3 Days in Brussels

The heart of Europe and the heart of Belgium, the country where I live. Still, I have barely any knowledge about this city. Bad, isn’t it? That was my feeling anyway. I knew a lot more about cities abroad than about my capital. So I thought it was time to plan a little city-trip to discover what Brussels has to offer.

When I told friends and family that I was going to Brussels for a few days, they looked at me as if I said that I was going to live in a cave. ‘Huh, Brussels? What could you possibly do there?’ The name of any random city in Belgium probably got a better reaction than Brussels. Everyone I know has been to Brussels at least once, but never really took the time to explore the city. That and the fact that we Belgians are extremely humble probably explains this reaction that I loved to prove wrong after my visit.

07/08/2019

So there I stood, with my sister on the platform of the railway station. Backpack on, suitcase in hand waiting for the train to bring us to a place which we were familiar with, but at the same time still so unknown. It only took us an hour to arrive in Brussels central station. We turned on google maps (our absolute saviour during this trip) to go to our hotel so that we could leave our luggage there.

We stayed in the easyHotel Brussels City Centre which is a nice, budget-friendly hotel right in the centre of Brussels. It’s located in a narrow and kind of vague street, but within 10 minutes walking, you’re at the Grand Place. The rooms are clean and modern and have almost everything you need. The only things we missed were a fridge and more storage space because there is only one small table where you can put some things.

The rooms don’t get cleaned every day unless you pay for it. If you stay 5 nights or more, you get a cleaning for free. We only stayed for 2 nights, so cleaning wasn’t really necessary for us. If you want fresh towels you can just get them at the reception desk as well as a hairdryer and flatiron. The staff at the reception is super friendly and willing to help. They speak French and English, and some also Dutch. There is a self-check-in and check-out desk. We only used the self check-out and that was super easy.

There is no breakfast in the hotel, but Brussels has so many good breakfast places to offer (also very close to the hotel) that this wasn’t a problem.

So not the most luxurious hotel there is, but good enough and a recommendation if you’re on a budget!

If you want to check out this hotel, click on the following link to go to their booking.com page: https://tinyurl.com/easybrussels *

Fancy something different? No problem! Click on the following link to see more/all accommodations in Brussels through booking.com: https://tinyurl.com/yxsqsv7y *

* These links are affiliate links.

After having paid three euros to leave our suitcase at the hotel (three euros for 24h, only payable by card), we walked to the nearest metro station (five minutes walking from the hotel) to go to the Atomium. Although it’s the most famous symbol of Brussels, it’s a 30-minute metro ride from the centre. We booked our tickets online to go at 10 am, the time that the Atomium opens. It costs a bit more online, you have to pay €0,75 more per ticket, but it’s so worth it because even when we arrived, there was a long queue at the ticket office which we could skip and go directly to the entrance.

In about 20 seconds you go with an elevator to the top where you have an amazing view of the surroundings. On the website of the Atomium, you can find more information about the audio guide they have, which I would recommend because it tells you so much more about what you see and about the history of the Atomium. After this panorama, you go down again with the elevator and then take an escalator to the other bulbs where there is an exposition about Expo 58 and the Atomium itself. There is a special place in one of the bulbs where there is a light- and music show which was nice to see.

At noon we wanted to get our lunch at Tonton Garby, a sandwich shop which I found on TripAdvisor during my preparations for this trip. When we arrived there, a paper on the door said that he was on leave so eventually, we went to get some fries nearby. In my whole life that I live here in Belgium, I’ve never got so much sauce with my fries. At a certain moment, I was eating mayonnaise with fries instead of fries with mayonnaise. But actually, the fries were very good which I did not expect from such a tourist-focused place.

At 13h30, we had planned a free walking tour of the centre of Brussels with Viva’s tour. Our guide was Wanda, one of the most enthusiastic persons I’ve ever met. The weird thing was that she isn’t Belgian. I think she’s from Poland but I’m not sure. She has lived in many places and now lives in Brussels for already some time.

It was weird getting guided around by a foreigner in your capital, but this walking tour was such an amazing experience that this didn’t matter. She showed us Brussels with a whole lot of enthusiasm and we learned a lot as well. Of course, it wasn’t all new information, but both for foreigners and Belgians this tour is super interesting and I can recommend it! This tour is available in both English and Spanish and takes 2 hours.

A week or 2 before this trip, I found a travel guide about Brussels in a bookshop, 100% Brussels (now it’s called Time to Momo). I love reading this kind of books because it gives me an idea about what’s to see and do there. The book also has 6 walking tours to explore to city, and I thought it was a good idea to do 3 of them. Each day that we were in Brussels one.

