Brussels isn’t a large city – it only takes about 40 minutes to walk from one end to the other. Our hotel, the IHG Indigo City, is right on the north part of the ring road which means that nearly everything we planned to do is within easy reach – just as well, as we’ve only got one full day here! We were all ready to start our day in Brussels by about 10am.
Brussels is famous for comic book characters, so Jezza had the comic book route on his phone listing the various murals to be found around the town. However, finding the murals wasn’t as easy as we thought and we ended up retracing our steps several times, exchanging the odd expletives every now and then, with me wondering whether we’d actually make it to the end of the day still talking to each other!!
Not having had breakfast in the hotel and feeling a bit peckish, we found a boulangerie for Jezza to get something to tide him over till lunchtime – he’d had his heart set on a waffle, but opted for a rather opulent looking cake which I think filled more than a hole!!
Whilst in search of the cartoons, we came across The Manneken Pis, a 55cm high statue of a little boy weeing, built in 1619, which is actually a copy, having been stolen numerous times, so the original is in the Brussels City Museum. It was certainly very busy with tourists who probably weren’t even aware that he wasn’t the real thing!! We carried on with our search of cartoon murals and agreed that we were unlikely to find them all…
We then came upon the Garde Robe museum – countries and corporations from around the world request that the Manneken Pis statue be dressed in their costume for a day and they are then housed in the museum for all to see. Prior to our visit to Brussels whilst doing his research, Jezza saw that the statue had been dressed up as a Kit Kat. He asked in the museum where this was, but they didn’t seem to know what he was talking about. After Jezza’s various attempts to explain what a Kit Kat was, he found the article on his phone and we ascertained that it was dated 1st April and had to have been an April Fool 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️. We definitely got the rolling eyes from them 🙄🙄😂😂.
It was now about 1pm and I was starting to flag, so we went to De Pistolei for a sandwich and I certainly got more than I bargained for!! Veggie balls, Parmesan, rocket and mayo – not everyone’s cup of tea, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and washed it down with a small carafe of rosé – as you all know, it was 5 hours before wine o’clock 😳😳😳. However, I am on holiday 😂🤣😂🤣. Jezza had a meat filled extravaganza with a cherry Belgian beer. It was nice to take the weight off our feet and sit out, albeit there was a bit of a breeze.
We then made our way to Grand Place which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Baroque buildings were simply stunning.
We decided to make our way back to our hotel via Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert, which is the longest covered gallery in Europe where there is an abundance of shops selling souvenirs of Manneken Pis, beers and chocolate. It seemed rude not to buy any chocolate, so we selected some rather nice looking examples of Belgium’s finest!!!!
Not that many of the “normal” shops were open as it was Sunday, however, I did manage to sneak into Primark, but was quickly pulled out by Jezza telling me that we had no room for anything else in our luggage 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️ – maybe I’ll have more success in Amsterdam… 🤪😂
We thought we might have a sauna when we got back to the hotel, however, I was still full from lunch and decided maybe it wouldn’t be the most prudent thing to do, so instead we just relaxed and watched the afternoon football. Our intention was to go to a Sports Bar for our late afternoon match against City, however, knowing that we could watch in the hotel, we decided against the possibility of ritual humiliation in a foreign country and stayed in the comfort of our room with the second bottle of Pinot Grigio bought last night.
Having watched our match, we were glad we watched alone and we decided once we were 3 down, it was time to go somewhere to eat and forget about our disappointing, but not unexpected game….
Jezza had researched restaurants for Brussels and, being a fan of Grimbergen beer at home, could not let The Grimbergen Cafe pass him by. It was a good 15 minute walk and having arrived at the door, we were greeted with numerous signs, the biggest of which was that only cash was accepted – so back we went up the road (having checked the menu was actually to our liking) to get cash. Armed with our cash, we got to the restaurant where there was a sign saying WC 3€. I was dumbstruck- even if I didn’t want to go to the loo there, I wasn’t going to eat somewhere where spending a penny cost 3€!!!! The waiter reassured me that patrons went to the loo gratuit – I’m astounded that people would only go to such an establishment for a wee!!!
Once seated, we ordered – I was heartened after last night to see Aperol Spritz on the menu which I duly ordered and Jezza, surprisingly ordered a Grimbergen!! I had moules et frites and Jezza had carbonnade et frites (beef stew cooked in beer). Another very nice meal – portions have been very generous here and we have had no room for desserts!!
We made our way back to the hotel, passing a number of adult shops – Jezza was fascinated by some of the goods in the window – I shall not elucidate as our children will be reading this…. 😂😂😂😂
We’ve enjoyed Brussels, however, we’ve been really shocked by the numbers of homeless people sleeping in doorways and we’ve also been approached several times by beggars – I really wasn’t expecting that. It’s really quite sad, but they do seem to have plenty of cans of beer amongst their worldly goods …..
So, Day 2 is now over – see you in Amsterdam tomorrow…
Total steps: 16,879
