Belgium

Brussels

Grand Place, Brussels

So it turns out my plane didn’t go to Brusesls, but a small town about an hour outside called Charleroi. I ended up taking a bus into the town and then finding a hotel called Hotel Grande Cloche with a room overlooking one of Brussels better-known restaurants: Comme Chez Sol. The following morning I awoke super early and headed down to breakfast. (I love that it is typical for hotels and hostels here to include a breakfast!) The dining room was very pleasant, centered around a small buffet of meats, cheeses and breads. I ended up with orange juice, coffee, a croissant, two types of cheeses, ham, toast with nutella and a couple slices of tomato. When I got back to my table I realized that all of the place settings just had a knife. So I did another lap around the room in search of forks, with no success. When I sat back down I looked around and it appeared that no one had a fork, but no one else that I could see had the tomatoes. I started on the appropriate finger foods and waited until I was sure no one was looking at me to sneak bites of those. With tomato juice running down my hands surely someone noticed, but I felt pretty sneaky at the time. Regardless of being forkless, everything was delicious – especially the cheeses. I also particularly enjoyed the Tom Jones music playing in the background, namely ‘You can leave your hat on’ which placed three times while I was breakfasting.

The largest sugar bean in the world:
153 kg,  119 cm high

Afterwards I decided to walk down to the Grand Place (main square). It was huge and absolutely incredible! Very different architecture to anywhere I’ve been, the most comparable being Austria or Prague. I also passed more than a few chocolate shops and even a chocolate museum which I was unable to resist! It was very informative, especially the part discussing the different recipes for different types of chocolate where sampling was encouraged.

At the end of the exhibit was a room for demonstrations where a cute-as-the-dickens little man described to us very animatedly in French how he makes all of his creations (truffles, giant molds, the little cream-filled shells, etc). There were samples there too.

Manneken-Pis, Brussels

After leaving the museum I followed a group of Spanish tourists down the street who looked like they knew where they were going. They led me to an apparently famous statue of a little boy peeing, ‘el mannekin pis’. (pictured) This was surrounded by more chocolate shops and a few waffle stands. I wandered through the center of the town a little more before catching my train to Brugge (Bruges), one of the last barely-touched medieval Flemish towns.


Brugge
It was sunny when the train pulled into Brugge so I decided to walk from the station into the city center and find my hostel. It turns out... backpacks are really really heavy. I have trouble putting mine on if I have to pick it up from the floor and then I get all caught up in the straps and more often than not tip myself over. This has happened enough that I am no longer embarrassed by it.

Markt, Brugge

It was about a 20 minute walk into the town. This town is DARLING. They call it the ‘Venice of the North’. Little winding cobble stone streets with pointy houses all squished together. Very fairytale-village-esque. I finally made my way to the center and found my hostel without having to ask for directions from anyone! The place definitely had character- it’s motto was “just clean enough to be healthy, just dirty enough to be fun”. The main room was full of all sorts of interesting furniature pieces placed all hodge-podge around. (Like an upright piano in the corner, a giant old travel trunk as the stool- both under one of the four giant non-matching chandeliers.) The doors to the actual rooms were found along the small wooden curving staircase. I was in room #9.

Oops, I am getting ahead of myself- at this point I just dropped off the heavy backpack and headed back off to explore the town. It kept getting more and more charming- the buildings in the markt square were the stereotypical Flemish town image that comes to mind. Brugge is one of the cities with the largest amount secular gothic/medieval buildings in Europe. Right down a small shopping street leads to the Burg, which is also quite impressive architecturally.
I stopped for a late lunch in one of the small cafés I passed, a little out of the direct tourist area. I chose it because it appeared to have a very French-leaning menu. I ended up ordering the soup of the day (tomato based) and a quiche/croque monsieur type of main course. Both absolutely delicious!! (Especially exciting since the menu was in Dutch and I just kind of guessed and what I was ordering). I decided to save dessert for later.

After lunch I continued my exploration of the city, despite the fact that it was now drizzling. I walked around the canals, opted against the boat tours and followed along the side. I saw some beautiful homes, shops and darling little bridges. More than anything I saw shops for specialty chocolate, lace and beer.

One place I went into had a wall with one of every single of the 800ish Belgian beers on it. (I wonder if the 99 bottles of beer on the wall has Belgian origins?) I eventually caved and bought two truffles- one praline and one champagne, both of which were delicious.

 Finally the rain won me over and I headed back to the hostel. (By way of a waffle stand. Truly tasty, comparable to the Spanish Gofres.) It must be that I am just not used to hauling around that big ol’ backpack, but once in my room I took a nap, woke up later on for a little over an hour and then went back to sleep for the entire night.

Brugge fun facts:
• The typical Belgian toast is “santé!”, but in Brugge they say “up je mulle!”, literally translating to ‘on your face!’.
• The official symbol of the city is a bear. Incidentally, you hear the word a lot in colloquial conversation. Like something cool is ‘bérecool’ or ‘béresjiek’.

Along the Canals of Brugge