5 photos for Brussels

Over Easter weekend Lyla and I headed to Belgium and the Netherlands. Our first two nights were spent in Brussels, though in actuality we only actually spent the two evenings there, since we arrived in the late afternoon Thursday and took a day trip to Brugges on Friday before leaving Saturday morning. I think it was enough time: Brussels is mainly an administrative city, and there wasn't actually all that much to see or do. It's still worth a visit, but feel free to limit yourself to a day or two.

 This is the large church that was out by the hostel where we stayed the first night. You could see it from the metro when it popped out from below ground, and it made for quite the impressive building-on-a-hill. After checking into our hostel, we wandered the neighborhood, checking out the parks, cool little art nouveau buildings, and nomming some fries. 

 We headed downtown and checked out the sights, many of which were conveniently crammed into this square, which dripped with gold plating and elaborate carving.

 This building lit up while we were in the square. Every few seconds the color would change, from red to blue to yellow to green. I liked this magenta-ish color the best.

 For dinner on Thursday night we went to a restaurant called Beer Circus. It did not disappoint: clowns everywhere (I didn't freak out at all, how I have grown) and dozens of beers on the menu. We tried several of the beers and shared a beer-beef stew and some awesome meatballs. It was a great evening. Here I am with the Mr. Darcy bowtie-wearing beer.

Friday we woke up, checked into our other hostel, and headed to Brugges. This lion was at the tomb of the unknown soldier, which we passed on the way to the train station and where they were clearly organizing some sort of memorial. This trip was great for my lion statue photo collection. The train station was the only place on the whole trip where we were frustrated at disorganization, and I wound up yelling at a Spaniard. Things happen. After returning to Brussels in the evening, we had some more lovely beers at the hostel bar and called it an early night because the next day we were waking up early to head to the Netherlands!