NOOOO!!! Everything is closed on Sundays in Brussels! And there looks to be lots of shopping to be done! ^.^ So rewind a little bit, I took the train from Ghent Sint Pieters to Brussels Noord, which takes 40 minutes. Brussels has a lot of train stations, but Noord is closest to Sheraton, my hotel. First impression, awesome hotel! Very business-oriented, but once I get into my room… it’s spacious and points for the huge window, giving me a nice view of Brussels (alas another city under construction… what else is new?!). BUT the décor is seriously from the 60s! It just looks tired… the granite is turning yellow and the carpet has stains. This is four stars? I don’t think so!
It was very conspicuous that all the businesses were closed, so much so that I asked when I checked in if they were just opening late or what was going on. That’s when I learned everything’s closed on Sundays, except the main tourist hub. So I went there :)
St. Catherine's Church:
There is a plaza on one side of the church where a lot of people were gathering around, eating fries and drinking beer. There was a singer and band so the mood was very festive and jazzy.
They were selling beignets and fries from this really cute stand:
St. Nicolas church:
The church was gradually built up around the 11th and 12th centuries, but has been sacked, destroyed, bombed throughout the years. Each time, the citizens rebuild the church. Talk about persistence!
Pain a la Grecque, a specialty of Brussels:
Grote Markt (aka main tourist hub):
Belgian waffles, with just about any kind of topping you can imagine! Kiwis, bananas, nutella, whipped cream, but the most popular (based on what I saw people getting) being chocolate & strawberry:
The Manneken Pis is a statue of a little boy pissing and Brussels’ pride and joy. It supposedly symbolizes the city’s ‘irrelevant’ spirit.
The actual statue is a lot smaller than I thought it would be. The original statue was stolen, so a copy was put in its place… then stolen again a number of times after that and a copy put in place each time ^.^ Kinda getting the feeling that Brussels is very persistent!!!
Hell, there’s a chocolate shop named Manneken Pis!
And Leonidas makes Mannekin Pis chocolate statues:
A street cart selling escargots (hell I haven’t even seen that in Paris!):
I guess it’s a local specialty because there were quite a few people buying them. The broth that the snails are served in actually smells really yummy… smells kinda likes Chinese clam broth.
I did a preliminary search of markets in Brussels and there seems to be like 8-10 every day! Although they are very neighborhood specific, and the neighborhoods are very spread out so I probably won’t be able to hit all of them ;( Especially by myself! I walked to Brussels Midi station to check Eurostar’s prices for daytrips to Paris (cheapest was 105 euros… hell no!), but the walk there was all Morrocan and Turkish stores. Strangely enough, there were lots of men on the streets, standing around and chatting, but where are the women?? I was the only female on that whole 10-block stretch! So note to self in Brussels… stay where the tourists are ~__^.
Here’s a view from my hotel room at 10PM at night… my god, it’s beautiful! (The sunset… not the skyline)
I can’t believe how late the sun sets in Europe… but the weather still feels like winter turning into spring. Very brisk and windy. I’m by no means a skinny girl but I felt at times that I would be pushed over by the wind!
No comments:
Post a Comment