Day Trip to Brussels

We're staying three and a half days and four nights in Brugge, but we wanted to make sure we got a quick day trip in to Brussels just so we could see the Grand Place, which is their famous town square. So today was the day trip by train. It only took about an hour each way, and riding the train is always fun because you get to see the beautiful countryside and relax in comfy seats!

We arrived in Brussels around 10:30 AM and immediately walked from the train station down to the Grand Place, and grand it is! It's a beautiful square surrounded by intricately decorated buildings, shops, and restaurants. (In Belguim the squares are called markts, in France they're places, in Italy they're piazzas, in Germany they're platzes, and in the U.S. they're usually referred to as plazas.)

 

All of the following quoted info comes from http://www.brussels.info/grand-place/. "The Grand Place or Grote Markt in Dutch is one of the most beautiful squares in Europe with architecture from three different eras (Baroque, Gothic and Louis XIV) making their marks on the square and giving it an eclectic flavour. This eclectic quality earned the Grand Place a listing as one of the Sites of World Heritage by UNESCO in 1998."

"Historically, the Bruxelles Grand Place was essentially a market place where traders and citizens sold and bought food. Therefore you will notice that all the streets surrounding the square are named after foods like chicken (poulet), herbs (herbes), cheese (fromage) and so forth. Nowadays you will see grand old buildings standing in the place of market shelters. The Maison du Roi, in French means King’s House but the lesser used name of Broodhuis in Dutch, means Bread House. Most of the buildings were rebuilt or restored after the bombardment of Brussels by France in 1695."

The Grand Place is always packed with people, and it was today as well. There were lots of tourists and school groups wandering around and stopping in the middle of the street to take pictures. :-) "Overlooking them is the glowing Gothic tower of the Town Hall (Hotel de Ville) which one may mistake for a church or a castle. It acts as a great landmark because you can see the tower from most corners of the city."

 

We had a nice enough lunch at one of the restaurants there on the square. We knew ahead of time that all the restaurants would be touristy and a little pricey, but we chose to eat there so we could watch all the people and just soak up the beauty of the large, open space. It was definitely worth the little bit of extra cost. Tammy had a Caesar salad with real anchovy fillets mixed in with the lettuce. (They were waaaaay too fishy tasting for me. I was so glad I didn't order that!) And I had a gratin of goat cheese salad. This was similar to one I had in Poperinge a few days ago, where the goat cheese had a drizzle of honey and was broiled for just a few seconds to melt the top. Then it's placed on a bed of bitter frisée lettuce with a tangy mustard vinaigrette and a few walnut pieces! It was really tasty!

After we enjoyed the ambiance of the square for an hour or so, we headed away from tourist central to explore some of the other streets nearby. Unfortun-ately, Brussels is not nearly as clean and beautiful as Brugge. The streets were cluttered with litter, bags of trash waiting to be picked up, and there was a lot of graffiti on the walls of buildings. I was a little surprised after the cleanliness of Brugge. In fact Brussels reminded me a lot of Prague, which we visited three years ago. Both cities are absolutely beautiful with so much history, but you have to work hard to find the beauty under the layers of grime and graffiti. You have to overlook the flaws on the exterior. :-)

So even though we had a fun time wandering the city, I don't have a lot of beautiful pictures to show you like I did of Brugge. But it was totally worth the train trip, and I'm glad we took the time to check it off our list!

 

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