Bruxelles - Brussels Minus the Sprouts

We've been really lucky with the weather up to now, and have been crossing fingers and toes about Belgium because it has notoriously wet weather and that would make things a bit trickier to manage, though I've told myself several times before coming away that you can't travel thousands of kilometres to Europe and sit inside your accommodation - that would be insane.

In my mind Belgium is known for the following: chocolate, the cartoon character Tintin, lacework, waffles, the surrealist artist Magritte, the Manneken Pis statue, the "actor" Jean-Clade Van Damme, the tennis player Kim Clijsters and beer. Those things are all in evidence as you walk about, but Brussels has lots of great surprises as well. It has a great deal of beautiful old architecture, while at the same time being very modern.

Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert at 7:00am - the only time it's not crowded!

Manneken Pis dressed up - at any time of the day, the little statue's costume can either change or disappear altogether.

Inside one of a billion chocolate shops.

The dome of the Palace of Justice

Wall art is a very big thing in Brussels and its great fun to walk about and suddenly come upon a gigantic cartoon painted in a hidden, awkward spot that's only a metre wide but four storeys tall. On a similar theme, many streets have alternate names - although there are enamel signs with the street name in French and Flemish, some also have a reference to a Belgian cartoon character.

We ate waffles, of course, though some of the optional toppings were surplus to requirements, as the below picture shows. You're supposed to choose which one you want and hold up the number of fingers to represent how many you want. Umm... none please, just wrap one in a serviette for me please. Au naturale.

We went to the Magritte Museum, which houses around 200 works of the artist; we also enjoyed a great little pub where Magritte and his buddies actually used to hang out - it's now covered by all sorts of protection orders which forbid it from being renovated or changed in any way. The walls are covered in photos, sketches and bits and pieces of framed memorabilia from the artists' circle.

Het Goud Blommeke in Papier - Magritte's hangout pub

All in all, Brussels was great and I highly recommend it for a visit.

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