Brussels

We arrived to Brussels at about 6:00 PM. There are two parts of Brussels: the Upper Town-which has big marble palaces and broad boulevards, and the Lower Town-which has old building and narrow streets. Since it was still relatively early we decided to tour the Upper Town.

We started in the Parc de Bruxelles. There was some carnival going on so we didn't go through the middle. We walked around the outside. It was a very pretty park.
Across the street from the park is the Belgium Parliment building.

The Royal Palace is on the other side of the park. This is the office of the King of Belgium. If the flag is flying from the palace, the king is somewhere in Belgium. There was no flag. So we had no chance of running in to him. I am sure we would have recognized him. :)

From here we walked pass the Place Royale. This is just a really fancy church. They do rent out part of it for other uses. But we couldn't figure out what those were.

Next we ran into the Notre-Dame du Sablon Church. This church is known for a little statue of Mary dressed in white with a lace veil. This statue has powers that saved Brussels many times. Unfortunately it was closed by the time we got there. Then it had mass on Sunday. So we didn't get to see the statue.

Across from the church was a little garden. It was really pretty. I think Zack is starting to like the attention he gets from getting his picture taken. He also liked being out of the stroller for a while. He was running all over the garden. We were glad it wasn't too crowded. There was a nice little fountain. Zack, of course, wanted to touch the water-no we didn't let him.

There was a really good view of the church. These old churches have quite the architecture. Who knows what Zack is doing...but he is smiling.

Down the street is the under construction Palace of Justice. This was built in the 1800s. It is still used as a Hall of Justice where big court cases appear.
We really like the golden top of the dome. Very classy looking.

On the side of the Palace is a great viewpoint to see all of Brussels. It was a great view. Zack again loved walking all over.

We returned to our hotel for a good nights rest. Then headed out in the morning to tour the Lower Town. We started in the Grand Place. This is the center of Brussels. This square was filled with chocolate shops, waffles, cafes, lace and flowers. The first thing everyone sees in the Town Hall. It is massive! It is pretty impressive. The building were all topped with statues. They were all pretty cool looking. We checked out the inside of the town hall. The outside is definitely the better part.

We thought it was funny to see this Australian Ice Cream shop right in the middle of Brussels. I didn't know Australia had good ice cream. But apparently it is good enough to be sold in Brussels next to Italian ice cream.

Every time Zack see any kind of sculpture of an animal. He has to stand by it and smile while we take his picture. Then we has to feed it out of his hands and of course pet it. He was very excited to see this elephant.
We were excited to see the Chocopolis behind the elephant. We went inside to check it out. They gave each of us a free sample, even a whole one for Josh. He really liked that.

Next we walked down the street to the Galeries Royales St. Hubert. This is Europe's oldest still-operating shopping mall. It was glassed covered. It had stores that made custom hats and canes. There was a store to make shoes custom to your foot. They all made them right there in the store. It was a pretty neat mall.

Next we walked down the Rue des Bouchers. I have never seen so many restaurants in one place. This is all this street had. It was amazing how many tables were squished into such a little area. Plus it seemed like they all sold the same thing: Mussels. We just could not get ourselves to eat Mussels in Brussels. We are not fish eaters and we just could not do it.

The Church of St. Nicolas was our next stop. It was a smaller church than we had been seeing. But, as always, very beautiful inside. It is always interesting to see the different statues of people and all the candles under them. It was interesting to see that the candle and match cost. You want to ask for a blessing, please pay here.

On our walk to the highlight of Brussels: Manneken-Pis. We passed this. This is a statue of the Mayor of Brussels who would not surrender the keys of the city to invaders. So we was tortured and killed. The legend is if you touch him, you will get good luck. So of course I had to touch him.

We finally got to the Manneken-Pis:


Originally, in 1619, this was made to provide drinking water to the neighborhood. Now it is the pride of Brussels. We had to run just to get a picture with it.

It is really funny how proud this city is of this little guy. He is made out of chocolate, metal, lace, you name it and they have it. It really made me smile to see these in almost every chocolate shop we passed. Zack kept asking "What is that?" I'm not sure he quite understands.

Of course, we had some more waffles and fries before heading out of the country. We really, really liked Belgium. It made the list of where we want to come back to someday. The buildings were amazing. We think it is a very classy country (well, to visit, at least.)