We pulled into camping Grimbergen our next stop, and were met by a grumpy Belgian who nearly sent us packing as he thought we were camping in a tent and didn’t want his grass to get ruined. Dave convinced him we would be harmless to his grass and we settled in for the night with some of our 1€60 for a 6 pack of 0.5L beers – what a bargain for 3L of beer!
The next day we travelled in to Belgium’s capital by bus. Apparently the only city in Belgium that straddles the French/Dutch fusion line. We arrived in the north of the city and began walking to the centre, on the way stopping at a handy Maccas for some wifi calls home – Happy Bday Carol and Louise!
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| Brussells - home of pissing boys and... |
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| ...CHOCOLATE SHOPS! |
We continued on, heading to the heart of the city – the Grote Markt (Grand Marketplace). The beautiful guild halls (halls of the merchant guilds) around its perimeter were truly breathtaking, it was just a pity about the odd urine odours we got on our way there.
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| Grote Markt of Brussells |
Next stop was lunch – pitas in the Rue du Marche aux Fromages + beers as accompaniments (Leffe blonde and Duvel).
After refuelling the sightseeing continued with a visit to the Mannekin Pis fountain – the famous Brussels fountain of a little boy peeing. Interestingly enough it was a lot smaller than we had anticipated... the fountain not the...
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| Tiny statue that all the fuss is about |
The fountain was right in the corner of the Rue del ‘Etuve a colourful street bursting at the seams with chocolate and waffle shops – very Belgian. We gave into temptation having waffles with banana, strawberry and dark chocolate from the Leonaidas chocolate shop. As a side note Leonaidas was one of the chocolatiers involved in the first pralines (Newhaus were actually the creator of the first ever praline), his version covered in white chocolate. He was also one of the first to open a street store, paving the way for the 100’s of shops you see on the streets today – good man!
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| The famous shopping arcade |
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| Belgium Beers and... |
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| Chocolate |
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| Lots and lots of chocolate! |
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| Not sure of the actual refined way to eat these - but they were just so delicious that this is how I decided to eat it! |
Continuing walking we found the Rue de Bouchers, the city’s famous dining street with surprisingly wasn’t that expensive – we had been warned not to eat there, bum steer from Lonely Planet, it looked great.
This being one of the largest cities we had walked around we had pretty sore feet by now and began to head back to the bus station. On the way we headed back through the market and found them setting up for a beer festival in the square which unfortunately wouldn’t start until the following afternoon – so we missed out.
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| Setting up for the beer festival |
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Some of the local produce
(we later found out that in Belgium Stella is considered an old man's beer and this is why it is so cheap - they really suckered us poor idiots back home in) |
We made our way back home sweet home to watch a movie.
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