Thursday, July 01, 2010

Brussels/Brussel/Bruxelles (Part 2)

We really had no idea where to go or what to do in Brussels. I didn't do any research on it as I wanted to be surprised. All I knew about it was that it had really nice buildings from my searches for hotels. So we just walked around aimlessly, following our feet. And we stumbled upon so many nice things!


I love what they did with the wall murals. It's not just random abstract art, but it's actually street life (might even be this particular street, in fact) and I think it's so cool how through the years you can see how the place may have changed. Also, the style of these gigantic wall paintings are very similar, almost comic-style (Belgium is famous for their comics), so it gives a kind of uniformity to the city.


Same view as before, but from across the road. We first sat at Cafe Lombard (on the left of the photo) then Schrobbenmaster decided that the bar across the street called De Plattesteen looked nicer. Good call!

Actually, we came onto this road earlier in the afternoon and somehow wound up back here again at night, which is why we decided to drink our must-have Belgian beer here.


The buildings here look so Parisian. And once again, so amusing how all signboards have both French and Dutch names on them. How do they even decide what to put on their business cards, I wonder.


That's like a mini old Times Square in front, with the old Coca Cola billboard. This is me having just come out of a Leonidas store to buy the required Belgian chocolate. Truffles are always my choice!


I actually look nice in this picture *gasp*. When walking all day on a hot summer's day, you need a fresh drink at regular intervals. This time we had two milkshakes because, man, juices are expensive. And all ice teas are fizzy! Grr.

After that, we headed to the regular shopping street - as in, regular high street shops, nothing special. It was sooooo friggin crowded because they were having a sale, and the Yves Rocher shop with body and face stuff was even all on 50% discount! I walked in, saw the queue and squeezed out. Boy, oh, boy.

After a few shops, we couldn't take the crowd and the heat, so we veered off to the parallel road and stumbled upon a very peaceful square with a statue in the middle. It was too sunny and hot to walk over to read his name, though, so... apologies for the weakness of my human body.


The heat had taken its toll on my truffles so we hurriedly squished them into our mouths.


For such a grand city it's funny that the road we were on is called Parsley Street. Anyway, here's another signboard for your viewing pleasure.


I like the way they landscaped one corner of the square with bushy tree hedges.

We walked on, back to a busier area, through a nice little park area and found a very tall, grand church.


And some queer, vandalised bulls in the little park area.


End of Part 2! Time to get ready for bed, and hopefully Part 3 tomorrow, amongst all the house cleaning and preparations for Mumsy Bumsy and Yelleh Belleh's arrival a week from now! Yippee!

4 comments:

Mumsy said...

niceeee! wish i was there

frachely said...

love what u wore! I check my mailbox everyday and I don't see any belgian choc, explain this, please.

bea. said...

such lovely pics! love that dress, and you look great! wish i could put up some nice pics of myself. but the weather's just plain crappy. Super windy today, we have winds blowing up to 100kmh.

shoobaba said...

bea: 100km/h is seriously windy. i can imagine the suffering! ouch!

frachely: oops, i think the cat ate it?