Andrew and Debbie Invade Belgium (part 3 of 3)

This is the third part of our three part blog about our invasion of Belgium.

In order for it to make sense, it's probably a good idea to read part one and two first:

Click here for Part 1

Click here for Part 2

We had tossed up the idea of us making our own way to Amsterdam after the tour had been canceled. but we decided against it for a number of reasons. mostly because we didn't know how to get there or back. but also because we still hadn't seen much of brussels except the area around the Grand Place.

So after a slightly better night sleep and a hearty breakfast, we set out to see as much of Brussels as we could. Seeing as we really didn't know much about it, we started off at a Meuseum right in the middle of the grand place.

As meuseums go, it was a fairly small one, you can see the size of the building from the above photo and it didn't really go much deaper than 20 meters so we got through it by about midday. In a way I was sort of disapointed. or I guess dissilusioned about meuseums in general. There was lots of statues and paintings and bits of architecture left over from before when the Grand Place area was destroyed. the plaques would say things like "this is the only remaining part of the original xyz famous building before it was burnt down. it has subsequently been rebuilt to the exact same specifications as previously" and so pretty much we could have just stayed outside and looked up and seen the exact same piece of building except not cracked and burnt....

It wasn't all that bad though. there were some great scale models of Brussels back when they had a wall around the entire city and some cool old books and stuff that we couldn't read because we don't speak belgish.... So we probably only ended up spending about an hour in there. but as our tour guide told us the day before: there are more than 80 meuseums in Brussels.

we also walked arround the grand place area a bit more:


yes, ok, we love this building:


Found a sculpture where people had put gas masks on them, I assume as a comment on increasing polution:


After a quick argument about what we were going to eat for lunch we went somewhere neither of us liked and ate some salad.... it gave us energy though and with a quick glance at our map of brussels, we headded off towards the royal palace.

we walked through a very nice park that would look absolutely amazing in the spring/summer but was a bit bland without any flowers or leaves on the trees. so we only took one photo:



We were amazed by the cobled streets - we kind of expected them in Gent and Brugge and in the mostly pedestrian area of the Grand Place etc, but to see them pretty much on every street in the middle of the city was mind boggling.. not to mention difficult to walk on and noisy as the cars go past. in the third video that we made, you can hear the tires screaming out for mercy as they drive over the cobble stone roads....



the palace wasn't all that much to see really, in fact it was quite a boring looking building compared to a large portion of the other buildings and churches around the place.






so we took a few shots there and moved onto the justice courts, a massive building at pretty much the highest point in the city.

On the way we came across a meuseum of musical instruments, a town-hall-looking building, a massive church, and a garden that was enclosed with statues representing each profession.

I tried my best to hide the tramline that was accross the middle of the otherwise cool shot, see if you can pick it:










here's the garden with the statues of each profession/trade:








Sadly, I did not see a computer programmer represented. I'll have to have a stern chat with brussels management...

Finally reaching the justice courts we spent a few minutes taking in the views and taking video and stills of the beautiful city. we could see the tall building in the Grand Place, we could see the Basilica de Koekelberg that we drove past the previous day, and we could faintly see the Atomium, Which we knew existed but we knew nothing about.

courts of justice - a more extravigant building and almost as large as the royal palace:


war memorial:




Building in the Grand Place as well as the atomium



Basilica de Koekelberg:


After a bit we looked at our watches. it was only 2:00pm so debbie said: "well, let's go to the atomium". I was kind of reluctant, but I couldn't think of any decent reason not to apart from the fact that we don't speak french and may have dificulty catching the train, it looked like a long way off and we hadn't had a decent lunch yet. still, after quite a bit of convincing from debbie, I agreed. So we set off for the nearest train station.... and we got about 2 meters before debbie panicked that we were going the wrong way, I assured her that we were not.... 5 frustrating map-turning minutes later and we were off again (in the same direction I might add). I think that this moment defined our travel habits. We annoy eachother when we're on holidays sometimes because we get frustrated with the other's shortcommings, but the truth is, if it was just me on holidays, I'd probably sleep in until 12 and not actually go and see anything much. and if it was just debbie on holidays, then she'd probably head off somewhere completely in the wrong direction from the thing she wanted to see.... and so we decided we complimented eachother quite nicely in these areas and took the train hand-in-hand to the atomium.

Google map here





We actually thought that the Atomiom was a fairly recent (like less than 10 years) addition to belgium, but it turns out that it was built for the 1958 world expo. right in the middle of the space age. it's a model of an iron crystal maginfied 165 billion times. the spheres are 18 meters in diameter, the tubes are 23 meters long and 3 meters in diameter and the whole thing stands at 102 meters tall. so of course we just had to try the coffee at the top.

We took the elevator to the top floor, it was quite funny because there was an elevator person pushing the buttons for all the tourists and they had to translate a quick commentary on the elevator including stats on how fast it goes, the fact that at the time it was built it was the fastest elevator in the world, the height of the atomium and how long it would take to get to the top, all in three diferent languages and under the 15 or so seconds it takes to get to the top, it was quite an impressive feat.

