Monday, August 20, 2018

Eurotrip 2018 - Day 5 (8/9/2018) - More Brussels

We overslept this morning, missing the hotel breakfast which ended as we woke up at 10am.  After getting dressed, we instead found an Express convenience store to buy some yogurt and bananas.  I also picked up a waffle from Maison Dandoy, which appeared to have been a popular place for waffles the evening before; at €7, their waffles were more expensive and fancier than what you could get at the numerous other places that charged the (apparent) standard 2 Euro for a plain waffle (though a typical waffle at those places was somewhere around €5 after adding toppings).


It began to rain as we finished our breakfast in Grand Place.  The temperature was in the 60s (F) all day, getting cooler as the day wore on.  For an indoors activity, we headed to the Royal Palace and did the free walk through.  The rain had subsided by the time we were done there, so we attempted to walk to Parc du Cinquantenaire, but instead headed the wrong way up Rue Royale.  We realized our error after a while, retraced our steps, and then headed east on Rue de la Loi to the park.  After some indecision, we tried to check out the Art & History Museum, but it was closing right when we walked up to the doors at 4pm.  Instead, we took the Metro to Botanique (via the 5 to Arts-Loi, then switching to the 6) to try to check out the Botanical Garden.  However, that turned out to be closed as well; I'm not sure if it was due to the storms earlier that day (as a sign indicated) or if we were just later than their opening hours.


From there we walked back to the city center, with a detour through a street festival that we stumbled across.  We picked up some frites at Café Georgette, just about a stone's throw from our hotel; we sampled the curry ketchup and samurai sauces, with the curry ketchup easily being the more tasty of the two.  We then headed over to the Prince's Gallery to look through a prominent bookstore there, and then picked up a couple more waffles at one of the stores by the Manneken-Pis; I got a regular/Liege waffle with Nutella and ice cream, while Fran got a Brussels waffle (which she kept calling a Belgian waffle, much to the delight of a couple of the clerks) with dark chocolate and strawberries.  We took the waffles back to our favorite spot in Grand Place to eat them before stopping by Express for bottled refreshments on the way back to the hotel, where we arrived around 7:15pm.

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Pictures: https://photos.app.goo.gl/bf8ATN4xQRNDSGCu6

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