Jamie and I spent the afternoon in the botanical gardens in the North of Brussels waiting for Chrissy, who had gone to her father's birthplace Morlanwelz, for the day. Cut through the entire city of Brussels en Route to the South train-station from our hostel (apparently Van Gogh's old studio), which was also in the North. Completely missed any of the tourist areas, or anything lively at all really...the North is all fancy telecom buildings and hotels, while the South is kind of crumbling, lots of immigrants, and interesting juxtapositions like a skate-park right outside a church. At night we tried to find what was labeled as the 'hip' area (always be wary of that word!) but found only a two-block concentration of strange Asian restaurants (Shamrocks: a Smart Indian Restaurant), some pubs, and a few nice heated terasses. Had a few beers before trekking back up to our hostel...where someone had stolen my already-made bed.
While Brussels (and Brugge as well) is situated in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium (the Flemish region), we got by with French which almost everyone seemed to speak. We did notice that, in contrary to the Netherlands, noone really seemed to speak English.
Brugge/Bruges (pronounced Bruche, Broogs, Bruje.....): old, quaint, chocolate, beer, tourists, umbrellas, canals, snacks.
Beautiful town, if a tad touristy. Unfortunately it rained quite constantly. Our hostel was a mighty cozy little place with a nice variety of games including Stratego, a favourite of Chrissy and mine, which we indulged in after a hot shower (where you had to continuously pull a handle for a flow of water). Visited the chocolate museum, an unremarkable journey through the history and production of chocolate (with some free samples), and dined at the local burger joint "Pickles", where the employee was kind enough to let us drink the cherry beer we had bought earlier. Went out a bit later for some mulled wine and cherry pie.
Michelangelo's Madonna with Child
This is the chocolate one
This is the real one
2 comments:
My first day I ever spent in Europe was in Brussels. There's a venue adjacent to the botanical gardens that my old band played at. The people who worked there were awesome. Plenty of drinks and one of the best meals of my life.
I got to sample some of the Brussels night life after our show. We went to a Cuban bar with a little band who played in the corner of the room. Weird drinking mojitos in a bar in Belgium. Also Duvel is one my favorite beers.
yeah....they seemed to have shows in the actual garden but we didn't quite understand....there was a bar in the greenhouse, is that what you mean? I think there were two actually...
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