After checking-in in the hotel, we went on the first walking tour which was in the centre and the Flemish district. Soon enough I realised that I’m even worse at reading maps than I thought (but to be honest, I think there was something wrong with the map as well), so I turned on google maps which guided us from stop to stop.

I must say that I was quite disappointed with these walks. They’re quite long (the shortest one is 5 km but we didn’t do this one.) It’s true that these walks go off the beaten track and show you attractions, restaurants and shops which you maybe wouldn’t pass by normally, but not all these things interested us. It was nice that these walks took us to places where we wouldn’t come otherwise, but it’s not that it would have been a loss if we didn’t do these walking tours.

If you’re interested in buying one of these travel guides, go to their website (https://www.timetomomo.com/en/) and book your accommodation there through booking.com. According to the price of your accommodation, you’ll receive one of the walks digital, the app of the city or even the paper guide, for free!

In the evening we wanted to have dinner at Monk bar. A bar wherein the back they serve spaghetti for a good price. As well as that noon, also Monk bar was on leave so we went to Bavet instead which was nearby. They’re also a spaghetti restaurant, with the special twist that you get a bib to eat because ‘bavet’ is the Flemish dialect word for a bib.

Me and my sister both took a pasta pesto, which was quite disappointing. The pesto was used in a sort of oil, without a real sauce so there wasn’t a lot of taste. The portions are big though.

This restaurant is located at the Place St. Cathérine, which is a super cosy square with tons of restaurants for everyone’s taste. The fishmarket is nearby which has the same kind of cosy atmosphere and this seems like a great place to relax near the water.

08/08/2019

Time for breakfast! I love breakfast if I don’t have to make it myself because I’m way too lazy for that in the morning. We went to Charli, a bakery near the Place St. Cathérine where we dined the evening before. It’s a cute little place with delicious (and big) chocolate buns, croissants and many more things! Also great coffee and for a good price! Unfortunately, they don’t speak Dutch, so French or English it is.

After this, we started our second walking tour of the travel guide to the Museum district, Matonge & St-Boniface district. We passed by the Royal Palace, which you can visit during the summer for free! It’s nice to do and it sounds fancy that you went inside the royal palace, but it’s not that spectacular. Be prepared for a bunch of rooms that all look alike. In one room technopolis (a science and technology museum for kids in Mechelen) set out a fun bunch of experiments. If I’m not mistaken it’s also in that room that the ceiling and a chandelier are covered with beetles. In the throne room, there are uniforms from this and previous kings which were also nice to see.

Luckily the entree was free because otherwise, it would have been a waste of money.

As the weather changed and raindrops fell, we decided to lunch at Brod because this also got some great reviews on Tripadvisor. On the inside it looked nice, the tables a bit squeezed together but anyway. I choose for a salat with mozzarella and tomatoes. I thought it was super nice that I got some bread with it, but the salat itself was drowning in balsamic vinegar. I do like balsamic vinegar, but there are limits and this salat crossed those. You also have to pay extra if you want to eat there. One euro more for sandwiches and three euros more for a salat, which I think is ridiculous so altogether this place was quite disappointing to me. Also, no Dutch speaking staff.

At 13h00 we had again booked a free guided walking tour with Viva’s tour, but this time a tour through the European quarter. I can’t remember the name of our guide, but he came from Venezuela and was absolutely the nicest! When he heard that we were Belgian he instantly felt pressured, which was not necessary. I think I enjoyed this tour even more than the previous one! Even though the European quarter is still quite touristy, it’s a lot calmer than in the city centre. A lot of things we saw were also new to me so I thought it was all so interesting and I learned a lot in a super fun way! When you go to Brussels you should book these two free walking tours for sure! This tour is also available in English and Spanish and also takes 2 hours.

This is the website of the company that organises these walking tours: https://www.vivastour.com/en/brussels

The walking tour of our travel guide which we started in the morning still wasn’t finished, so we did that after this free walking tour. Looking back, we really shouldn’t have done that. The tour took us to Sint-Gillis, which is part of Brussels but not the city centre. We ended up in the Avenue Louise which is an amazing street to shop, but so is the Rue Neuve and now we were more than half an hour walking away from the city centre. We did walk past a shop that looked amazing: The Barn. We didn’t go inside but from the outside, it looked like a zero-waste, organic shop with things like rice in big bags.

Crazy cat lady as I am, I looked up if there was a cat cafe in Brussels. While walking on the Avenue Louise, we weren’t far away from it, but I thought it was only open on Friday evening and at the weekend, and it was Thursday when we were there. I was wrong though, it’s also open on Thursday so that was a massive missed opportunity.

