in Belgium – and really just a half-day at that. We slept in again, and then headed to the Flanders Museum, a really weird toy museum. We thought it would be a sort of look at toys throughout history, but actually turned out to be some creepy old guy’s HUGE toy collection. It was a short visit. We then walked to the Botanical Gardens – on our way, we accidentally stumbled across the hostel where I had stayed during my previous visit to the city back in 2000 with Kate. The gardens were still as great as I had remembered, and we wandered around here for a bit, before heading back into Central Brussels, where we finally got frites in a cone – the best French fries imaginable, topped with mayo (not as gross as it sounds), and served in a paper cone. Megan was wanting to get these for our whole trip (they are iconically Belgian), and considering how it was our last day in town, I finally caved in…
We then headed back to our inn, grabbed our bags, and took the metro back to Gare Midi to catch our Eurostar train back to London. On the train back to our new home, my Spanish-speaking wife was ordering beers in French “deux Stellas, s’il vous plait”, which I think is the most important phrase an international traveler can learn when abroad…
Showing posts with label brussels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brussels. Show all posts
Sunday, 21 October 2007
Belgium Trip - Part 1 of 2
It has been about 3 months since we moved to London, and aside from our numerous work-related trips of late, we have yet to leave the country on holiday (a nice British-ism that we have adopted). Lamely enough, our work schedules are both so hectic that we were forced to put time in our schedules to force ourselves to have some “quality time”. Anyway, after deciding that our only criterion for a vacation was that we didn’t want to travel to our destination by airplane, we decided on spending a long weekend in Belgium, which is only 2 hours and 20 minutes from London on the high-speed Eurostar train. Belgium proved to be just the break we needed - here’s a recount of what we did this past weekend, broken into 2 posts for easier reading...
Day 1: We met Thursday after work at London’s Waterloo station, where we caught the train for Brussels. After a couple of beers on the train (the first of MANY on this trip), Megan needed a nap, and I did a bit of lingering work that needed to be wrapped up before I could ease into vacation mode. We arrived at Gare Midi (the international train station) in Brussels pretty late, so we just took a taxi to our hotel, giving me the first chance of this trip to use my high school French: “uh... Je voudrais… uh… aller… à l’hôtel Sheraton Four Points (insert silent prayer that the taxi driver understands me here)???”.
This first night in Brussels, we stayed at a generic hotel, because we couldn’t find any B&B’s that had availability. However, this place had plenty of charm, as you will see from this photo of the “art” hanging on the wall of our room. Remember people, this was not a flea-bag, one-star place with the bathroom at the end of the hall. It was actually a ridiculously expensive Starwood hotel, so it caught us a bit off guard to see this hanging on the wall. After all of this excitement, we were exhausted after a full day at the office followed by our trip, so we ordered room service and went to bed.
Day 2: We slept in and decided that we would spend the day getting our bearings in Brussels. Megan had never been to the city, and it had been about 7 years (and innumerable brain cells) since I had been in the city. So we started our day by wandering through the neighborhood around our hotel, grabbing coffee and making our way over to the Mannekin Pis (Aside: If you don’t know what this is, it’s a ridiculous, yet iconic statue of a little boy peeing. The Belgians dress him up in seasonal costumes – when we saw him, he was dressed like Christopher Columbus, presumably for Columbus Day, which I had always assumed was an American holiday, but whatever. Like I said, it’s ridiculous, but to go to Brussels and not see him is like going to Paris and not seeing the Eiffel Tower.). From there, it was just a short walk to the Grand Place, which was Brussels’ central market several centuries ago, but is now very touristy. The buildings around the square used to be guild houses; some of the notable ones around the square formerly housed the baker’s and the hat-makers guilds. We had lunch at a non-descript, yet typical Belgian restaurant in the Grand Place, where we paid a small fortune for a couple of beers and salads.
After lunch, we did some more aimless walking, taking in the sights, grabbing a wafel (a sugar-coated waffle – absolutely delicious), and generally hanging out. It was absolutely wonderful to not have to think about work, or household chores, or any of the day-to-day b.s. that tends to consume any couple. We got to actually talk – about things that really mattered, o r that didn’t. But there were none of the “what do you want me to get at the grocery store?”, or “did you pay that bill?” conversations. What a luxury! We got to have some of these conversations at one of the oldest bars in Brussels, a place called Mort Subite – such a notable bar, that the Belgians have even named a type of beer after it!
