Belgium: Brussels

Our third day in Belgium was dedicated to Brussels.

We walked less than ten minutes to the train station, got our tickets and hopped on a quick train to the capital. It took us maybe 45 minutes to get there—comfortable clean seats and for only 16 euro roundtrip for all five of us. Sure beats driving.  It takes us about 45-60 min to get to London by train, but the cheapest tickets roundtrip are usually $50 for all of us—yes, England is expensive.

With population over one million, Brussels is not one of the biggest capitals in Europe. It is, however, the capital of the EU. I have read somewhere that over 25% of people residing in Brussels are foreigners, whose jobs brought them to the city. In fact, people say it’s much cheaper to stay here on weekends rather than during the week because all those international working people who come here for conventions and meetings usually go back home for the weekend.

It turns out that the name of this city is pronounced more correctly in Ukrainian than in English. That “u” in Brussels is pronounced more like “u” in a word “mute” and not “umbrella”. Probably too hard to understand what I am trying to say…anyway...

We got to Brussels shortly after 10:30 am. When planning this day’s itinerary, I tried to make sure it was not a stressful one, since I really just wanted to enjoy walking around in Brussels. After reading all about different museums and sights I knew that Brussels does not have nearly as much to offer as some other huge capitals in Europe (like London, Paris or Rome).  So I wanted us to do something that we cannot find in other places. Therefore, our first stop was Musical Instruments Museum (MIM). Everyone in our family loves music, so we had to do it!

The building itself is a beautiful building, an Old England department store.

Upon entrance, we were given headphones and a unique audio guide. I say unique because it had no narration on it! The way it worked was that as you walk around different rooms and see different musical instruments, the guide recognizes your location and plays a sample melody of the instruments which are on display near you. The museum has over 8000 instruments so, of course, the audio guide couldn’t give us a sample of each one of them, but it still gave us a pretty good idea of what was what. Kids, especially the older ones, enjoyed the museum very much— who doesn’t like walking around listening to music and reading a few signs in English? yes, I know I am not talking about regular modern music but about “boring” classical music.That’s what our kids listen to half of the time in the car, so they are used to it. 

And here is a tame picture of Katya.

Here is Alex listening to the instrument sample. He loved bagpipes, but I am not sure what happened to the picture with him and the bagpipes…

Chinese instruments.

Katya and a Ukrainian bandura, our national musical instrument.

Mark chose this Korean display as his favorite.

These were really cool serpent instruments.

Lots of varieties of pianos!

After MIM everyone was cold—we couldn’t bring our jackets into the rooms with instruments and they had to keep the temperature at a low level since so many instruments are so old. Kids found a fountain between the museum and the Grand Place and were willing to spend at least an hour there. But we had to keep going…

A view of the city from the hill on the way to the Grand Place. That orange crane looking thing is a device that lifts the whole “dinner table” up in the air, so you can dine in the sky. I think it’s a bit unsightly, but I am sure you get a beautiful view if you are actually dining in the sky:).

Where are our children?

Grand Place is actually a square surrounded by the city’s Town Hall, guildhalls, and the Breadhouse. It was maybe a 10-15 minute walk for us, but we did not go to the square first, we wanted to walk around the area that had many restaurants and shops to offer. 

What we came here for was MUSSELS! Our kids love mussels…except somehow Katya decided she doesn’t like them any more and ordered a boring bowl of spaghetti (who goes to Brussels to eat spaghetti??). The place where we ate is a famous “mussels factory”—Leon de Brussels. They serve hundreds of people each day, their restaurant has three floors, their food comes fast AND children under 12 eat free!!!

“Niammm…my mom let me have a fanta….”. Look at that pot of mussel shells!

After we finished our yummy lunches, we walked over to Leonida’s a REAL Belgian chocolate shop. Leonida’s chocolate is for the local budget-conscious chocolate lovers. Is it lower quality that the more expensive brand? Who knows! I didn’t care-it tasted divine to me! And it was Belgian, so that’s all that matters. 

I let the kids pick their own chocolates to fill up their box or bag. They could not believe it!

Finally, we got to the Grand Place square (it might have taken us so long because we were eating chocolates).

The square is an old market place, surrounded by these beautiful buildings.

From there, we walked to the symbol of Brussels, Mannekin Pis.

Where is it? Can you see it?

Yes, it is tiny, only 61 cm in height. The statue is dressed in costume several times each week, according to a published schedule which is posted on the railings around the fountain.

The area right next to the statue is very crowded. That’s were we found our Belgian waffles loaded with sugar, as if we needed any more sugar after eating chocolates. I have to say that the waffles were DELICIOUS! But…they were also way too sweet! I cannot believe I am saying this since I love sweets, but I couldn’t even finish mine. Kids had a hard time with theirs too mostly because they added whipped cream to already sweet waffles. We still loved them and wish I had one today…yum…

Okay, so it was late in the afternoon when we headed to the other side of town—the place where the Atomium and Mini-Europe is situated. What we didn’t realize is how long it would take us to get there. Although we knew exactly where to go, and had only one metro transfer, it still took us nearly 45 minutes to get there.

The famous Atomium is a huge tourist attraction, located right next to Mini-Europe-a park with miniature replicas of European buildings. 

We knew that Mini-Europe park closed at 6 pm, so we ran there first….but we were too late. At 5 pm the entrance closed(it was 5:05 when we got there)….I was very sad because this was our last chance ever to see Mini-Europe in Brussels. From what I understand, it’s closing this summer and will move somewhere else (maybe to Engand??hmmm).

We ran to the Atomium as we had to get in line before 5:30 pm. And the line was long….sheesh…people, why does everyone want to go up that massive Atomium? It took us over 30 minutes to get into the elevator, then maybe 5 seconds to ride it…Is that fair?:)

Atomium was constructed in 1958 for the World Fair. It is 102 m tall and makes a shape of a unit cell of an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times. Basically, this is Brussel’s Eiffel Tower, so to speak.

We walked around on top of the structure,

looked down at the Mini-Europe park that looked really mini from up high, 

sighed a couple of times,

 

walked around some more and made our way downstairs.

Kids had ten minutes to climb the letters on “Welcome”.

Yes, you are allowed to laugh at us. We have not mastered the art of jumping picture yet.

And we headed back to the Grand Place area since that’s where Brussels Central train station is and we had to get on a train. It’s so nice to have long warm days to travel! It was after 7 in the evening and still bright and sunny.

We were hoping to go to Pistolei, this restaurant recommended by Rick Steve’s, but it closed just minutes before we got there. So we went next door.  Big mistake…we had the nastiest food we’ve had in a long time…nasty weird sandwiches and fries…Even Katya and Alex hated it.

 

Lesson learned to NEVER pick a place that is next to the recommended by a guide book place.

And that’s how our great day in Brussels ended (that was after Mark’s tantrum in the middle of the street crying “I am hungry!”).

I know there is much more in Brussels to see, but from what we did see I can say that chocolate and waffles were the best part-haha.

Bye for now! We’ve got one more post about Belgium coming, so come back soon.

Lyana.