Brussels the Land of Chocolate, Beer and Comic Heroes!

Brussels is a city that holds some wonderful memories for me. I had already visited it twice before. The first time was in the summer of 1990. The weather was gorgeous and I enjoyed the history and culture at my leisure. The second time I visited was in May 2011, for a family trip over a long bank holiday. It was slightly chillier with a sharp wind, but I remember it was still perfectly comfortable to walk around in jeans, jumper and a coat. It was marvellous.

This time it was somewhat different: we went for a romantic escapade at the end of August, from Thursday to Sunday.

The first day we just enjoyed a long walk through the old town, where many of the significant monuments and attractions are located: the Grand-Place, the immodest statue Manneken Pis, the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert and went shopping in Ixelles to buy a couple of things from an African store.

The next day, our tour started with the Atomium. My companion had never been there, so we spent the whole morning in the area. In the afternoon our first port of call was the Muséee Magritte, which displays works of the greatest surrealist Belgian artist after whom it is named. It is located on the Place Royale. After, we strolled to the Palais Royal de Bruxelles and walked through the Parc de Bruxelles where we admired the beautiful statues, the fountain and its stunning water jet.

On Saturday morning, we went on our own to explore the Brussels Comic Strip Walk. We both adored that area of Sainte-Catherine and stopped for my favourite beer, Leffe. We enjoyed the place so much that we returned there that same evening after dinner.

The afternoon was spent basically in the lovely area of Sablon, a place with various restaurants, shops, chocolatiers and an antiques market.

On Sunday morning we went for just one last walk and got my favourite biscuits from La Cure Gourmande: delicious butter biscuits with different flavoured fillings. If you buy more than 500g the vintage metal box, ideal to keep the biscuits, comes for free.

In the afternoon we headed to get pampered in a splendid spa (will tell you more about this in a future post).

Of course there are many more interesting things to see but we decided to skip them through lack of time and to privilege quality over quantity.

Why visit the capital of Europe? Because it is the kingdom of sweets and delights: waffles, fries, Pierre Marcolini and Godiva chocolates, light and dark beers, mussels! The kindness of the Belgians with their accent makes you literally melt…une fois!!!