At the top was an amazing view of the country side. There were interactive touch-screens that were linked to external video cameras so you could zoom in on places of interest arround the countryside and recieve a commentary about them. We unfortunately couldn't get in past all the kids that were hogging them. a suprising number of them were being taught patiently by parents who were showing them the various sights and explaining what each of them were. one particular parent caught my ear when he kept repeating what sounded like "notre dame", I couldn't obviously understand the rest becuase it was in french. I thought notre dame was in some other country

a quick web search revealed that there are four bacilicas in Belgium called Notre Dame something-or other...

"mini europe"


There's that basilica again:






anyway, so we still hadn't had a decent lunch so we walked up right to the very top where the resturant is, hoping for a good meal, but expecting it to be expensive. the waiter was the perfect look-down-his-nose french-speaking tuxedo wearing type. quite facinating to watch really, here's a rough transcript:

us: "could we have a table for two please?"
him: *thick french accent* "you want a table?"
us: "yes please, for two"
him: *looking down his nose* "right this way sir"

so we waited at the table for a while and stared at the menu, which only had drinks on it.

us: "is there a food menu?"
him: "a food menu sir?" *distainful raised eyebrow*
us: "yes please do you serve any meals at all?"
him: *exasperated look* "this is not possible sir, the lunch is finished, there will be no more food until dinner"
us: "oh, ok we'll just order drinks then"

so we order a hot chocolate and I order a cafe latte

him: "you want a coffee... with milk?"
me: "yes please"
him: "ok" *smirk*

so out comes debbie's hot chocolate and my black coffee with a jug of milk on the side. Well, I thought I'd had all possible weird combinations of coffee, but I never thought someone would give me milk on the side. The Latte with the straw and swizzle stick I had in sloane square is still the leader of course.

in anycase the coffee was actually very good and the waiter warmed up to us a bit after he realised that we would be actually spending money. they must get heaps of people just wanting to come up to take photos. all in all, it was a very fun experience. it cost us 18 euro for both of us to get in and another 6ish for the coffee and hot chocolate, but hey... We're only in Belgium once this year.

We got back to the hotel at about 5:00pm, having not eaten properly yet. we quickly freshened up and went out in search of some food.

We walked around quite a bit trying to decide, and ended up at a nice italian place about 10 meters away from our hotel. Debbie went for a standard bolg and I couldn't decide between all the pizza offerings.. (well, mostly I couldn't read what they were) so I asked the waiter which was his favourite, and he listed about 3 or 4 and said that the last one was his all-time favourite - a 4-cheese pizza. but said that I may or may not like it so much... so I said "is that your favourite? the cheese pizza?" he said yes, so I said "great! I'll have that one". and it was certainly delicious. I think there was even blu-vein cheese in there, it was so flavoursome.

afterwards, we walked around the block, going past the cool-looking building in the Grand place we said "this is the last time we're going to see this at night time"... we kept on walking and eventually came around to it again and said to ourselves "this is the last time we're going to see this building at night time." anyway, this time it really was as we found a waffle place :-) we went back to our hotel (about 10 meters from the waffel place, did I mention how great a hotel location we got?) to eat:



I couldn't fit anymore than a bite in, but it certainly was the best waffle I've ever tasted. Debbie ate the rest and we went to sleep!

anyway, now's about the right time to watch video three:

Andrew and Debbie Invade Belgium (the movie!) Part3

So the final day, we got up early, packed a bit and went down to eat breakfast. We had a bit of a mix up with the payment of breakfast and had to pay a second time (we had paid for all three days worth of breakfast on the first day when we checked in, but the lady seemed a bit new.) anyway, eventually we found the original receipts and we got a refund for the second payment. which brings us to the Howie Associates London Branch Travel Tip Three: Always keep your hotel receipts in a safe place until you check out, particularly in a place where you don't speak the language.

Howie Associates London Branch Travel Tip Four was identified on the way to the eurostar station: make sure you double, triple check the station you know you want to go to with the station name on the train platform. We should have taken the orange line heading towards "Delacroix", but instead we managed to catch the yellow line to "Debroux". The human tendancy to look at the first and last letters of each word and assume the rest caused us to go six stations in the wrong direction before we realised where we were.

However, because of my obsessive-compulsive habit of taking an estimated time to do something and adding another 50% on top, we arrived in plenty of time at the eurostar station and had time for a quick cup of tea before checking in.
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Now I was determined this time to time how long it took to get through the chunnel, We got to Lille again and I knew it was only a short while to go..... and then I woke up inside the chunnel.... so I don't know how long it takes unfortunately. We'll see what happens when we go to France in June.

phew! finally finished the blog - it's only taken me 3 weeks... I think that after mum, dad, nathan, jill and sophie come over and our week long trip to france I'm going to have to take the rest of the year off to blog about it....

Final thoughts:

If you have to walk on cobblestones all day, take very good walking shoes or hiking boots. We had sore calves by the time we got back to London.

We thought that although it was a very short visit and it was pushing it budget wise, especially since we've got a week long trip to france in two months time, it was very much worth it. This was our first trip to europe and the 4th country that we've been in. But it was so much more, it gave us confidence, it made us feel like we could do anything and go anywhere. I guess that since everyone spoke english, or at least understood it, it was a "safe" couple of cities to travel to, but it was an important step for us, knowing that we can go to a place and find our way around.

It was interesting analysing our feelings coming back. on the train on the way home, I was really looking forward to everyone speaking my language without an accent again. I was really looking forward to "going home" if you like, I guess I was homesick. Then, when we got to London, everyone spoke with a thick English accent..... We weren't quite home yet...