It's a bit late, but some of the pictures are bloody awesome...
Anyway,Belgium. It has waffles drenched in banana, caramel sauce and cream. It has chips submerged in a bucket of mayonnaise. Audrey Hepburn was Belgian, but so is Jean-Claude Van Damme. It’s an odd place...
To begin, don't make the mistake of travelling on Eurostar when hung-over. This wasn’t helped by my “random” body search and having to unpack my bag for Customs, looking ashamed, with good reason, as they unloaded a copy of Nuts, and an nasty-looking candle-holder, a ‘gift’ for friends in Brussels.
They then proceeded to 'swab' my bag with what looked like those free clothes you get with a new pair of glasses. That was quite disturbing. But I was pushed onwards by the promise of gooey sugary waffley treats while staying for a few days in Brussels.
We successfully negotiated the check-in lounge, the train, and the metro. (Brussels’ petit version of the London Underground.)
And it was cold. The winds cut through you like anywhere in Yorkshire, and I was stupidly hoping for sunshine and temperatures above 6 oC.
It is easy to fall in hyperbole or cliché, but I don’t care. Brussels is an odd mix of other capital cities in Europe, and seems to cram Western Europe into one city. Not too shocking, as Brussels draws the influence of member countries of NATO’s European headquarters, alongside housing the EU commission.
Buildings and groups of flats are either huge or gigantic, while cathedrals and other landmarks pop up everywhere. The city is also peppered by huge cartoon vistas on the sides of buildings, some with Belgian comic legend, Tintin.
Sadly, there wasn’t enough time to visit the Comic Museum, my companions seemed beyond uninterested at the suggestion of walking around looking at cartoons and old comic books.
The breadth of what to do draws comparisons to London, and there were multiple concerts, exhibitions and museums, though the Lace museum was not likely to draw in the crowds.
When in Brussels, we drank, regularly, beer. With several breweries across the capital, though not many were open for tours, we were able to try several types of beer.
The favourites use ranged through the trip from the mainstream Hoegarden to the more obscurely flavoured raspberry cherry and strawberry beers, which even convinced the women in our party to abandon the house white. Good for them.
On the first night, we scraped our inebriated feet around the city in search of fireworks that were to take place in the capital centre. Except that there are multiple interpretations of this centre, resulting in a high-speed chase, past statues, serious-looking buildings and, oddly, a glass elevator.
You can imagine the road map looking like a scribble as we went over and under bridges, walking around and around in circles, and seeming never to walk down the same street twice.
The major tourist magnet is the Grand Place, and stone-floored square the size of a football pitch, still dwarfed in scale by the guild houses around its perimeter. Trailing pretty much one side of the square is the town hall, it can be seen from the surrounding streets for when you get lost, because you probably will. We ran right through here, but returned when time was less important.
For the nights out, Bar Crawl rue du Marché au Charbon houses most of the bars worth visiting, and cuts through the gay quarter of the centre.
Our first stop was MP3 Discobar, and with that name ,we simply had to go. It’s good advertising, as we arrived the bar was lit, via some lighter fluid and a metal gutter. The bar’s residents roared, and the music continued, ranging from obscure polish hits, to Nineties ‘classics‘. Exactly what we wanted from a night out on holiday. Nothing quite like a fire-lit bar to get your friends dancing like fools on said bar, so we stayed until the morning.
The bar backed out into a seedy dance floor with a confusing range of clientele, from girls perhaps just underage, to men certainly overage for the place. So, similar to anywhere else in the world.
Flexing my linguistic muscles, I attempted to shout the order to the barwomen, but beyond the music, it barely registers “Pardon?”
I repeat, and she replies with: “Four beers?”, I nod and resign myself to the role of Brit-on-tour.
Brussels is officially a bi-lingual area, meaning both French and Flemish are official languages. But you don’t learn Flemish that often in the British education system. We found that most people you need to communicate with will also have mastered English, so being a stupid Englishman didn’t complicate the trip at all.
With the metro system, there’s no need for car rental either, and if there is truly nothing to do, or at least you can’t agree on anything, the cinemas screen films English. The second day began with a well-deserved lie-in, and we then set off to…shop.
Brussels seems to be H&M central, housing three on one street, excessive to say the least. But attempting to eat out bought its own entertainment as one place advertised its ‘average’ EURO 3 menu . We didn’t stay to taste the meal’s mediocrity, but pushed towards what is known as the kebab street.
Yes, a street filled with kebab shops, which seems to have taken a semi-cuisine status here with many streets having kebab outlets where there would typically be a newsagents, I couldn’t stomach it due to bad experiences in the past of kebab meals, and settled for a hot-dog.
But still no waffles, the second day ended with still no satisfaction for my sweet tooth.
The last day of our stay focussed on The Royal Military Museum don’t know why we went there. I think the History students outweighed everyone else. So there we were.
As it was based on war, it held your interest for a while, but then, like any other war museum visited on MANDATORY school trips, it became all quite samey. It probably didn’t help to sulk because went to a war museum and not the comic one. No justice, but at least it wasn’t about lace.
But there was a good bit, and we were able to scale the dramatic arch which marks the entrance to the museum. Though spring fog was stuck to the ground, we were able to see around the whole city and, oddly for a capital, more people and trees than cars.
Though only staying around for a few days, there is plenty to do, and though it may not seem as risqué as the Eastern European destinations, there is the ability to do and see more, and an increased chance of talking with locals. Instead of the waffles promised, I settled for chocolate, another Belgian specialty, but it’s not the same, and I’ll be returning soon to demand my waffles.
