Brussels, Belgium

Next stop on our weekend tour of Belgium… Brussels! From Bruges to Brussels it was a complete 180. As stated in the Brussels tour map that we had: “Brussels is ugly, but we love it!” Again, we immediately went to our hostel, which was about 10 minutes outside of the main city center by Metro.

The Art Museum Square

I decided to go to the René Magritte Art Museum with about half of our group. It was located in a square with many other museums. I had never heard of the artist before, but he has done many famous paintings including “The Treachery of Images”, “The Son of Man” and countless others. I knew about “The Treachery of Images” from a book that I read this summer where the main character was wearing a shirt that said ‘Ceci n’est pas une pipe’ or ‘This is not a pipe’. I have never been one for many different art museums… I’m usually not artsy enough for that sort of thing haha. However, I found his artwork very interesting. Everything seemed to have some sort of hidden meaning. All of the paintings were expertly done and of such ordinary images made confusing and interesting. It really enjoyed it.

Another square with the parade in the background

Next stop… more Belgian waffles with an excellent view of a parade that was going on. Unknowingly, we decided to travel to Belgium during “Belgian Beer Weekend”. This meant that there were tons and tons of people there. It was quite overwhelming being in so many crowds. I kept clutching my purse since GTL told us that crime was on the rise in Brussels.

From here, we decided to walk into the Grand Place, or the main square in Brussels. It was so beautiful and overwhelming. Unfortunately, we couldn’t fully see the beauty of all of it. There were hundreds of tents set up in the middle for the Belgian Beer Weekend. Every tent was selling all different types of Belgian beers.

Next, we went to the Cathedral to meet up with the rest of our friends who had decided to go to the Atomium instead of the museum. This place was massive!!! It was also really cool to go inside because there was an actual service going on.

The Cathedral in Brussels

View from the inside

Finally, we went to the Manneken Pis, or Peeing Boy statue. It was much less impressive than I thought it would be. I had originally thought it was going to be some massive statue of a boy peeing. However, it turned out to be really tiny. There were so many tourists crowding around it trying to get a picture or a selfie with it. I decided to just take my picture and walk away. Like I said previously, all of the crowds were scaring me.

Manneken Pis

Dinner time!!! My friend and I ordered Moules Frites, aka Mussels in Brussels that also come with fries!!!! It was delicious but not nearly filling enough so we split that and a Croque Monsieur, aka grilled ham and cheese. We also got some Belgian Hot Chocolate for dessert. It was so yummy. I felt so European sitting outside eating my dinner. Although, I felt like a cheap American when I got charged 2,50€ for a tiny bottle of water… oh well!

Mussels in Brussels!!

Last but certainly not least, my friends and I went to Delirium Village! This place is one of the most popular bars in Europe, if not the world. They have set a world record for the largest number of beers sold: over 2,000!! I only ended up trying two of them but they were quite good. The atmosphere of the whole place is really cool. It’s situated in a dead-end ally with multiple different bars owned by Delirium on both sides of the street. There was a 3 story beer bar, a tequila bar, a vodka bar and a rum bar. It was super fun and a great atmosphere! There were so many different people there from so many different cultures.

Delirium Village!

Successful first weekend trip in the books!!

Bruges, Belgium

First weekend trip using my Eurail pass!! For anyone who doesn’t know, the Eurail pass is a 3 month train pass that I have to use on 26 different countries in Europe. Essentially, I get to travel unlimited on non-reservation trains throughout Europe! These passes are so awesome because everyone at GTL travels almost every weekend to cities and countries all over Europe, especially because we have no classes on Fridays. My first stop was Belgium: land of waffles, chocolate, fries and beer. We stayed in Bruges on Friday night and then Brussels on Saturday night.

The train rides were about 4-5 hours total, so definitely not too bad. Our first stop in Bruges was the first hostel that I would ever stay at!! We had a little trouble finding it and ended up having to ask some other travelers where it was, but thankfully they spoke English. I took a couple different pictures of the place. It was really cool and had this old-time aura, like most of Bruges.

St. Christopher’s Hostel in Bruges

My friend Carolyn in our beds!

The other beds in our room, also with GTL people

Oyya Belgian Waffles!

Next, we attempted to go on a walking tour of Belgium, but were just too hungry after still not eating since 7 am when we got on the train. We ended up awkwardly ditching the walking tour for more important things… like Belgian waffles!!!! Wow. Those things are heavenly. The Belgian waffles in America just don’t even come close to comparing. We quickly realized that it was because the Belgians use magical dough with sugar chunks to cook their waffles instead of a batter like many Americans do. I really don’t think I can ever have another “Belgian waffle” in America ever again.

After the Belgian waffles, we walked around the city of Bruges for a while. It feels like a completely different decade. Everything looks very Medieval and there are horse-drawn carriages everywhere!

Main Square in Bruges

A cathedral… probably?

We decided to take a 30-minute canal tour of Bruges. Bruges used to be a port city and there are multiple canals running throughout the entire city. It was all very beautiful and we got to see many monuments. Unfortunately, we were sitting near the back of the boat right next to the motor. With both the food coma from Belgian waffles and the lulling of the motor, a bunch of us kept almost falling asleep. It didn’t help that our tour guide kept switching off between English and Dutch. It was still really cool though!

Before we started to fall asleep 🙂

Canal tour!

CHOCOLATE ❤

Then we walked around and did some shopping… obviously for chocolate. There were so many chocolatiers everywhere! We went into almost every single one one of the streets connecting the two main squares. It was great because almost every one gave us free samples. I didn’t even have to buy any chocolates to have the deliciousness that is Belgian chocolate. Of course, I obviously couldn’t resist the temptation and ended up buying some for myself. They were soooo yummy!

After dessert as our appetizers, we decided to get some real dinner of… French Fries! French Fries really shouldn’t be called French Fries because they actually originated in Belgium. There are French Fry stands everywhere, except they call them “Frites”. I had Frites and sausage for dinner. It was quite delicious!

The Belfry tower!!

Finally, we went back to our hostel (and back to Wifi ;)) after a long day of traveling and exploring! I was so exhausted that I just passed out. Unfortunately, there was a bar on the main floor of the hostel so people were super loud and noisy until the wee hours of the morning. It also didn’t help that we were on the top floor and had to leave our window open at night because it was so hot. It didn’t really bother me though because I was so tired. However, I know some of my friends had trouble sleeping because of screaming and loud music.

On Saturday morning, we got up early to hike up to the top of the Belfy clock tower! All 366 spiral staircase steps of it!!! That was definitely my workout for the day, as if walking around wasn’t enough. This tower has many different bells to regulate the lives of the people back in the day. From the top, we were able to have an amazing view of the entire city of Bruges. It was so beautiful and well worth the trek.

After that, we headed to the train station and off on our way to Brussels!! I did stop for a Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte. Hehe, I figured it was going to be the only Starbucks that I would see during the season.

The view from up above!

Another view!