Northern Europe Trip 2003
UK, France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands
FRIDAY - Exploring Brussels
Usually I am a VERY late riser. But I was pretty excited about being in Brussels and wanted to explore. I woke up at 6am and tried to get Bob awake. The poor guy was exhausted and pointed out that it was still dark out, and that I could hardly take pictures of things in the dark. At 7am the sky was still rosy and foggy looking. Finally around 8am or so I got Jenn to wake up and since we'd both already showered, we figured we'd leave the two guys behind and go explore the city. The museum didn't open until 10am, so we figured we'd go romp around until 9:30, then come back and fetch them.
If you're curious, there is an Online Map of Brussels to view. The "interesting area" with museums and palaces is in the lower right, just south of the big green rectangle (garden) in "SE Part 1". Our hotel is just south of that area, in few-minutes walking distance, in "SE Part 2".
Brussel Heart Map
So off we headed! We were on the main Waterloo street with all sorts of fancy shops. It was a very wide street with electric wires for trams and a green strip down its middle. There was one shop in particular - "Pink" - which was for Men's shirts that had an emblem of a gold fox head hanging in front. From a distance it looked like a gold Yoda (I thought) or an erupting volcano (Bob later thought). Also intriguing was a statue that at first appeared to be a sea monster about to play football but which we decided was some sort of a frog-man.
There weren't many restaurants actually - there was a spot with lots of fast food and a chocolate shop, but very few pubs or cafes here. Hmmmm.
OK over to the Palace we got. This is Jenn in front of the big Leopold II statue.
Around to the front. The palace was right on the street and not very "pretty". It was plain stone and had a shrub garden out front. There were 2 armed guards with assault rifles hanging out.
We walked along the front and I wondered if the guards should be actually patrolling instead of just standing still and looking straight ahead.
Around the corner was another statue, you can see the cobblestone streets, the plain stone buildings, the overhead wires for the trams here.
We headed down to the main plaza area. We went under an arch with a very pretty clock, with statues that seemed like they would move in various nooks and a statue up top that appeared to ring the bell.
There was also a very pretty church that we walked around but the doors were locked.
We stopped at a little shop and Jenn got a lovely gold scarf, while I got a magnet and 2 postcards. She almost talked me into a shotglass - I used to collect one for each place we visited - but we have like 50 of them now and it's getting out of control. I have enough shotglasses.
Soon we were at the Grand Plaza!
Day 2: Friday at the Grand Plaza in Belgium
Main Europe 2003 Homepage
Lisa's Travelogue Pages