Short trip to Brussels, just 38 hours, but enough time to taste some of the worlds greatest beers and taste the local food. Me and Sissel were ready to hit the city!
Arriving into the airport it is easy to get to town. I have been to Brussels a few times before and I have always taken the train to the central station. It is very easy and you get right to the hart of Brussels and Grand-Place. However, this time we took the bus! I was so confused and I have no idea where we got off, it was the end stop and I had no ide how to find our hotel. Luckily we saw another bus where I recognized the name on the window screen so we decided to follow that bus' direction. We walked in the right direction and we got to see loads of things on our way to the hotel.
When I knew where we were, we decide to sit down and celebrate our accomplishment with a proper Belgian beer. Our hotel was just around the corner!
We stayed at a hotel called Aris and the location was just perfect it is central to everything! Lets start to explore the Belgian culture! We kind of had just one aim for this trip and that was to go to different bars and drink the local beer. And of course to have some nice food and see some of the most famous spots.
As we stayed very close to Grand-Place it was only logic that we went there first of all. This was in October so it wasn't very warm outside, but when it is warm outside it is so nice to sit at one of the cafes, bars or restaurants at Grand-Place.
We were dressed properly so we could sit outside, but we went to a bar just off Grand-Place. First beer was a Kwak! Lets start with the strong stuff, it is about 10% alcohol in this one, really yummy......
Next one on the menue! La Chouffe. Not the weakest one this one either, 8%. Great start. What I love about Belgium is that you get the "right" glass with our beer. Every type of beer has its own beer glass, it is fantastic! Don't get this everywhere in the world I'm afraid.
In this area there are a lot of typical Belgian bars and restaurants and we just strolled through several of them, the bars I mean. At one place we needed a little pick me up, so here comes the Jaegerbomb. Only one though, we had to stop at one other bar before we went back to the hotel to change for the evening.
Funny beers with funny glasses. It really doesn't get any better!
My dad recommended us a few places to go to, my parents lived in Belgium for 4 years so they know their stuff. Of course these places was on our to do list and after our little clothes change in the hotel we went to the bar he recommended us. Le Cercueil. For those of you who speak French you know this means The Coffin! Cosy place this one!
Great interior in this bar, the tables are coffins and the cocktail menu has some great names on the drinks.
To be honest this was one of my favorite bars, the drinks were really good, the service was great, really nice barkeepers and well, it was funny, yes in a morbid way.
Look, we even had a skeleton in our coffin table.
After staying in the coffin for a few drinks we had to get something to eat. We had been recommended to go to a restaurant called Vincent and eat the famous Belgian Moules Frites. Vincent is located in Rue des Dominicains 8 right in the heart of the restaurant
Dinner was great and so was the rest of the evening!
Next day there was one important thing on our to do list. Eat Belgian waffles. There is nothing like it when you buy them in Belgium, in fact I don't buy them anywhere else in the world.
When I said there was one important thing to do, and that was the waffles, I totally forgot about Brussels attraction number 1 Manneken Pis. Of Course you have to go and see that/him/it, the little bugger :) He is so cute and very easy to find!
Also there is a very traditional Belgian pub/bar right next to Manneken Pis. It is definitely worth a visit as the inside is very cozy and typical Belgian pub style, and of course they have a lot of nice beers there.
As I mentioned in the start, we went for the beer mainly, however we did have time to do a little bit of shopping as well. There is one street where you have most of the shopping, well you find most of what you need there, shopping is as in many other places, everywhere.
Walking back from the little shopping we did we also got a little sightseeing of the city, just a few places though for the pictures sake.
Delirium is a very famous bar in Brussels, among a few others as well of course. There is no shocker that a country who have about 178 different brewery's and over 600 different types of beers are well known for good pubs and bars. Going to them is kind of getting to know the culture.
And there is one bar you just can not miss if you are in Brussels. Royal Theater Toon. That is an old puppet theater who is also operating as a pub
It is not a big place but it is very popular amongst the local people as well as the tourists. And as you can see from the picture above, the puppet theater is still going strong.
The bar is right in the middle of the theater and it is divided up into small rooms. The main room will be where the actual stage for the puppet show is. And this is where we enjoyed our Kwak beer!
Toon actually have two different entrances and if you are looking for it, they aren't that hard to find. Beside, everybody that works in the other bars, shops, restaurants knows about the place and knows where it is.
Toon was definitely a great end to our little Brussels trip and it made us want to stay longer and come back again. Now we just had to go to the airport and go home.......
Of course there was time for one last local beer before we went on the plane.......
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SvarSlettI really enjoyed reading this post!
Unfortunately, we didn't get to visit the Coffin Bar - Seems like a truly unique experience!
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