Blogs from Brussels, Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium, Europe - page 5

Originally I had planned to stay in Brussels for two consecutive days but I had to rearrange my itinerary slightly to fit in my trip to Luxembourg. I could have easily moved my couple of days in Brussels to the following week, but faced the dilemma of missing the annual Belgian Beer Festival and I was really looking forward to this so I decided to do one of the two days and revisit Brussels the following week. Brussels is the capital of Belgium and I knew driving my car into this large city would most probably be stressful and expensive. I did some research and discovered that there was a free car park on the outskirts of the capital next to the metro station called Ceria. The Ceria metro station is only 20 minutes away from ... read more

Geo: 50.8371, 4.36761We got up this morning for a nice breakfast still a bit groggy from last night, but managed to make it to the train station for our “commute” from Bruges to Brussels. We feared another crowded train (last time we spend the entire journey standing in the vestibule between cars), but this time we had seats just inside of the door and sat in air-conditioned comfort. An hour later, we de-trained at Brussels Central Station, which according to our maps, was very close to our hotel. Unfortunately, we did not know which direction to turn. After a reconnaissance mission, Jake figured it out, and it was all downhill from there, literally.After dropping off our luggage at the hotel, because it was too early to check in, we decided to pay a visit to the ... read more

The drive south from Brussels is on the smoothest of highways as we turn off at exit 18 and continue south on a secondary highway with less traffic for company. It is the beginning of a long weekend, as the National Holiday looms near in a few days. Leaving the frenzy of preparation in Brussels itself, little cars dragging campers or trailers with tents and other paraphernalia, hug the inside lanes and speed towards any number of pleasant sites of relaxation somewhere in Belgium. Rolling hills present green pastures of corn and other crops like barley, the golden hue of ripened wheat fields interspersed between them. Farm houses, their privacy shrouded by tall elms, while small clusters of dense forest spread out over the landscape as far as the eye can see. Soon the large thick ... read more

With the weather switching back to cold, windy and patchy rain we opt for the hop on hop off bus tour. Half way on the first route brings us to the Atomium which was on our list, but hadn't found out where it was. The Atomium was built in 1958 for the Brussels world fair and is made up off 9 spheres with interconnecting tunnels. We leave the bus for a visit and enjoy the structure for a couple of hours. A short ride up in the elevator gets you to the top and a birds eye view of the Brussels skyline. After that you head back down and there is a mix of elevators and stairs connecting the tubes to four other spheres. Each sphere had a different theme and we enjoyed exploring them. Back ... read more

Ok, I know we get hot weather at home, but this is WAY different. Consider it starts to get light about 4am, sunrise proper at 5am, temps at 25+ by 8am, and then the day just drags on and on, until sunset, at 10pm!!! I believe this makes the heat less tolerable than home, that and the fact there's not many retailers with airconditioning, for example Kasey and I went in to a shopping centre, sort of the size of Westfield fig tree, and found most shops didn't have air conditioning. In the British home store they just turned off most of the lights, an interesting way to shop, saying it helped with the heat. Lots of shops seem to do this. So back to the trip, Brussels has been over 30 every day, very stressful ... read more