Belgium - Brussels and Bruges

Belgium beer is the best in the world.  German and Czech beer are right up there, don’t get me wrong they are excellent.  But Belgium takes beer to a whole new level, much like they do chocolate.  For example, I went out on Canada day to a pub called Delerium Cafe in downtown Brussels and they offered over 2000 beers.  I tried to sample each one but fell short by a few.  Each one was better than the last, and many of them were 7-10% in comparison to the standard 5%.  Don’t ask me to remember any of the beer names that I had that night, but they were all amazing and vastly different.  Some dark and rich, others very bitter and hoppy (my favourite) and some lighter with a flowery finish.  Even the bar at my hostel had 25 varieties of beer, and you better believe they had their own unique glass that it was served in.  It was blasphemous if you served x beer in y glass.

Anyways, I arrived in Brussels via RyanAir who is a major budget airline throughout Europe.  They offer drastically reduced rates because they don’t fly into major airports and thus avoid the heavy airport taxes.  Much of these airports are an hour or two out of the cities, but bus shuttles run often and are relatively cheap.  So I arrived in Brussels and got lost (pretty much standard) but luckily found a doorman (who is from Brampton!!) who helped me out.   We chatted about Canadian politics, cracked a few jokes about Brampton, chest bumped, shared a waffle and I’m now his son’s godfather (not all true). 

Brussels is known more as a business hub and not so much a backpacker destination, but never the less it still has some cheap attractions and plenty to see over a few days.

Park with Brussels Town Hall soaring into the sky in the background

Brussels Town Hall

Statue made of chocolate wrapped in gold foil....well probably not, but nice regardless

Ok so one of the “major attractions” in Brussels is the Manneken Pis. There are several legends and myths as to the origin and meaning of the statue, if you want to read up on them just check out this link.  They vary widely from a child peeing on a fire to save the city to a father losing his child in the city, and then being found peeing in a garden by locals so the father then donated the statue to the city as a thank you gift.

What’s the big deal about it?  Great question

The city often dresses the boy up in different outfits

The statue was unimpressive...I had to wade through 500 tourists shoveling waffles and chocolate down their throats to get here (yes I realize I'm one of them)

Moving on...had to do a brewery tour in Belgrium right?  Right.  This brewery is unique as it’s one of the only remaining that brew Lambic beer exclusively.  Lambic beer goes through a different fermentation process then normal beers and is then stored in wooden casks much like wine from 1-3 years giving it a unique taste. 

No brewery tour is complete without a tasting at the end, and this one was no different.  So how this beer stand-up compared to some of Belgium finest?  Well it was described to us as “sour, dry and oaky”.  Doesn’t that sound appetising?  If you’re shaking your head right now, you’re right...it doesn’t sound appetising.  This beer was awful tasting, just awful.  I know why nobody brews Lambic beer anymore, it’s atrocious.  It was like a nightmare in my mouth.  I would have drunk gasoline to get rid of the taste.  I don’t know on what planet this beer tastes good, but it's not Earth.  There was a few others sampling the beer at the same time and I asked them if they liked it and they have similar responses so it wasn't just me.  But whatever, you can’t pick a winner everytime...

Next item on the culinary agenda....the Belgian waffle.

Winning

That’s right baby, the waffle itself was delicious but I decided to step it up a bit with putting banana and chocolate sauce on top.  Damnit that thing was amazing....I forgave the city for the Lambic disaster after finishing it.

Random Brussels pics:

I didn't read into the significance of the statue, but I'm pretty certain it's because Leo had the best beard in the country (below)

Apparently under his beard....there's another beard

Belgium is a small country, and they have a very extensive rail system so grabbing a train to Bruges was a snap.  Why did I find myself In Bruges (ooooh so clever), well a few people had told me it's like Brussels' quaint, more picturesque cousin...so I had to check it out.  Also it's on the way to Amsterdam, so why not.

Bruges is one of those cities where you can see pretty much everything in a day.  It's home to a chocolate museum, Belgian Frites (fries) museum as well as the Belfry tower among other things.

Oooohhhh...

Ahhhhhh....

BelfryTower

The lineup to get into Belfry tower was pretty big, it took an hour or so to get in since only 70 people can be 'in the tower' at once.  It's a long, steep climb to the top (366 stairs) with a few stops along the way to admire the scenery as well as the extensive system that controls the clock.

I stuck around for the hourly chiming of the bell as well to see how it all worked....pretty cool and very loud.

View from the top of Belfry

Church of Our Lady rising high over the city

I also checked out the Basiliek van het Heilig Bloed (Basilica of the Holy Blood) where a few coagulated drops of Christ's blood are kept and cherished.

At the bottom, in the middle of the picture you can see two metal doors....behind that is the blood apparently

Oh and the quaintness of the city can be captured in this short clip I shot in the middle of town on a sunny Sunday afternoon.  Some older couples showing me a thing or two about dancing.  The couple in front was the clear-cut winner.  I saw one couple doing the Charleston shuffle I swear...

The hostel I was at had happy hour that night with 1 Euro pints....so that kept me busy in the evening to say the least.  

Hey, that's Belgium peeps....onto Amsterdam!