We arrived on Friday night and headed out for a good meal. First stop...mussels and frites! We found this wonderful place down in a basement. Here is Roshana about to dig into her bucket of mussels.
Many of the candy/chocolate shops were opening late at night. Here is one stop we ended up in. So many sweets!
The next morning we started our day off with a walk through the city. We took a self guided tour supplied by our tour book. Here is a picture on our walk.
We also enjoyed the window shopping!
One of the first stops was the Galeries St-Hubert, which is one of the oldest shopping arcades in Europe. It was built in 1847. It was built in the neo-renaissance style with a vaulted glass roof.
While we were there, we stopped for our first meal of the day. You well see that eating is a major theme throughout this trip!
We then walked on to the modern main shopping street.
From there, we then saw the Flemish government building.
As we walked around the city, we came across beautiful buildings. Unfortunately, this one had been destroyed by a huge Coca-Cola sign on the top!
We then headed over to a small church that was closed unfortunately. However, it had a wonderful red door.
As we walked around, you could see old parts of the city merged with the new.
This was a funny poster we came across at one of the newsstands. Nobel Peace Prize winner spreads peace to his dog through football! :o
Then we passed the old meat market. It was converted to a nice art space.
Here is the La Bourse, the Brussels Stock Exchange. It was completed in 1873 and built in the Palladian style (whatever that means). Much prettier then ours!
We then ended out time in the Grand Place. It was beautiful and surrounded by amazing buildings. It is a huge square. Here is a shot of the Hotel De Ville built in 1459, which is Brussels town hall.
Here I am standing in front of the Maison de Roi, which was built in 1536. It was first home to one of the ruling Spanish monarchs, but is now home to a museum. You can see it was rather cold.
The top of the building was even more impressive.
Here is a video of the square so you can get the full affect.After seeing the square, we got lunch and headed back out to see the town. Here is a shot higher up in the city, with the town hall in the background.
We decided to hit the modern art museum. After the museum, we walked by this museum which we joked about visiting. It is now the museum of instruments. It is a beautiful art nouveau building built in 1899. It was built for the Old England company who wanted it as a department store.
We then walked onto the Royal Quarter. Here is the Palais Royal. It is the official home of the Belgium monarch. I would have liked to visit it, but it was not open for the fall.
We then walked through the Parch de Bruxelles in front of the Palace. It had this really fun art throughout.
The last place we visited for the day was the Cathedrale Sts Michel et Gudule, which is the national church of Belgium.
By this point, we were exhausted, so we headed out to find dinner. Throughout the day, we kept passing these bike stands. It was a rental bike service. It was way cool!
We ended the night at this great restaurant. Here is Roshana eating Stoemp Saucisse (sausage and mash), which is one of the traditional Belgium foods.
As eating is the theme, the next morning we starting breakfast off with a bang. At this place, on every table there were tons of different things to put on our fresh bread. Of course, I had to try them all! Here is my plate/pallet with blackberry jam, white chocolate spread (yes chocolate!), nutella like spread, and red berry jam. Roshana just laughed at me as I tried them all.
We walked around the city some more. And did some window shopping!
We visited a few more churches.....they seemed to be everywhere.
We then visited the famous Manneken Pis, which is a tiny (don't let my photo fool you in size) statue of a young boy peeing into a small pool. It was rather weird. Mostly because there were tons of tourists around and they were buying chocolate statues of the nude boy from the nearby stores to eat!
After so much walking, of course we had to try the street waffles. They were excellent.
As we were going in and out of chocolate shops, we came across the Planete Chocolat. They had 1 hour chocolate making classes to introduce people to the art. We decided to take a class!
They needed a volunteer and no one would help......so I jumped in. Here I am pouring chocolate into a mold. I was told I was like a professional and he thought I had done it before. He said most people get chocolate all over them when they do it the first time.
It was great fun. After walking some more, we came across this building. It was an art exhibit called the “Heavenly Lanterns–Tea House” designed by Chinese artist Gu Wenda. This building had over 5,000 lanterns put on it, in the shape of a pavilion to celebrate the China Art Festival in Brussels. It was pretty neat.
We ended our Brussels trip by heading to the Parc du Cinquantenaire. It was one of Leopold II's grand projects in 1880. It is a park with a huge arch at one end with two exhibition halls an either side. 
We walked around the park and then headed back to our hotel. It was a great trip and I think more people should visit Brussels!
