Belgium, Day Three: Brussels

As convenient as the Eurostar is, I blame exactly that for mistaking our return to London this day. Where I though we would have to wrap up at around 2.30pm for a 4pm departure, we actually had a 6pm train to catch. Two hours might not seem like a long time, but given how empty our list of things to do was I was a bit worried that we'd be loitering around. I guess subconsciously at least we decided to make this a bit of a chill day. And on that note we started the day with breakfast as ZouZou's, a cute (in the insta sense) Moroccan run food place in the heart of Brussels.

That's not to say we were lax in the sightseeing at all - I made sure we passed by the Cathédrale Saints-Michel-et-Gudule and Grand-Place on the way to our next stop. The cathedral was worth checking out in it's own right, but it was the Grand-Place that really gave me a unique impression of Brussels, and quite possibly Belgium as a whole.

Was it gaudy? Gothic? Or maybe it just reminded my of some of the board games I've been playing, but it all captured my imagination in a way that the other sights across Belgium didn't quite.

The Grand-Place was also where we got our first exposure to the chocolate tourist trap. Although we made a committent not to bring back Pricey Easy Chocolate™, we ate too much offered free chocolate to refuse. Great marketing that.

Our actual target was - yes - another indie coffee shop a fair walk away in the north-west of town. Not that I minded the walk; it was just the right way to explore the city with the time that we had. Now I'm not a coffee person even though I drink more of it now that I ever have, but what we got at Wide Awake Coffee really was something else even by my layman standards. So much so I even took a photo (for shame).

After offering noon prayer at the mosque around the corner (because they seem to be everywhere in this country), we made our back back to the centre proper, grabbing eclairs and Belgian fries (which apparently are a thing).

A substantial addition to today's itinerary was to follow one of the three available Comic Book Trails dotted around the city. It was an another excuse to walk semi randomly but with purpose, and some of the art was genuinely good and even by artists I had heard of.

After our second coffee break of the day we started to make our way to the Gare Du Midi to catch our Eurostar back home. On the way we stopped off at the Palais de Justice, known for having been one of the tallest buildings in Europe at one point. Unfortunately it was closed by the time we made it there, so we missed out on what was supposed to have been some decent internal architecture. But the views of the building and indeed of Brussels itself from there were a good consolation prize.

Which then brought us to our departure time - all in all a great day of walking, eating and gup shupping with a side of sightseeing thrown in. I guess in many ways that sums up the past 2 and a bit days - I can't say that Belgium is my favourite country in Europe but this was a great little treat to have had just before Ramadhan kicked off. Case in point - even though our train arrived at 7pm I was home by 8. That's just something you can't pull off when travelling by plane or boat.