Later that afternoon, we headed back to the Sheraton, picked up our bags, and made the journey across Brussels to the Court Guest House, a lovely B&B just outside of central Brussels. The proprietors of the hotel (Joris and Michel) live upstairs from the inn, which was the site of the original Godiva factory in Brussels. Throughout the common areas of the inn, they have displayed a wonderful collection of photographs of workers producing chocolates in what became their home, as well as other Godiva memorabilia from that era.
We had dinner that night at a restaurant near St. Catherine’s church, where we enjoyed Belgian beers, moules frites (mussels with fries, a Belgian specialty), and the company of a couple who were on vacation from Georgia. Another early night for us, so we took the metro (Brussels’ incredibly efficient subway system) back to our inn.
More in part 2…
Day 1: We met Thursday after work at London’s Waterloo station, where we caught the train for Brussels. After a couple of beers on the train (the first of MANY on this trip), Megan needed a nap, and I did a bit of lingering work that needed to be wrapped up before I could ease into vacation mode. We arrived at Gare Midi (the international train station) in Brussels pretty late, so we just took a taxi to our hotel, giving me the first chance of this trip to use my high school French: “uh... Je voudrais… uh… aller… à l’hôtel Sheraton Four Points (insert silent prayer that the taxi driver understands me here)???”.
This first night in Brussels, we stayed at a generic hotel, because we couldn’t find any B&B’s that had availability. However, this place had plenty of charm, as you will see from this photo of the “art” hanging on the wall of our room. Remember people, this was not a flea-bag, one-star place with the bathroom at the end of the hall. It was actually a ridiculously expensive Starwood hotel, so it caught us a bit off guard to see this hanging on the wall. After all of this excitement, we were exhausted after a full day at the office followed by our trip, so we ordered room service and went to bed.
Day 2: We slept in and decided that we would spend the day getting our bearings in Brussels. Megan had never been to the city, and it had been about 7 years (and innumerable brain cells) since I had been in the city. So we started our day by wandering through the neighborhood around our hotel, grabbing coffee and making our way over to the Mannekin Pis (Aside: If you don’t know what this is, it’s a ridiculous, yet iconic statue of a little boy peeing. The Belgians dress him up in seasonal costumes – when we saw him, he was dressed like Christopher Columbus, presumably for Columbus Day, which I had always assumed was an American holiday, but whatever. Like I said, it’s ridiculous, but to go to Brussels and not see him is like going to Paris and not seeing the Eiffel Tower.). From there, it was just a short walk to the Grand Place, which was Brussels’ central market several centuries ago, but is now very touristy. The buildings around the square used to be guild houses; some of the notable ones around the square formerly housed the baker’s and the hat-makers guilds. We had lunch at a non-descript, yet typical Belgian restaurant in the Grand Place, where we paid a small fortune for a couple of beers and salads.
After lunch, we did some more aimless walking, taking in the sights, grabbing a wafel (a sugar-coated waffle – absolutely delicious), and generally hanging out. It was absolutely wonderful to not have to think about work, or household chores, or any of the day-to-day b.s. that tends to consume any couple. We got to actually talk – about things that really mattered, o r that didn’t. But there were none of the “what do you want me to get at the grocery store?”, or “did you pay that bill?” conversations. What a luxury! We got to have some of these conversations at one of the oldest bars in Brussels, a place called Mort Subite – such a notable bar, that the Belgians have even named a type of beer after it!
Later that afternoon, we headed back to the Sheraton, picked up our bags, and made the journey across Brussels to the Court Guest House, a lovely B&B just outside of central Brussels. The proprietors of the hotel (Joris and Michel) live upstairs from the inn, which was the site of the original Godiva factory in Brussels. Throughout the common areas of the inn, they have displayed a wonderful collection of photographs of workers producing chocolates in what became their home, as well as other Godiva memorabilia from that era.
We had dinner that night at a restaurant near St. Catherine’s church, where we enjoyed Belgian beers, moules frites (mussels with fries, a Belgian specialty), and the company of a couple who were on vacation from Georgia. Another early night for us, so we took the metro (Brussels’ incredibly efficient subway system) back to our inn.
More in part 2…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Subscribe