If you’re interested in visiting the cat cafe, this is their website: https://lenewchattouille.be/

We were planning on going to eat that evening at Ballekes, a restaurant which is located near the Grand Place, but also one near the Place St.-Cathérine… and one near the Avenue Louise! Because we were so close, we thought to eat there and take a well-deserved break. It was 18u20 and we were standing in front of a closed door. It only opened there at 18u30 which I think is crazy late. We didn’t have the patience to wait for these 10 minutes, and we weren’t that hungry either, so we started our way back to the centre. More than 30 minutes of walking.

On our way back we passed the palace of justice, which is a beautiful building and has after 30 years of renovation still a scaffolding. It’s built on a hill, so from there you have an amazing view of the city.

You can’t imagine how happy we were when we finally reached Ballekes near the Grand Place. There was one table for two persons left outside, which I prefer over inside, even though it was quite a busy street. At ballekes, you chose the type of meatball you want (also vegetarian!) and the sauce you want it with. They also have various side dishes to go with it. It was surprisingly good, and not expensive! We only took one ball with a side dish, but if you’re very hungry two balls are probably better. We were still craving a dessert so we went to the street of Manneke Pis to get a waffle. My sister a ‘Luikse wafel/Gaufre de Liège’ which is one with pieces of sugar in it, and for me a ‘Brusselse wafel/Gaufre de Bruxelles’. I made the mistake there to chose Nutella and strawberries as toppings which are not necessary in the first place, but also crazy expensive. For both the Nutella and strawberries it was two euros extra, which I of course only noticed when I had to pay.

We took those waffles to our hotel to eat it there in peace, after having walked almost 24 kilometres that day.

09/08/2019

After that intense day of walking the day before, I changed the place where we should go have breakfast (l’Aubette), to a place nearby (Delish). When we arrived at the address of this restaurant, we noticed that instead of a breakfast restaurant, there now was an Asian restaurant which isn’t really our kind of thing in the morning. Luckily there was a ‘Food maker’ a few houses further which was perfect for breakfast. They have a big assortment, the staff was very nice and it was also really cosy sitting there. It’s not very cheap though.

Also on our last day, we did a walking tour out of the travel guide, this time the European Quarter & the Squares. Just like the previous walks, it was quite unnecessary and not that interesting. The fact that it was a rainy day made it not better. We passed by the museum of natural sciences, which I wanted to visit for so long, so that’s what we did. The most interesting for me was the room about the first humans and their evolution to the homo sapien.

Where I was the most excited about were the dinosaurs. The skeletons there were probably not real, but it was still amazing to see them. The room where they were in was the biggest, and also the busiest. The museum is excellent for children, and in that room, they seemed to have lots of fun.

It was noon, we were hungry and the museum has a cafe where you can eat so that decision was easy. They have quite a big choice for being a museum cafe, and their panini’s with mozzarella and tomato are not bad at all.

It was again quite a walk back to the city centre, about 30 minutes. We didn’t have a plan, I just wanted to get an eyeshadow palette from Urban Decay, so we went to the Avenue Louise. In the end, you have the shopping centre ‘City 2’, where they have a complete floor with all sorts of different food stalls with in the middle tables to eat. Too bad we didn’t discover this earlier because this is amazing if you and your company don’t fancy the same food.

And so we ended our trip just like we started it with getting our suitcase at the hotel and walking to the railway station to get the train home.

Some extras

We stayed for 3 days in Brussels but 2 days are enough if you want to see the most important things.
The coffee bar ‘GRUUN’ seemed amazing to me. It looks like a combination of a coffee bar and a plant shop. Unfortunately, we didn’t go here, but it might be an interesting place to visit.
At the Vivaqua building in Brussels, there is a tap where you can get free water!
Brussels is really easily accessible by train. It has various railway stations so there is always one close to where you have to go.

In short: Do and don’t

Don’t: Walking tours of the Time to Momo travel guides.

Do: Free guided walking tours by Viva’s tour! Both City Center and European Quarter!

Conclusion of the city

Brussels has so many things to offer in terms of food, architecture, musea, shopping and many more. In some places, there’s a nice and cosy atmosphere, like at the fish market or Place St.-Cathérine. When you wander off a bit, you can come to neighbourhoods which are dull with no sense of a nice atmosphere at all.

Something that I noticed, which wasn’t very pleasant was that Brussels can be dirty and very smelly in some places. You can walk around and all of a sudden have this strong scent of human urine, which is one of the worse smells ever to me. Also, dog urine is common on the streets.

Despite this, I loved my trip to Brussels and I’m glad that after 20 years I finally made some time to explore my capital city. As I said, this city has so many things to offer, and it’s worth the visit.

I hope I could inspire you to plan a little trip to Brussels and help you with what and what not to do. If you’ve also visited Brussels, don’t be shy to leave your experience and recommendations in the comments below!

Many happy travels!

— Anke

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