Belgium, Beer Paradise and Cute to Boot

We left Paris on the fancy Thalys train for Brussels.  We’re both fans of beer, and I’m particular to Belgian beer, so we thought a couple of days there would be fun even if it turned out to just be the Delaware of Europe.  Well, Delaware doesn’t have the Grand Place, and I don’t know if it has an excellent beer bar with 2500 varieties in the bottle and dozens on tap, but Brussels exceeded our expectations.  In addition to the above, it also had an incredibly charming street of antique shops that sang to two people (us) who don’t even like looking at antiques. 

We stayed in what felt like the smallest hotel room in Europe, although we might have been biased after the luxury of having a whole studio apartment for five weeks in Paris.  It was in a great location, though, right above a public square that hosts a flea market every morning.  We even wandered the flea market, an activity we never do at home!  It was a mix of interesting stuff and complete junk, as is to be expected.  Our walk from the square took us up that great antique street towards the museum district.  I really wanted to go to the modern art museum, but as has happened so many times during this year, it was closed for renovation.  We just enjoyed all the public art instead.  The creator of Tin-Tin was Belgian, and there are Tin-Tin murals everywhere!  He was scampering all over the sides of buildings.

We were completely bowled over by the Grand Place.  It is maybe the best public square either of us has seen.  It is a vast space ringed by absolutely gorgeous, ornate buildings.  One side is dominated by the magnificent Hotel de Ville.  I read that all of the other fabulous buildings around the plaza used to belong to various guilds in Belgium, such as the brewers’ guild, the bakers’ guild, the shipbuilders’s guild, etc.  A few of them are still using some of the spaces there, but most have been repurposed for other businesses.  They are incredibly well-preserved and the whole picture is jaw-droppingly beautiful.

We also visited the water town of Ghent just an hour or so away by train.  It is much smaller than Brussels and the center has lots of lovely buildings, canals, bridges and plazas.  It is a very pretty place to walk around for an afternoon.  It is also, as is Brussels, a nice place to sample a Belgian beer.  It couldn’t quite compete with Brussels on the beer bar front, though, because it didn’t have Delirium Tremens.  Also a beer, this bar, mentioned above for its huge selection, was three floors of beer paradise.  One of the floors even had over a hundred varieties of American craft beers. 

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