Day 3 ~ A Deep Breath

We’d had adventure already, particularly the kind that forces you to reevaluate on the fly, turn broken eggs into a cake, swallow disappointments, and soldier on sleeplessly. But it was here. We were finally here. Our first stop, Brussels.

We didn’t have a super-strong vision of Brussels and what we’d want to do there. When we thought we’d have 3 days, we’d idly considered the Comic Art Museum and a loop around the palace and stuff, but we both had a picture in our heads of a fairly paved-over, all-practical city of cars and office workers where we’d sleep off jet lag and not worry too much about seeing the sights. We were exhausted, still jet-lagged, behind on things that were important to us (getting a cell phone for D, working on this blog, sleep, etc), and decided we would write off Brussels catching up on the above, and start our vacation in earnest in a couple of days, when we relocated to Bruges.

Brussels would have none of that. We were about to find a city lush with human-scale joys and diversions, a wonderful combination of old and new that made our (unexpectedly) short time there full of charm. After sleeping until noon, we set out on a simple excursion to find food and a SIM card. Hours later, we were in love with Brussels.

Our hotel was what I imagined hotel rooms in Europe would be like – elegant, but very small, in a fairly noisy urban area.

We started walking, and within a couple of blocks, we were greeted with sidewalk cafes and twisty streets. Nearly all streets were closed to cars, and the few places they were allowed, the poor cars sat glumly by as pedestrians confidently owned every intersection. We were intrigued and enchanted. Then, we took a few more steps and popped out of a narrow alley into the magnificent, gilded Grand Place, with its spire-topped Guild Hall, gothic Town Hall, and gabled roofs in a ring around the plaza.

Honestly we just gawked at it for a bit, totally overwhelmed with the opulence of the space. We visited two famous chocolatiers, Mary and Neuhaus, where we sampled pralines (we were expecting something like brittle, but they were basically truffles). We stepped off the street looking for famed waffle purveyors Maison Dandoy, but found they only sold sweet waffles, and we were in the market for some salt and fat. Fortunately for us there was a friekot next door, with the most amazing Belgian frites. We ate them with Belgian mayonnaise, of course. They were maybe the best fries ever.

As we finished our fries, we heard a riot of thumping coming from the direction of the Grand Place. Was it some kind of jet plane? A police disturbance? What could possibly be so loud and persistent? We were actually mildly alarmed, but headed that way. We found that there was a crowd gathered around a troupe of drummers in traditional African costumes pounding out the most incredible rhythms – it got into your gut and shook you from your core. It was incredible, and we were transfixed for a long time.

We would later find out that this was part of the PercuSounds festival, and we were delighted over and over by surprise bursts of color and sound. We’d walk down the streets tailing women in elaborate costumes:

We saw an incredible Brazilian-style percussion band with dancers and a charming mix of ages – a fair number of retirees seem to have gotten into drumming! We went by a sound stage that was between sets and ringed with food carts, but never did make it back to hear the show.

We hit up a few mobile shops and (hopefully) got Daniel a working phone, and wandered up and down the charming streets. We had finally walked off our frites, so – time for waffles! We headed back to Maison Dandoy. The place was sharp-looking and inviting:

Stef had it in her head that speculoos was something to try, a Belgian specialty – a quick Google search reminded her that it’s a gingery cookie, and it’s frequently used on waffles in essentially cookie batter form. Daniel got chocolate with hazelnuts. Friends, that speculoos waffle was legit.

We were running out of daylight and running on fumes, but we’d been so entranced by Brussels, we couldn’t leave without seeing its major sights. We resolved to swing in a wide loop around to the Palais Royale and Parc de Bruxelles on our way home. Again, Brussels was ready for us.

We walked by the Royal Library of Belgium, which was unsurprisingly closed on a Sunday evening:

We walked up some short steps to a manicured garden. Young lovers cuddled on the frequent benches. At the top, we had a gorgeous view of the gardens and the spires of the Guild Hall in the distance:

We marveled at the Eglise Notre-Dame des Victoires au Sablon, which we actually mistook for the palace at first, it was so lavish. It turns out we did not get great pictures of it, but you can see its classical-looking dome and columns etc in the background here:

The palace, in the really outstanding new tradition of Europe, has been converted into an art museum, and it sprawled for several blocks.

Maybe one of Stef’s favorites from the day was the park. After days of almost no trees, this Pacific Northwest girl was ready for some green. They had espaliered a hedge of trees at the entrance. There were little grottoes and paths through trees, in addition to wide paths with fountains where kids could practice riding their bikes. There were elegant open-air cafes, and a sculpture garden lined with statues of a portly cat from one of Belgium’s famed comic books. It was a lovely way to end the evening.

And then back to our tiny hotel room for some much-needed rest.

Did we mention we were just going to grab lunch and get a SIM card?

Brussels, we were going to write you off, but you showed us a really, really good time. Finally, this was the vacation we were here to have. Back on track. In some ways, this day was a deep breath from the insanely stressful travel of the previous couple of days. In many ways, we were gasping in amazement at every turn.