Holiday: Day 6 - Brussels

Brussels, home of chocolate, beers, waffles and fries, and it definitely didn’t let itself down with its reputation!!

For once we had a bit of a sleep in as we didn’t need to catch the train to Brussels from Paris till around lunch time. It also meant that we got to get ourselves organised for what would be a bit of a transit day and given that it was a Saturday there wouldn’t be as many people out and about.

Gare du Nord with the red coloured Thalys train

Our train trip left from Gare du Nord which meant another dash through the metro with all of our bags, which isn’t easy getting through gates and onto packed trains, but we left plenty of time and so there was not too much drama at all.

For the first time we were catch a Thalys, which is the high speed train that does the Paris - Brussels route. I’d technically never been on one of these trains before so that always adds a bit of excitement to it. Something that has been a little different has been having wifi on the trains, and the wifi on the Thalys definitely outperformed that of the Eurostar, we also had this interactive map that showed us our live speed and location which is great for the nerds. As for the train itself we had a little compartment area at the end of the train where we sat as a four facing each other, I’d probably say the space was comparable to the Eurostar, but maybe the seats were more comfortable.

The train trip went fast and smoothly, and we soon arrived into Brussels Midi, which comparably for the 3 major stations we had now arrived in was in pretty ordinary shape. I think you take it for granted the quality of some of the grand stations in Europe and its not until you get to one that’s a bit ordinary that you notice the vandalism, the uneven pavement, lack of bins etc. I’m not sure whether its a reflection of the location, or whether Belgium just doesn’t have a great deal of pride in their trains but it was a little disappointing, but it did have good food outlets, so that’s a positive.

Luckily our hotel was only 300m from the train station so we had no need for metro lines or additional tickets, which surprisingly meant it was quite stress free. The room we had was definitely our favourite so far, somehow we landed a two story room with a spiral staircase which kept the kids well entertained. After quickly dumping our bags we decided to head out to explore the old town and then get some food.

The old town which has the narrow cobbled streets, surrounding the central square was about a 15 minute walk for us, which was nothing too interesting as they seem to be doing a fair bit of renovation work, but as soon as you hit the old streets you know you are nearly there.

Brussels Town Hall in the Grand Place

I was totally blown away by the area, all the streets are very narrow and all lead to the Grand Place, which when you walk into it is just amazing and the place is just flooded with people.

We decided to have a bit of a wander through the streets, but first stopped off for a quick waffle, well when in Brussels that’s what you have to do right? I actually gave it a miss but had to assist Isabelle eat hers, it was delicious.

We kept walking up and down the laneways, not really looking for anything in particular just curious about what you might stumble across. Something that really appealed to me was all the small boutique type chocolate, bakeries or beer shops, I really like seeing how people go about their craft and how they share it with other people. For us that was probably more noticeable in for chocolate than it was for beer given that I don’t really drink, but it did seem like every second store sold chocolate and they all went about it differently.

Belgian chips with ketchup, mayonaise and onion

After covering most of the streets we decided to chow down on some chips, or fries or frites whatever you like to call them. We tried to find somewhere that looked relatively traditional, which we did. Old mate cooks them once and then they just have a huge pile of pre cooked chips which once you order they cook again so the finished product is nice and crunchy on the outside. I’m a big fan of chips so these definitely hit the spot. I did get a little adventurous with the ones I chose which was the “speciality fries” which came with ketchup, mayonnaise and onions”. Look it doesn’t sound very appealing but it hit the spot. The kids went the traditional route and got a cone of fries, which was easily too much for each of them. We all finished up with a bit of buyers remorse and slowly made our way back through the cobbled streets to our hotel, we planned to get up early the next morning and do a little more exploring before we had to catch our next train.

Overall we’d had a good day, great train trip, great food, and had experienced a new city and culture that none of us had ever been to.

Michael