Brussels

The second city that I saw in Belgium is Brussels, home of the European Union and of many of its institutions, land that hosts the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (OTAN) and place that is considered the capital of the country. So the expectations were high, having read so much about the international importance of Brussels, I was very eager to see what all the fuss was about. Compared to Liege, the city was cleaner and more green, if I may say so. In the sense that you could see more parks and more green spaces. I arrived at the train station called “Brussel Centraal” – Central Brussels and from here my journey began.

As you get off the train and step out, you are exiting just in front of the train station, from there you will see a kind of cement arch. Go through it and tananana…life, agitation, people, selling stands with whatever you need and do not need, shops, restaurants at affordable prices, laughter and songs. During my stay in Brussels I had the opportunity to arrive exactly in the middle of a festival (it seems I have a talent at getting in a place at the right time). A festival dedicated to handicraftsmen, at their selling tables you could see necklaces, rings, bracelets, tapestry made from thread of all colors, paintings and even sculptures.

This market for selling manual work was situated just behind the arch that I told you about earlier. After exiting the arch, you just had to walk down hill and you were there. Positioned face to face with the market was / is a restaurant named “La Gouffre de Brussel” (I think), there is a big sign, so you find it without problems. Here you can actually ate without paying a lot, as I mentioned in my earlier posts life in Belgium is quite expensive. A portion of the famous French fries is three euros, a tea three-five euros and the prices go up according to the diversity of your order, but if you keep it short and still delicious, you can eat well for only 10-15 euros.

After you are done eating and you feel well, it is time to lose those carbohydrates and fat while you are walking up-hill, this time, as you are heading to the “Grand Place” or “Grote Markt”. Why does it have two names, that both mean “Big square”? Well, the answer, as you can imagine is related to the fact that in Brussels they speak both French and a kind of Dutch. The French language is the most utilized, but at the train station or in the bus stop you will hear everything translated in German, Dutch and French.

This enormous square is surrounded by normal, ordinary houses, by another great monument of architecture, The Royal House (Maison du Roi) and last, but definitely not least, the City Hall. So if you get here, you can see three amazing places at once, since they go hand in hand, marvelously positioned. The importance of the square is essential in understanding how the old city grew from nothing, from dust to the admired place that it is today. In the beginning, it was used for trading purposes, people sold their merchandise and made business with other people. The market is considered the point of economical growth, the sparkle that made the entire city evolve, but what made this place famous and what gave it power was the influence of the City Hall.

Build in between 1401-1455, the City Hall transformed “Grand Place”, defined its limits and decided to use it only as public space. With the passing of the time, the square went through many architectural changes. Today it is still a place that inspires “Respect” (there is an inscription made from cement and painted in white that says Respect, it is situated at the beginning of the square) and that catches your eyes with its beauty.

There is a special event that takes place here - Carpet of flowers. Every two years, in August, there is an never ending "flower carpet" in the Market Square. Then more than a million begonias, in various forms and colors are spread all over the surface of the market. A gigantic sea of natural poetry, just at your feet… This place is part of UNESCO heritage and it is protected by its laws.

As you go up and further in the city you will reach the “Museum of Musical Instruments”. It holds one of the biggest collection of musical instruments of the world and from what I have learned there it has in its possession more than 1200 pieces of music history collected during the centuries. It is opened for public all week (in the weekends between 10. 00 – 17. 00).

In front of the museum there is a big cathedral with an wonderful architecture and a statue dedicated to King Leopold. In fact, in Brussels there are many statues representing the figure of the former king and of his followers, that carried the same name. The King Leopold had a big role in transforming the city and for that and many other contributions his importance was acknowledged through various monuments placed in different areas of the city.

If you reach Brussels you can’t leave before you see the center. Astonishing palaces that hold between their walls the secrets of queens and kings. All of these great places are situated one next to another and from what my friend (this time, I am talking about my friend, Roxana that is studying Journalism in Brussels) told me that the royal family still comes here for the major celebrations and that the inner and common square of the palaces is used for organizing social events. The architecture and the colors the were utilized are impressive. The atmosphere is magic, the way that the moon comes down over the rooftops of the buildings takes your breath, it’s like the moon can play hide and seek, being able to hide behind the tall walls.

No honorable traveler can leave Brussels without seeing the “Pissing Boy”. What is this?

The legend says, that, a long, long time ago a child saved Brussels from imminent destruction. In the 17thcentury the Dutch wanted to burn down the town, so they put dynamite at the main walls, lit the fuse and waited for the “beautiful sound - bang” of the explosion. But, what they did not expect was that a small boy who got lost outside the city walls, made piss on the fuse and killed the fire. The monument dedicated to his “heroic act” show a tiny, smiling boy, actually making piss, but instead of the physical liquid there is water.

One more thing to see and you are almost done. Of course, I am talking about the European Parliament. This was a place that I wanted to see since I have been hearing a lot about it on TV. It is renowned for the fact that it is one of the three capitals of the UE and it hosts permanently important meetings among UE members, thus making Brussels a city of diplomacy.

The inner garden of the “Parlamentarium” is big and beautiful, especially at night when all the lights are on. In the back, I mean as you walk through the inner pavement you will reach the area of the flags. All the UE country flags are presented and exposed. I took more than one picture alongside my birth flag, my dear Romanian one.

After all this site seeing, one gets quite thirsty. There is no better place to cool down than the bar of “500 beers”. Brussels entered in the Record Book of all times for being the place that has and serves more the 500 different types of beer. A heaven for all the needy. Have fun!

