Europe Day 5- Brussels

We had a few things we wanted to finish up in Antwerp Wednesday morning before heading to Brussels. Unfortunately it was raining and dreary outside, so we just immediately headed to Cathedral of Our Lady and waited a few minutes for it to open. It was a beautiful church, but by this point we had seen quite a few, so they were getting less and less exciting. We tried to go to another church- St. Andrews- but there was a funeral there, so we couldn't go inside. So, we decided to leave this city and weather behind! Have I mentioned that all of my church pictures seem to really suck?! So unfortunately the pics just aren't good enough and worth my time to edit and upload here. I think cause they were so enornmous and ornate, it was hard to capture the feeling on film.

We arrived in Brussels and checked into our hotel (Hotel Ibis Ste Catherine) with no problems around noon. We grabbed a quick lunch at Panos, which was recommended by Rick Steves and I saw people eating and looked good....however it was not very good at all. I believe it is a chain restaurant and looked similar to a St. Louis Bread Co. Dustin had ordered ham and he couldn't even eat it cause was so fatty and fishy tasting he said.

We then did Rick Steves' Grand Place Walk-- it was about a 2 hour walk around the lower town. It started at the Grand Place, which is what I would consider like the town square or center. Farmers and merchants used to come here to sell their goods. Today it contains City Hall, restaurants, shops, and lots of chocolate places! It was at a bar on this square that Marx and Engels met in 1848 to write their Communist Manifesto.




We then walked through Europe's oldest still operating shopping mall. It was built in 1847 and covered in glass and served as a model for others. There wasn't anything exciting here, so this was a 3 minute stop!


We then walked down Rue des Bouchers which is known as restaurant row. Tiny little streets just packed with tables and restaurants...luckily we had heard from our Antwerp hotel clerk NOT to eat here cause lots of people get food poisoning.


Next we went to a church- St. Nicholas. This was the first what I would consider very modern looking church-- up until now they had all had the really tall steeples and a more gothic look to them.


And we followed that up with seeing the outside of The Bourse, which is the stock exchange. For some reason we were blind and had trouble finding this- but on the side of The Bourse was a glass covered area where you could see in the ground and see ruins of a 13th century convent. So that was very interesting to be able to see what existed so long ago underneath us.

We then did Rick Steves' Upper Town walk. This section has big boulevards, enormous marble buildings, palaces, museums, and a different feel than the lower town. At the beginning of the walk we stopped to take some pics looking down on the lower town. I think that tall spire in the background was from the market square which you can see in the first pic. In the next, notice closely Dustin being a smart allec. And lastly, in the U.S. we have the ice cream truck that drives around...Belgium has the waffle van!




Our first stop was called Place Royale, but it was under a ton of construction. It didn't even appear anything was open, but we walked up to a door and were able to go inside what appeared a main entrance, but it just led to a church setting and we were the only people there. So we just left after a bit, but I feel like there normally was more to explore here! We then walked over to Royal Palace- King Leopold I(r. 1831-1865) had a great influence on the country. His son rebuilt this palace and today his great-great-great-grandnephew uses it as an office. If the Belgian flag is flying from the palace, the king is somewhere in Belgium. Here is a pic of the palace, but doesn't even begin to capture the magnitude of this thing!


Across the street we walked through the Parc de Bruxelles-- it was only ok as far as parks that we've seen. Marie-Antoinette's mom this park laid out in 1776 when she ruled but never visited the city. We went in Notre-Dame du Sablon Church, which was built 14th century. The important thing here was a small wooden statue of Mary dressed in white with a lace veil. This is a copy since the original was destroyed, but it was though to have miraculous powers, saving the town from plagues. For some reason I have no pics of the inside of the church, but can look here at someone else's! Here was the outside:


We saw some other gardens, parks, and statues, but nothing of particular interest. We walked to the Palace of Justice, but it was all under construction. It would have been impressive to see without all the scaffolding cause is more than 6 acres and the dome is taller than St. Peter's in Rome- 340 feet. Today major court cases are tried here. See- not very impressive:


We walked through Place du Grand Sablon- which is a neighborhood featuring cafes, art galleries, etc....we later returned to this area for dinner cause was right up our alley! We walked by Tour d'Angle which is a rare surviving section of Brussels' 13th century city wall that was 2.5 miles long.


Next up was what I had been waiting for-- to see the Mannekin Pis statue! It was very small, even after Rick warning to have low expectations for this. The statue was made in 1619 as a neighborhood drinking fountain. He now has over 700 costumes that travelling VIPs bring for him, but he had no clothes on while we were there. He even has an Elvis Pissley outfit...haha! We decided to stop here across the street and grab a beer and just people watch since it was a busy intersection. I also got a chocolate waffle there too.....VERY delicioius!



We then went inside St. Catherine's- which was very old and dirty.


We went back to the hotel to freshen up for dinner and went off of Rick's recommendation to go to L'estrille du Vieux Bruxelles. It was FANTASTIC atmosphere and food-- one of our BEST meals of the entire trip!! While sitting there it started to rain, but we were perfectly covered and just stayed for an extra drink after dinner until it cleared up.


Our table was the one on the right there with some glasses- we just loved sitting in this little courtyards for dinner:


And here was Dustin's sampler platter that he said was awesome. He kept trying to get me to try the foie gras saying that it was some sort of desert! Luckily I knew it had something to do with an animal and passed...we later looked it up and learned it was duck liver or something disgusting.


We left and walked in search of somewhere else to go for a drink....and it starts raining....real hard! So we just ran into one of the nearest bars which happened to be the Mannekin Pis Pub! The bad thing about most places was how smokey they were if they weren't non-smoking...but the smoke was better than standing out in the rain. So we had to wait again until it lightened up enough to walk and then went to Delirium. They had over 2000 beers available and Dustin was in heaven! Finally it was off to bed as I'm sure it was another night close to midnight!