Arriving in Brussels
The quickest and most convenient method of transport to Brussels from London is to take the Eurostar. Having visited Brussels in 2011, we were familiar with the main city sites and knew all the tourist-trap districts for food and souvenirs. On this trip we didn't need to spend a lot of time sightseeing and our first day was marked out to just rest and relax.
Rue des Bouchers
We arrived around midday on Dec 30th and the route from Brussels Zuid station took us through a local food market. Therefore our stomachs were in no mood to wait for Tripadvisor to find us the most authentic restaurant 'off the beaten track'. So we headed for Rue des Bouchers - the seafood equivalent of Lygon street in Melbourne where every waiter offers a bottle of wine or cocktail to tempt you inside before seducing you with colourful photos of seafood platters that are sneakily priced per person.
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| Moules and frites |
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| Paella |
Radisson Blu Hotel
With our stomachs full, we headed back to our hotel - the Radisson Blu to relax before a planned night out exploring. The location of the hotel was close to central, a five minute walk to the Grand Place (Grote Markt). However, the disappointing weather did not get us in the mood for walking around and instead we decided to pass the time with some beer taste testing in our hotel room.
Belgian Beers
Near our hotel we found a supermarket that like many fine establishments in Brussels, sold a large variety of Belgian beers. The first beer was a lemon Hoegaarden and had an interesting taste to it but we didn't rate it as highly as the Croatian lemon beers we had drunk in Dubrovnik. Our second beer had a raspberry fruit flavour. We actually ended up taking this beer back to London intact as we lacked an available corkscrew to get the cork out (lesson learnt for future travel adventures). The last beer we bought contained an astonishing 12% alcohol and tasted like a spirit. Mei lasted only a tiny gulp and Olie had a few sips. The rest of the night was spent trying to decipher the predominately French TV channels showing Gossip Girl and Jersey Shore without subtitles.
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| Our hotel beer collection |
The adventures of our day trip to Luxembourg are detailed in a separate blog post as geographically and politically, we cross an international border into another country. The return train trip took six hours and rested us up in preparation for a long night of New Year's Eve celebrations.
New Year's Eve Celebrations
By the time we arrived back at Brussels Central Station, nightfall had already arrived and the buzz of New Year's Eve was just kicking off. Inside the Grote Markt (the famous main square in Brussels), a light-show was on display and tourists were busy taking photos whilst avoiding gangs of teenagers throwing firecrackers everywhere.
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| The light show |
Pre Dinner Drinks
To get into the spirit of celebrating the end of 2012, we started our night by drinking a bottle of bubbly Leffe beer. From there we headed out to our dinner reservations for a buffet at the nearby Windsor Hotel.
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| Bringing in the new year with a bottle of bubbly |
Windsor Hotel Buffet
Whilst there wasn't a strict dress code for dinner, we decided to make an effort - Olie bringing along a suit jacket and trousers for this event. The food at the buffet was a nice spread of smoked salmon, salads, hot food and dessert. However some of our fellow patrons were not happy due to the poor service and lack of re-filling the buffet trays. This put a sour note onto the night and a lot of people left straight after dinner. The hotel had put on a 80's themed night at an internal club, but when we walked passed at 11:30pm, it was empty and we decided that the atmosphere would be better along the streets.
Countdown
Initially we headed back to the Grote Markt to see if this would be the heart of the city's celebrations. We knew that fireworks would be held at a nearby park but we were also convinced that somewhere in the city would be filled with buzzing revelers counting down to the New Year. We noticed that an electronic countdown clock was being projected onto the buildings near the central station. We then joined in with thousands of locals queuing up the hill with umbrellas to wait for midnight to arrive. When the clock struck, we were treated to 30 minutes of fireworks, however the strong breeze ensured that the firework display leaned oddly to the left. And as the night wore on, it became clear that a lot of locals had been on the beer before hand as the churchyard turned into an impromptu male toilet.
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Happy new year in the rain
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| Watching the fireworks in the rain |
Video of the night
When we returned to the hotel, we noticed that the atrium cafe had been turned into a nightclub that continued until 2am. As it was the first day of 2013, other hotel guests were not fussed with the additional noise and the hotel staff were relaxed about letting everyone enjoy a late checkout time of midday, including several tour-bus groups.
Galeries Royales
On the first day of 2013, we decided to explore some of central Brussels, passing through the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert - a large 19th century shopping arcade filled with chocolate and craft shops. We also decided to seek out a Vietnamese restaurant for lunch that had been recommended by our friends.
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| Chocolate carousel |
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| Cinderella would be happy with a chocolate shoe |
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| Beautiful glass violin and dolls |
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| Christmas glass ornaments |
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| New Year's celebration cakes |
Unfortunately the Vietnamese restaurant was closed. So we headed off to the nearby Christmas markets that were still operating and providing tourists some entertainment when the rest of the city was shuttered up for the public holiday. After running out of lunch options, we eventually found a Moroccan restaurant on the other side of the city. We ate a few vegetable and chicken dishes, requiring assistance from the lady in the next table to help us translate the French and Flemish menu into English.
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| Inside the Moroccan restaurant |
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| Interesting name for a cafe |
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| The hot chocolate came with a decent amount of foam |
A condiment malfunction
One of the funny moments of the day came about when Olie decided to battle with a tube of chilli sauce; and it decided to explode all over his shirt. Luckily a spare t-shirt was in the bags we had with us and the restaurant staff (who although could not speak English) worked out that we had an issue and gave us some towels.
Goodbye Brussels
When Olie was all cleaned up, we went back to the hotel to pick up our luggage. We decided to find a bus to take us to the Eurostar train-station (Brussels Midi). The option of bus, then turned into trying to catch a local train. After some waiting around and based on the time we had spare, we ended up walking for 15 minutes to the station where were still had quite a lot of time free before our journey back to London.
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