A day in Brussels

Friday 8th April
We left Addis not long after midnight local time, spending 15 minutes waiting on the runway at one point. It seemed to be rather disorganised.
One thing we noticed about the service on the airline, you don’t get any refresher towels, and the food wasn’t very good. Breakfast consisted of fruit, juice, a rather dry, small ‘muffin’ and a spam roll. The latter two were not terribly appetising!
We landed in Paris just before 7 just as the day was dawning, but had to stay on the plane as it was only a short stop. We reached Brussels 45 minutes after taking off then had a ‘long’ wait at the immigration counters – well, the Americans standing in line thought it was very long. It actually was only half an hour! It hardly took any time at all to clear immigration once we arrived at the desk, and we wandered down to the train station. It was rather hard to find the correct timetable for our train and part of one platform was closed down, so it was rather confusing. Our train actually departed from a different place to where it had been advertised, and it was only by asking a guard that we were able to catch the right one!
Once at Le Midi, I tried to find a Brussels map, but they only had a rather large and expensive one at the first place I went to. We ate some coffee and cakes before heading off to our hotel. It was easy to find with the map, but we couldn’t go straight to our room as we arrived some hours before check-in time. So we left our bags there and wandered off around the streets for a few hours. We found a nice bakers’ quite close to the hotel, selling yummy cheap food. However, he thought I was saying ‘goûte’ instead of ‘coûte’ when I was trying to find out how much something cost! We walked down the street till we found a small park to sit down in. It was a very poor area of the city, lots of rather tatty-looking buildings. There were lots of African and Middle-Eastern people and an interesting-looking Turkish-Moroccan market. We bought some really nice oranges quite cheaply at a fruit stall and carried on on our adventure. At this stage we went completely off my map!
We ended up beside a canal, and watched a long barge with six loads of gravel go past. On the stern stood a car and a small dinghy. We enjoyed watching the Pont des Hospices bridge being raised, then lowered again to let the traffic cross. The whole road was winched up on both sides.
Further on, we came to an imposing gateway with a statue of a bull on each side. Inside was a market, and on the roadside was a café. We bought some coffee then wandered around the stalls, which were starting to be packed up at only 2 pm. Mostly they sold clothes or fruit and vegetables. Some of the vendors tried to persuade us to buy!
Just past the market was a busy street with many shops, many selling hams, salamis etc. One was called the King of Ham (in French). Bruce decided to try a hotdog at one stall, but the man didn’t reheat the frankfurter and onions properly. It looked like it had been a while since he last had had a customer, which is what put me off having one too.
We were pleased to see a street name that looked familiar, we had passed the other end of it on our way to the canal. We managed to successfully find our way back onto the map again, and back to the hotel, where we were able to book in.
We went for another walk after a rest, to find somewhere to eat tea as we thought the hotel meal looked a bit pricey. We went past quite a few eateries but Bruce didn’t like the look of them. On the way back to the hotel, we passed one that had a picture in the window advertising fish and chips for about 7 Euros. That sounded pretty good to me, so we went inside. The young lady who greeted us seemed a bit taken aback when I asked for the menu, and spoke to a young man who came up. She pointed us to the tables and we were rather taken aback to see a hookah on each one. She asked whether we’d like to sit at one of these tables or in the back room. When she took us towards it, I thought it looked just like one of those opium dens you see in films – everything was red, and there were reclining curtained couches around the walls. Needless to say, we backed out pretty quickly! Then I saw the front of the blackboard that was standing in the street – on it was a picture of a hookah with a price. We’d seen one or two other places advertising them too, and at first I wasn’t too sure whether or not the picture was of a rather fancy coffee urn! Perhaps such things are legal in Belgium!
We ended up having dinner at a Turkish restaurant and that was quite an experience. We were the only non-Turkish people present and it was a very traditional-looking meal. It started with an entrée of what at first I thought were green chillies – but which turned out to be okra, and pide bread with two dips – one was very sour and salty, the other a hot chilli paste.
After a while, we were brought a huge platter each of food. Bruce had asked for a combination of meats, and I’d asked for lamb, which was very nice, rather like barbecued ribs. Both plates were heaped high with salty-sour foods, a refreshing cucumber salad, and more pide bread. We had a lovely mint tea to drink too. It cost a total of 20 Euros, which was pretty good compared to other places we’d seen, and we certainly were well-filled!

Second day with Eleanor

Tuesday June 23rd Another lovely fine day! First stop: Palais de Justice, what a massive building with interesting brick-filled pillars. Trapped - a young couple who’d parked too closely behind another car, someone else parked too closely behind them! They tried many manoeuvres to try to get out again, but had to give up! Unfortunately we couldn't push the front car forward either, so they left, good-naturedly, to do some more shopping, hoping that one of the other drivers would return before they got back.









