Belgium | tripacross

Her View

Belgium - Caywood's perspective

My first impression out of the Brussels train station had two parts. One: Wow, they have a lot of random statues and sculptures here. Two: There’s more trash on the streets here than in Memphis. We didn’t have a huge list to see in Brussels, but our first was The Grand Place. Walking there we saw our first glimpse of French-style architecture, which was beautiful. The Grand Place was beautiful and massive, complete with many gold accents and unique carvings. Our next stop was to get some typical Belgian food: Belgian waffles and Belgian chocolate. We went to a cute local cafe for a traditional Belgian waffle which was absolutely amazing. Covered in melted sugar (at least in my opinion that’s what it was), this waffle was the best one I’ve ever had. However, we ended up leaving the cafe quickly when we started getting harassed by a drunk homeless man at 9 in the morning. As for the chocolate, oh my gosh. So good. I got my favorite piece, caramel in milk chocolate, while Feliks was brave and branched out to try a ginger in dark chocolate piece. His was good; mine was better. We both agreed. Brussels was cool, but because of the dirty element we didn’t feel like we need to stay very long. After about 4 hours or so we were ready to catch the train to our next city - Amsterdam.

His View

Belgium - Feliks' perspective

We arrived in Brussels early in the morning and knew that not many places would be open so we went straight to the sightseeing. The streets of Brussels were full of random and pretty cool statues and sculptures. The buildings were also pretty neat: lots of old and new mixed together. We looked at some churches and a nice little fountain area, empty at the time but I’m sure it would be nice in the summer. We enjoyed a Belgian waffle from a local coffee shop. It was amazing, I don't know exactly what they did to it but it was the BEST waffle I’ve ever had and I don’t even like waffles. I’ve had a few taste flash backs since. We did find the Grand Place, which oddly enough is actually really grand. It's a courtyard area surrounded by shops, Starbucks is one of them, in the middle of the city but one of the buildings is just beautiful. Lots of little statues carved on every window sill. Gold plating, at least it looked like gold, was all over the edges and the main pieces on the roof. It was a beautiful building and the courtyard area really did make it grand. On the streets immediately around the Grand Place there are lots of shops, pubs, and cafes. Among them, Chocopolis, and some of the most delicious looking chocolates ever. We only tried two of them, caramel and ginger - really really good. I don’t particularly like chocolate but I am glad we got to try these. One thing that really made me happy is that we found a statue of Don Quixote.

Overall, we didn't spend much time here and I don't think we were the only ones. There were not a lot of tourists and most places seemed to be on their down time. The area was nice and the locals were friendly. WiFi was decently hard to access but they did have a few free spots around the big shopping areas. We got there early in the morning and saw most of the advised attractions by 2, we also walked the entire time. I’m glad we went and had the best waffle EVER!