We made our way (by ourselves!) into downtown Brussels, walking and gawking! It was a gorgeous sunny cloudless day – got up to about 83° which is pretty hot for here, but low humidity so it was fine. I know people back home would kill for this weather…
We spent almost 3 hours at the Musical Instruments Museum and I’m going to post those photos separately – but here’s what else we did.
So, we saw a place in Bruges called “Amadeus: The Place For Ribs.” In Brussels, it’s this??Grand Place is pretty grand! — at Grand-Place de Bruxelles.— at Jardin du Mont des Arts.This is the exterior of the Musical Instruments Museum, a gorgeous art deco building. Going to post my many photos of the instruments separately! — at Musical Instrument Museum.This is the Royal Palace of Brussels, but it’s closed currently. — at Royal Palace of Brussels— at Église Notre-Dame du Sablon de Bruxelles.So this is like, the most famous iconic thing in Brussels: the Mannekin Pis. I was…underwhelmed. — at Mannequin Pis Brussels.There are no shortage of waffle shops here. But we got a personal recommendation from Del for this one – Maison Dandoy. There are several locations, and we made the mistake of going to two first that…did not serve waffles! Finally we found the right one, and it was worth it. I’d already had the Liege style waffles which have the big sugar crystals and a caramelized exterior. This place serves those as well as the Brussels style, which we opted for here. They are light, airy and crispy – I think we both prefer them. Although I could try a few more to make sure… — at Maison Dandoy.A smaller but pretty church we wandered into – don’t remember the nameDel also recommended this restaurant, La Porteuse D’Eau, which was about a half-hour walk from the city center but looked like it would be worth it. They serve traditional Flemish food – we had the waterzooi (a stew with chicken, leeks & carrots in a broth thickened with eggs – it was comforting but light), and the carbonnade (Flemish beef stew). Not necessarily the dishes one would pick on a hot day, but we felt it was what we should order! They were quite good. The restaurant also has an amazing art deco interior which you will see shortly…To drink, we delved into dark Belgian beers. Not like the stouts/porters we prefer at home, but tasty! And high ABV, but doesn’t really feel like it.Here is the downstairs – we were one of the only tables at 6pm on a Tuesday, which was quite nice! This spot is off the beaten tourist path.And here is the upstairs, which you get to see on the way to the bathroom! Too bad we couldn’t sit up here, but I get they don’t want to have servers running up here for a mostly empty room.Now starting the 2km walk back to Central Station. We could have gotten on a closer Metro but we figured we could see more of the city…I think my legs are starting to get used to it, but it’s still way more than I walk at home!By the way, this is 10pm here…still light out!
