Europe Day 2 in Brussels

 Me & Cik Liz woke up early in the morning on the second day to catch a train to Brussels and had our breakfast (croissant and tea) in the Paris hotel before we left. We had another round of breakfast in the train from Thalys first class service. I had mashed apple & yam sprinkled with muesli, a cup of yoghurt, layered cheese & pine nut sandwich and a cup of tea - all were really good. The trip took 1 hr 22min from Paris to Brussels and we enjoyed the country view along the journey.

I brought quite a big luggage because we had no time to do laundry as we scheduled ourselves to hop to a different country everyday. It was indeed a very ambitious plan and doing something out of my own comfort as I've been spoiled so much by my husband when he is around but traveling without him means I got to do everything by myself. Carrying the luggage up and down trains and station stair cases really took away my breath. So we decided to take a taxi this time from Gare du Nord train station to the hotel.

 We stayed in Bloom Hotel Brussels which I rate as 5* - spacious & beautiful lobby nicely scented with their own created air fragrant, comfortable bed and the special thing about this hotel is you can choose your room deco theme and we chose floral for ours. This hotel is only 5min from the next metro station Botanique.

We did not plan for specific things to do in Brussels and thought will find out when we reach there. There was no tourist information from Botanique station except for metro map. So we gambled and decided to take a metro train to Gare Centrale (4 stations away from Botanique) to look for Grand Place. We took the wrong exit but we enjoyed walking through the city with beautiful architecture around us. Accidentally we saw a beautiful St Michel Cathedral after 15 minutes walk. The place was quite crowded with tourists.

 We saw the crowds walked towards one direction and decided to follow which then took us to the Grand Place (Grote Markt) which is Brussels central square. It was a very impressive landmark surrounded by magnificient 10th century architecture. Later I learned that they display flower carpet every two years and certainly not happening during our visit but we had opportunity to snap some nice spring flowers sold in pots below. By the way, the temperature on the day was hot, I think more than 25C - not what we anticipated.

 Grand Place is surrounded by lots of restaurants and there is one street which most restaurants serving almost the same menu with seafood specialties. I was attracted to try pot of mussels - it was huge so both of us shared and was surpised that we managed to finish it. It was served with fries and very delicious.

After whole day walking, my right lower carf was swollen and I was limping - not sure whether it was muscle or tendon problem but terribly painful. However, I got to go on (kesian kat Cik Liz if I stop and rest in he hotel) so limping slowly to tour Brussels at night to look for Mannekon Pis. After about 15 minutes walk from the metro station, we found it and to my disappointment the peeing boy statue was such a tiny size (smaller than a real human being) located at a corner of a shop. After taking photos, we went to look for dinner nearby (spaghetti served in huge wok but not that impressive taste) and later return to the same street (leading to Mannekon Pis) looking for hot chocolate and waffles. The waffles was very nice and a must have if anyone visiting Brussels.

We returned to the hotel about 11pm and repacking the luggage as we will be leaving Brussels for Germany in the next early morning train. So catch up the next story in Germany.