(Pictures made by my dear friend, Giorgiana Astefanei)

It was not my first time in Brussels because I have already been there when I was at high school with my dance class. It was a big experience at that time but I did not see the city much. Although getting to Brussels from Lille is quite easy. Moreover, almost every time when we travelled we took a plane from Brussels Charleroi. In my opinion they should not call it Brussels airport since it is halfway to Brussels and halfway to Lille. If you travel by train it takes less than one hour but it is not far with a car or bus either. I remember that the closest Belgium border is just about 30 minutes driving from Lille. We were planning on meeting with David for a long time because I realized that I was coming from my Prague trip to Brussels Charleroi. Therefore, it was the perfect opportunity to visit this city and we decided to do it together.

I took a blablacar to get to Brussels city centre. It was one of the best rides with a blablacar because in the end I was sitting in the front seat and we were speaking in French. Actually it was not probably good timing for visiting Brussels because the week before this trip there were terrorist attacks. The atmosphere was gloomy and I did not feel comfortable when we took a metro. It can be also the reason why I did not like the city much.

We met at the station with David. Before the trip I found a host from couchsurfing for the both of us. After an amazing experience with couchsurfing in Dublin I was looking forward to it again. Our host had a funny name - Guy and on the website he had a lot of references. I sent him a message that we were going to come around 8 pm so we had two more hours to explore the city. We went for a coffee and we had enough time. Guy lived close to Atomium but he offered picking us up at 8 pm there.

We wanted to take a metro but after few minutes, we found out that the metro was not working after 7 pm. “Let´s take a bus instead”, I thought. Unfortunately, the transport was not working well at that time so instead of 30 minutes, the journey took us one hour and half. I did not have proper internet connection so I just tried quickly to write Guy that we would come later. I had no idea it could make him angry. Finally, we managed to meet at the Atomium but we were two hours late. When we found him he looked totally annoyed. He just said something that we were supposed to arrive earlier and he was waiting for us. I just tried to explain him that it was not really our fault but he insisted on his opinion. That´s why it was kind of weird in the car.

When we arrived I was amazed. His apartment was awesome! It was really big, with terrace and a nice view to the small castle. We even had our own room and everything was really nice. Guy prepared for us amazing dinner. We had spaghetti with Bolognese sauce and cheese. Before he cooked we had offered to him to buy the food and wine for the dinner but he just said he had already bought it. Anyway, we brought him at least the bottle of wine. When we saw his big collection of wine we felt ashamed. Obviously, he did not have problem with money. After the dinner we were watching TV but he was not really talkative. Afterwards, he just announced us "I am going to the shop" at 11 pm.

I did a double-take. Is it normal to go to the shop at 11 pm? It was super weird. Guy looked really angry but, on the other hand, he prepared a delicious dinner for us. I thought that he wanted to talk to us more but when we are sitting on the sofa he answered in short sentences. When he left we started to make jokes that he would kill us or kidnap us and I did not feel comfortable at all. I felt relieved when he came back to the apartment. I asked him some few questions and I found out he has travelled a lot. He said he had already visited Thailand 80 times. I did not believe it but he had a lot of presents from this country. Apparently he visited it many times. He made me want to visit this country even more than before. He was also telling us stories about guests staying at his place. Once two people started to have a relationship at his place and they had a child later (thanks to him). According to his profile he has already hosted more than 150 people. I still did not know what to think about him. We got tired so we just went to bed.

Our plan for the next morning was to take a free walking tour. We had again a nice breakfast from Guy with a warm baguette. Unfortunately, we were not able to be on time for the tour. The transportation was terrible even though it was already morning. I was so disappointed but we found a quick solution. We went to the café to have typical Belgium waffles. In Brugge, I already had the biggest one from Brussels so I decided to have a small one from Liege. Guy already warned us not to have the one with whipped cream, fruits and chocolate. I could even say that he looked furious about the fact that some people eat it like that (he prefers the plain one). Therefore, we decided to have the waffle with everything. It was so delicious that I cannot even decide which waffle was better.

We went for the second tour starting at 2 pm but we could not finish it because we were supposed to meet Guy. He mentioned he would like to show us the city. I really liked the first tour because we got to know a lot of interesting stories about Brussels. In addition, the tour guide told us something related to the attacks and we saw the main place with flowers. It was so emotional.

When we met Guy he was still in the same mood. He did not talk much and he decided to show us the rest of the city. He was walking so fast. We still did not know what to expect. Actually thanks to him we saw nicer parts of the city. He also had a waffle, of course the plain one.

Finally we headed to Delirium– the most famous pub in Brussels because of its huge selection of beers. At least we wanted to invite him for a beer. When we were in the pub I was really shocked. We got a whole book instead of menu with many many many beers.

I chose the strong one with cherry flavour. We did not have much time because we had to take a blablacar to Lille again. We drunk it fast and Guy took us to the prearranged place. We felt a little bit drunk just after one beer because it was really strong. We suspected Guy to be drunk as well because for the first time he was smiling and he was telling us a lot of stories. I was just afraid a little bit because he decided to drive with no worries. Everything went well and he dropped us off in front of some hotel.

We were waiting for the blabla car for few minutes and we went to Lille. In the car we met a nice girl travelling to Lille as well. It was funny because the day after we met her again in Lille (it is really a small city). I think our trip was funny. I still have no idea what to think about our host. I gave him a good reference of course because he helped us with everything, we had a nice accommodation with delicious dinner and he showed us the city. The thing is that he did not look like he enjoyed it with us at all. He is either not so talkative or maybe he just did not like us. We had a lot of fun in Brussels. I just did not find the city so special. The day after we had my favourite food. For lunch we had Welsh with David and for the dinner - Raclette – perfect combination. We also managed to visit ZOO, which was the first time for me.