The Musical Instrument Museum is a fascinating place with over 7,000 instruments from all over the world. There are some weird hybrids, e.g. a trombone with 7 bells, a harpsichord/monochord - which looked like someone had tried to jam a one-stringed cello into it, a piano/harp etc. There were some rather odd folk instruments too, like a violin having a covered fingerboard with large metal keys near the base. Videos showing how they are played would be good! Pictured: clavier d’archets, rectangular virginal, hexagonal piano.









On the way back to Grand-Place we passed through this lovely garden (above), before lunching on sandwiches and crispy Belgian waffles at a street table.
The Brussels City Museum contains art works & tapestries dating from the Middle Ages as well as various displays about the history of the city. My favourite: a mediaeval 3-D altar screen on ‘The Life of Christ and of the Virgin” - incredible delicacy of detail.

We took a photo of the city (left) from the top of the tallest car park building before walking to the Place de Palais. Eleanor rested in the gardens, while we visited the remains of the 12th century Coudenberg Palace, buried in 1700 under a market place! Seeing the collapsed ballroom floor (above) & hearing the traffic passing overhead was a bit nerve-wracking. The Rue d’Isabelle (left) used to be above ground, leading to the old market.
After meeting back up again, Bruce & I went to the Atomium (right), whilst Eleanor went to meet boyfriend Ben. We arrived back at St Catherine’s (left) much later than planned: the metro took longer to get to the Atomium than anticipated, we had further to walk due to road works, then to return we left from a different metro station which happened to be further away than it looked on the map + a vital road sign was missing! We also waited 20 minutes to get a train, missed the 1st as it had a different number/route on the front, but found out later it would have done!
We ate traditional Belgian cuisine together, nice but a bit dear + small portions. It was interesting hearing how Eleanor & Ben first met, & that she’s staying with his parents, & the cats she house-sat recently are his sister’s!
A mystery accident near our table: a policeman arrived accompanied by sirens to interview a motorcyclist partly obscured by pavement hoardings. An ambulance arrived
next & took someone away on a stretcher - but we didn't see what had happened.
Before saying our goodbyes at the metro, we went for a little walk in the dusk to visit a famous shopping street – oh dear, rubbish day tomorrow! Someone was a bit camera-shy!

Brussels with Eleanor

Monday 22nd June Nice breakfast of yoghurt, croissants, bread rolls, juice and strong coffee. The waitresses were kept busy pouring coffee, clearing and resetting tables. All the guests except us were French-speaking Africans so we felt quite at home!
As Eleanor had still not turned up 20 minutes after the arranged time to meet, I went downstairs to try to phone her and was successful on the second attempt. She was having problems owing to a faulty Google map, and no-one seemed to know where the hotel was. However, our helpful hotel receptionist soon gave her the right directions, and she arrived very quickly, she’d only been a short distance away! I was touched that they didn’t charge me for the phone calls
After spending some time discussing where to go, we set off for the Cathedral on the metro. It's a great public transport system, a day ticket takes you everywhere within the city. Unfortunately our camera’s batteries went flat, and Eleanor’s were too!

We enjoyed looking at the Bourse and Grand-Place – fantastic buildings, some decorated with gilt. There were some lovely paintings on sale in the square, as well as plants in pots. After buying museum and transport passes, we walked to the palace through some interesting gardens.
We were quite amused by the guards’ slow march, each arm being raised up to horizontal at each step. What a boring job!
The yummy chocolates + beautiful lace in the shop windows were very tempting, but we resisted very well. We only came across the Manneken Pis by accident, nearly missed it as it’s so SMALL, but I really don't understand why everyone raves over it so much, I think it’s rather rude!
We ate some spicey Turkish kebabs for lunch, before returning to the hotel for a rest, our feet were sore after all the cobbles, which are laid in scalloped patterns.
There didn't seem to be a good restaurant near our hotel, it's in rather a grotty neighbourhood, so we returned to town, ending up in a Thai restaurant near St Catherine’s and the Bourse. The food was beautifully served; Bruce had an orchid on his plate + my beef curry was served in a clay pot kept warm over a candle in a bowl.
An amusing incident – a police car stopped in a side-street, a second joined it, blocking the entrance – 2 other motorists tried to enter the street, blocking the main road as they couldn’t get past the police cars! Traffic started building up in the main road, people started honking their horns! Eventually one of the police cars was moved, restoring everything to order!