Euro Trip 2008 - Day 6 - Brussels, Belgium

Image credit: myVista on Flickr

Wet and tired I slept pretty much throughout the journey out of France, which took us the better part of the day. It was winter season and daytime was already shortened, plus once again I missed out the history lesson by the tour guide. I only woke up when the bus made a rest stop, and because I haven't been eating a solid meal that day I quickly went to get some sandwiches from the gas station. Then I slept again until we reached Brussels around nighttime. We passed through the modern side of Brussels, which was like any other European city, but our destination that night was the older side of Brussels which housed some of Brussels' main attractions, namely the Grote Markt (Grand Palace), the Manneken Pis statue and to look for the famous Belgian chocolates.

Our first stop that night was the city's Palace of Justice. We didn't get off the bus, as the palace was already closed. It's basically a Law Court, but at the same time one of the city's landmark. From there we headed to another usual landmark of any European city - its cathedral. It looked a bit like the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris which I had not the opportunity to go to, so Brussels Catheral is a good enough substitute, I told myself. :P



Officially it's called the St. Michael and Gudula Cathedral, built around 1047. This is the primary church in Brussels, and is famous for its stained glass windows.


Some statue nearby the cathedral. Oh yeah, I was wearing that snow cap because it was rather cold...umm...actually because the hair was a bit messy.

It was a walking tour that night, and from the cathedral we made our way to the Grand Place, making one stop here where there were a few statues. The tourguide did explain something significant about these statues but because of the large crowd gathering around her we couldn't hear much of it. So we did what we do best so that when it was time to move on to other places here we wouldn't have to keep others waiting. See how considerate we are.







The white spire you're seeing there is the tower of the Town Hall located within the Grand Place.


Our next destination was the Grand Place itself, the main market square of Brussels. It's been listed as one of UNESCO's World Heritage sites. It was so hard to get good pictures here - the Grand Place is just too, well, GRAND. Big. Long. Massive. The best picture of it I could find on the net is at Wikipedia, a panoramic view of it.





The Town Hall, constructed between 1402 - 1455.






Some shopping street around the Grand Place.


Afterward we made our way towards the second landmark of Brussels. It was a peculiar statue, called the Manneken Pis, Dutch for "peeing little man". According to one of its two most famous legends, there was a time where Brussels had a two-year-old infant Lord called Duke Godfrey III of Leuven. In 1142, his troops (yeah, an infant commanding a troop of soldiers!!) went to battle against the troops of the Berthouts, the lords of Grimbergen, in Ransbeke. To keep the teeny-weeny lord safe, the troops put their lord inside a basket and had it hung above a tree. Then this little lord peed on the enemy troops who went to seek their foes. Eventually the enemy troops lost the battle against the baby's troops. That's the most famous story.



This famous statue has spawned many souvenirs based on it. I went to shops looking for souvenirs after visiting this peeing lord and the first thing I saw was him on T-shirts, books, postcards, small figurines, etc etc.


Anyway, since we weren't able to visit the third most famous landmark here - the Atomium - as it was located elsewhere and we were going elsewhere in a couple of hours we were left to our own device and were told to be back at the bus by 10PM. So off we went, buying some souvenirs and just window shopping around.

Brussels' - or Belgium as a whole - most famous souvenirs, other than the Manneken Pis was their delicious Belgian chocolates. Many shops offered chocolates of different variations, it was just a matter of picking the right one. It wasn't easy though as ALL of them looked tasty. True we could get these Belgian chocolates practically everywhere, even in Malaysia and in Kursk, but there was an authentic feel to it if we buy them here. So I bought a few, cost me quite some Euros which I won't disclose here. But me being a self-proclaimed chocoholic, you'll get the idea.



This shop is located right opposite the Manneken Pis, so it was probably the most profitable shop as well. Talk about strategic location.


Fountain of chocolate and some samples. I managed to sample a couple of chocolates for free, and ended up buying some chocolates which probably covered the cost of my FOC sampling.


Another fountain picture just to tempt your tastebuds.


Walking around the streets of Brussels as we browsed around shops.


This Vincent Van Gogh statue practically screams "let's camwhore!!", haha. I didn't fall to its evil temptation though....


...but I did that here instead. :)


Looks like it's a pretty calm night. We met a couple of Malaysians here, who were there for work purpose. They told us that for the past few days they were there they always saw Malaysian students around the city.


From Brussels we headed to Hamburg, Germany, but that's for the next entry yea. Later!