My Trip to Belgium – Part Two

Day 3
Day 3 was bright and sunny. So, with a spring in our steps, we were picked up from our hotel for a Brussels city tour by bus. To be honest, it wasn’t the greatest tour. Well, if you’re tired and don’t want to walk, it’s great, but otherwise you spend a lot of time on the bus and get out only once, at the Atomium, which is a giant atom constructed in 1958 for the Brussels World’s Fair. It is a unique, landmark structure of Brussels, and gives a nice view of the city. You can climb up to the top, but we couldn’t do that, since we were there for only 10 minutes to take some photos. However, we did get to see areas and suburbs of Brussels that we hadn’t been to on day one, albeit only from a bus window. We saw a lot of government buildings, the Royal Residence (Belgium is a constitutional monarchy) along with their greenhouses, and several Roman Catholic churches which are all over the city. The old buildings have very beautiful architecture, and intricate carvings. I have always been very fascinated by carvings and paintings in ancient buildings. How did they manage to do such beautiful, skilful work without having the technology like we do now? It was hard labour, and I salute those who dedicated their lives to making this beautiful art. Kudos to the Belgian government (and other European governments) for maintaining and restoring this essential part of history. Our government can learn a lot from them.

After driving around for about 2 hours, we were back at Grand-Place, waiting to be picked up for our next tour to Antwerp. We only had half an hour to have lunch, so we opted for the thing that was the fastest and most easily available. Fries at Chez Papy, of course. I don’t think I will ever stop dreaming about that creamy cheese sauce. If I ever return to Brussels, that will be my first stop, for sure. So after eating our gooey, cheesy fries, we headed to our second tour to Antwerp.

Antwerp is a town in Flanders, which is mainly a business city. It is very pretty, with lovely views of the River Scheldt. It is the second most populated city in Belgium, after Brussels. Like every city, it has a town square with a church, the Cathedral of Our Lady, surrounded by shops and restaurants. The church is also a bit of a temporary museum, with some exquisite paintings along the walls along with a note talking about the painting. It has some of the most beautiful stained glass windows I have seen. It looks even more stunning when the light seeps in through this coloured glass. We walked a little bit more around the town square, through some streets that survived the World War II bombings, and went to the Museum aan de Stroom, which gives a magnificent view of Antwerp from its 10th floor terrace.

After clicking pictures there, we went to the Antwerp Central Station, which is considered to be one of the top three most beautiful stations in the world, the other two being St Pancras in London and the Grand Central Terminal in New York City. All I can say is that this station deserves to be on this list. I was in awe of the beauty of this station. It is a must visit.

We left Antwerp and reached Brussels just in time for dinner, when we found another Indian restaurant called Namaste. After dinner, we headed back to the hotel since we were going to have a long day the next day.

Day 4
We started quite early on this Sunday, because we were going to go on a day trip to Luxembourg! Luxembourg is an extremely small country with a population of 300,000 people. Most of their income is from the banking sector, and people travel there from the neighbouring countries of France, Belgium and Germany to work. The railway system in the European Union makes it very easy to travel across borders. We took about 4 hours to reach Luxembourg city from Brussels. It is a very beautiful place, but also very, very empty. It wasn’t surprising since it was a Sunday, but we expected to see at least some people. We wandered around a little, saw the government buildings which were very beautiful, and took in views from a hill.

Since we were a huge group of about 40 people, it wasn’t too fun because it didn’t feel personal. We couldn’t follow the guide very well and when we were with him, we couldn’t really hear what he was saying. After a little exploration and photo-hopping, we headed for lunch to the town square, Place d’Armes, which is where all the people were. People in Europe really do know how to chill and have fun. It was 3 pm, but people were at their tables in several restaurants in the square, sipping beer and enjoying a relaxing Sunday with their families. In the centre, there was an orchestra that was playing some lovely, lively music, and people were dancing in the streets. We went to a little restaurant in the corner and ate a yummy margherita pizza. Shout out to the waitress who served us, she was very sweet.

After this, we walked around the square a bit (which was full of cute dogs, FYI) and I ate this chocolate ice cream bar which had little brownie pieces in it. It was glorious. About 15 minutes before it was time to leave, we went to a souvenir shop that we’d spotted and bought key chains and some other little bits and bobs. I always make sure to buy one key chain from every city I visit. It has become a little tradition. We headed to the bus and were on our way to Belgium.

On our way to Brussels, we stopped at a town called Dinant, in the Namur province of Wallonia. It is along the River Meuse and is surrounded by cliffs. It is quite a picturesque little town, really great for taking pictures. It is the birth place of Adolphe Sax, the inventor of the saxophone. They also have a little museum about him, which we visited. Dinant is known for strawberries and a very hard honey-flavoured biscuit called the couque de Dinant.

The structure that you see as soon as you enter is the Notre-Dame de Dinant, which is a Gothic style Collegiate church. It is very beautiful on the inside as well as outside. Dinant faced a lot of destruction during World War I, but has definitely rebuilt itself well. The views along the river bank are breathtaking, and we spent most of our free time just quietly sitting on a bench, watching the world pass by. I really enjoy observing people when on holiday. Their lives are so different from ours in India. It is peaceful and beautiful.

At about 5 pm, we headed to the bus to go back to Brussels. We were stuck in traffic for a long time because there had been an accident on the freeway, and reached later than expected. We went to Grand-Place for dinner at Namaste (again), after which we went to a very famous waffle place at Galeries Royales called Mokafe. We ate chocolate and caramel flavoured waffles, which were oh so delicious! We headed home to our hotel and snuggled into very warm, very soft beds.

The last part, Part Three will be up soon!