Today was a recon trip. The weather was going to be good, so we decided that it would be a good day to head to Brussels. We have special passes to get us into all of the museums and onto any buses or trams so today was going to be figuring out where we needed to go. We only have our map in our travel book (which by the way, is not very good) and I have a bad sense of direction when I’m in a city. Darn it…why can’t my Google GPS work on my phone in Europe! Anyway…the first place we came across when we got off the train was this GIANT thing:
This is Porte de Hal…the last surviving gate of the 14th Century medieval city walls that once surrounded Brussels. This picture does not even begin to show how massive it is (along with EVERY other building we saw all over the city)! Next up…this:
Apparently, when we go on vacation, we run into all kinds of renovations. You cannot see the scaffolding or cranes in this view…but on the other side of the building, it’s very apparent. This is part of the Justice building. We even saw a judge getting out of his car in his judgy outfit! 😛
This is Belgium’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (side view). It’s really a nice memorial. From here, we could see that we were up on a hill and can overlook the entire city. Here’s the view…So beautiful!:
That is an English Garden below…here is a closer picture:
Crazy right?? I know my Mom will appreciate it. 🙂 (See the crane to the left? These are all over the place.) You know who this is:
From here we walked a bit and came across this:
This is Notre Dame Church (not THE Notre Dame…but that’s the name of it here). It was built in the 14th Century and seems to have the same type of detail work as the Cologne Cathedral…right? We didn’t go inside because I don’t think it was open today. Monday’s are the day to be closed here. By this point, we’re starving…so we found a little cafe with a beer name (Leffe Cafe). By far, this was the most expensive meal we’ve had so far in Europe, but it was really good. I’ve never had one of these:
I know we can get these in the states…but I think it was my first time having one…I really enjoyed it! Keith had this:
As you can see on the bottle…this beer has been brewing since the year 1240. This particular one is a 9% and Keith definitely approved!
Now, you might be looking at this and wondering what the heck? Well…this is for my parking peeps at Pacific Cascade. I couldn’t get this thing in action (because only 1 car had passed), but apparently, as the car pulls up, and the thing on the left senses it’s there (maybe reading a card in the car?) then the thing in the middle sinks into the ground to let the car go through! Neat, right?!!?
So, after passing the parking thing, we entered here…I believe this is all part of the Royal Museum but it was closed today, so we couldn’t really tell. These are just massive.
And for the final picture of the day…we saw this ad in a newspaper while sitting on the train on the way back and I had to take a picture! You got that right! Hahahaha!! Cracks me up! It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, so I’m not sure what we’ll do…but I’m sure we’ll explore something…