After a hard slog overnight on the coach we arrived to a bright and breezy but rather shabby looking Brussels. The question Charlotte and I were asked most before we set off was "Where are you going first?", to which we would merrily reply "Brussels!". The disappointment in the responses we got always gave us great pleasure but it was fair to say we weren't bowled over by our first impressions.
We arrived to check-in at 8am, a gruelling 7 hours before we would actually be able to get into our room and relax, to make things worse our hostel had no reception, so we had a 10 minute walk lugging our backpacks just to get there. Madness!
To pass the time we took a stroll into the centre of the city to view the famous sights such as the Manneken Pis statue, Grand Place and 3 police officers standing on a street corner directing traffic (that got a good half an hour of our time). So with 33 minutes sightseeing under our belts we were hankering for some Belgian cuisine and what better than a nice healthy bowl of Frites (French Fries (which actually originated in Belgium, ironically)). After we eventually checked in to our dorm and rested up we could get out and appreciate the City a bit more. Which we did by heading to the nearest Carrefour express supermarket to purchase our pasta and pesto dinner!
The following day was one Charlotte had been anticipating for a long time, our day trip to Luxembourg. She had been camping there when she was younger and had apparently had a whale of a time in her snorkel and flippers (no photo available, sorry!). Despite the 6 hour round trip it was a pleasant day exploring what is a beautiful city perched on hills with a park untouched by tourists in the valley between.
Our final day in Brussels started with a hard earned lie in after two very early starts. First port of call were the three urinating statues, Manneken Pis, Jeanekke Pis and Zinneke Pis (boy, girl and dog). With the sights seen we could relax with a beer on Grand Place and watch the world go by. Only one beer mind, at €6.80 for a pint! All that was left was to enjoy Belgium's other culinary tradition, the waffle, covered in Strawberry sauce (I didn't want the strawberry sauce, I thought it was maple syrup in the picture) , but stupidly forgot to immortalise this on film so will just have to have another one for breakfast tomorrow.
James
No comments:
Post a Comment