I am a bit ashamed to say this, but this post and a few posts to follow are from my Eurotrip in December (yup thats the shameful part). So please excuse me if you find a little bit of Santa Claus, red bows and all things Christmassy in my posts. Basically, I've been procrastinating like a boss! Think of it as an inspiration for your upcoming Christmas trip :P.
Anyway, we usually plan our winter vacation based on Christmas markets, and this trip was no exception. Last year, we visited quite a few cities ... countries to be precise. The 1st on our agenda was Belgium, and our first stop was Brussels, where we spent 2 days. We stayed at the amazing Courtyard by Marriott, which was barely a week old back then and got to have breakfast buffet for only 3 Euros per day! This was a steal. Getting around Brussels and even its neighboring cities is relatively easy. Within Brussels, we used the subway to visit the various attractions.
The first place we visited was the Market Place ... which is sorta like a central square with important buildings such as the Brussels Town Hall. It is especially beautiful at night because everything is lit up. And if you are visiting around November, you'll see a giant Christmas tree.
There's a Beer Museum in the Grand Place area as well. You wouldn't notice it at first as its well hidden. It just a little museum that shows steps on a how beer is produced. And you end up getting a free beer with your tickets. I would suggest visiting this museum only if you do not have time to visit a proper, full fledged museum/factory.
We also visited the Manneken Pis. This statue of a little boy peeing into a fountain is symbolic of Belgium. Oh! And around that area, you'll find a number of waffle shops selling waffles for only 1 Euro!
The Atomium is another fancy structure worth checking out. Its this giant metallic thing with atoms joined to each other. Kinda reminded me of my chemistry class. If I'm not mistaken, people can actually go inside those giant balls and possibly have a meal. However, we decided to admire it from the outside
And right next to it is Mini Euro. Here, we saw miniature exhibits of various cities in Europe ... basically something popular in that country, eg. Eiffel Tower for France.
Brussels is also famous for its comic street art scene. Before leaving for Belgium, I promised myself to hunt down as many murals as I could. Unfortunately, they were scattered all around the city and it wasn't easy to spot them. We ended up seeing only a few.
Another favourite place of mine was Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert. Its like this typical French gallery housing many high-end shops and even restaurants. I found some amazing confectionaries inside here. You do know that Belgium is famous for chocolate!
We checked out a really beautiful Gothic Cathedral known as the Cathedral of St Michael and St Gudula. It had a very impressive interior, however, it wasn't too different from other Gothic cathedrals that we'd seen in Europe. Nevertheless, its worth checking it out.
Personally, I found 2 days to be good enough to touch upon all the major attractions within Brussels.
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