Beer and Waffles and Chocolate! Oh my!

Whew! It's been a busy week especially with midterms coming up! I finally finished my post on this past weekend. I went to Brussels, Belgium with Megan and Emily (a girl that lives across the hall).

For all those who don't know Belgium is that little pink country in between France and Germany. It only took 1 hr and 40 minutes to fly from Florence to Brussels which is about the time it takes me to fly from Cincinnati to Minneapolis. Brussels was a place that Megan wanted to visit and I was persuaded to join since Belgium is know for their chocolate, beer, and waffles. They also have some pretty cool architecture too ;) My first purchase in Belgium is below:

Of course I had to try what Belgium is most known for! Belle-Vue is a cherry flavored beer that is pretty tasty! Cote D'or is the equivalent to Hershey's in the United States but is much better (in my opinion at least). And I got some chocolated covered waffles.

Our hotel was absolutely beautiful! Much nicer than what you would expect to find three college students staying at. Megan found it on Priceline so it was a great deal!

This is the lobby at the hotel. When we went to check into our room we were offered complimentary champagne. Yes, please!!

These are pictures from the hotel's website since my pictures just didn't do our hotel justice. We had a king size bed and a twin bed. It was a Reniassance Hotel which is partnered with Marriott which explains why it was pretty nice.

This is from dinner on the first night at Au Vieux Bruxelles which means The Old Brussles. The concierge suggested the restaurant for some authentic Belgium food. We got a mussels and frites (french fries) which is a popular dish in Belgium.

We started Saturday by walking to the Royal Palace.

It is only open during the summer months for tours. Boo!

We made our way to Sablon square and saw the Notre Dame du Sablon.

I think Gothic architecture may be one of my favorites because I love all the stained glass windows.

This is one of my favorite windows from in the church.

There were chocolatiers galore around the city!!

We found a Cote D'or shop and stocked up! I got a lot of different chocolate bars. The bars are squares that are filled with all different things. I got a plain chocolate, a dark chocolate, a chocolate filled with vanilla cream, one filled with pistaccio cream, hazelnut, dessert 58 which is a hazelnut praline, and a lait (milk) praline.

Leonidas is also another popular chocolatier. It is a higher in quality than Cote D'or but still reasonably priced.

There was a very sweet lady working in the store that gave us free samples. She told us that Switzerland is known for their plain chocolate and Belgium is known for what they fill the chocolate with.

We then made our way across town to take a tour of a brewery. The brewery is called Cantillion and it is the last family run brewery still operating in the city of Brussels.

Talk about bottles and bottles of beer on the wall!

My favorite part of the tour, naturally, was the tasting :)

I had one plain beer and one fruit beer. The beers are aged for 2 years and then combined with freshly brewed beer to get the bubbles. They They had cherry and raspberry as options for the fruit beer. Megan and Emily got raspberry and I tried cherry. The fruit beer tasted like a combination of beer and wine. It was delish!

We then went to see Manneken Pis. It is a little statue dressed in costume several times each week. There are many different legends behind the origin of the statue. On occasion, the statue is hooked up to a keg of beer which is given out to people passing by.

Manneken Pis on Saturday

Manneken Pis on Sunday

We started Sunday by going to the Atomium. It is a monument built for Brussel's World Fair that was held in 1958.

It has 9 steel spheres that are connected so that it looks like a cell of an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times. Tubes enclose escalators connecting the spheres. The spheres contain exhibit halls, restaurant/snack shop, and kids area. The top sphere provides a panormaic view of Brussels.

Panorama from the top sphere

It was way bigger in size than I was expecting!

We then went to Grand Place which is the square in the center of the city.

Town Hall which is still used as a government building today.

Buildings that use to hold different guilds (guilds are different groups of workers such as brewers, merchants, etc.). Today they now have shops in the base level.

The Maison du Roi (King's House) or Broodhuis (Breadhouse) which currently holds a museum.

More buildings of guilds and House of Dukes of Brabant

We then did a tour of a chocolate museum.

Dresses made of chocolate in the museum.

At the end of the museum was a demonstraition on making pralines and a tasting. They had white, milk and a range of dark chocolates. They had one piece that was 100% cocoa and boy, it was bitter! They also had cocoa butter pieces.

Waffles on wheels! I saw this while walking and had to snap a shot!

The Museum of Musical Instruments - a strong example of Art Nouveau architecture.

Beautiful buildings of Brussels.

This is the European Parliament. Our hotel was only a block away from here.

A statue outside of the European Parliament.

It is always refreshing to travel outside of Italy and see a different style architecture and experience a new culture. I've found that both London and Brussels are much more like the United States. They both offer a lot more variety than what Italian cities offer especially in regards to cuisine. London and Brussels are also much larger than any of the Italian cities that I've been to. I think part of the charm of Italy is that its cities are not massive in size and they have not been bombarded with chain restaurants. Being abroad is giving me a greater appreciation of different cultures as well as a greater appreciation of the United States since it is such a melting pot of different cultures.

Ciao,

Hannah