30 Hours in Brussels

Atomium

Friday and Saturday I went to Brussels with my friend and our kids, aged 10, 11, 12, and 13. It’s only 3 hours by train for us, but I’d never been there before.

We almost missed the train because our internet enquiries had suggested platform 4, but the train left from platform 5! A friendly conductor held the train for us after we’d ran via the stairs to the other platform at the very last minute.

The sights:

Not quite “It’s Friday, so this must be Brussels”, but a lot was seen in a small amount of time. We saw a lot of Brussels on the top of an open-top tourist bus (brr, a little c..c..cold! But worth it), which took us around Brussels in 1.5 hours.

Manneken Pis

We also went to the Scientastic Museum, which was a great hit with the kids (about 1-2 hours of experiments, mainly optical and olfactory), to the Chocolate Museum, where we saw a chocolate-making demonstration.  As real tourists, we also visited the obligatory Manneken Piss (Little Man Piss) and its female counterpart, Jeanneke Pis.

Some Goodies I brought back from Brussels

Waterstones was a great favorite of my friend and me, and we stocked up on English books (well, it was Mother’s Day the next day, did we deserve a present or what?). We bought chocolates. We awed at the Grand Place, the market place with houses from the 1690s, gold-rimmed and impressive.

Grand Place, Brussels

Royal Palace, Brussels

Shiny building

Walking around the town, we noticed the funny comic pictures on the walls of houses. There are quite a few, all over town:

Comics on the walls

Comics on the Walls

Comics on the walls

Brussels is great for a few days out and I certainly will come back. I especially would like to properly visit the Atomium and the area around it in the summer. There is a lovely park, a palace, a Japanese Tower and a Chinese Pavilion. From the open-top bus they all looked worth a visit.