heysel and brussels (belgium day 3)

21.03.2011

We decided to spend our last day in Belgium by having a city walk around Brussels. So again, we transformed ourselves into tourists: pointing stuff and looking into maps.

We spent some time taking photos in Ruisbroek, where our hotel was. Then we had to wait for a while at the train station because we didn’t realise the change of schedule between weekend and weekdays.

The houses of Ruisbroek

Ruisbroek

Pink trash bags

A door knocker

Ruisbroek train station

It was a nice early spring day, so there are still leafless trees and they had a totally beautiful blue sky as the background 🙂

leafless trees

leafless branches

leafless branches

leafless trees

Our first destination was the Atomium. This Brussels landmark was absolutely not to be missed. With total height of 102 meters, the construction of the gigantic iron atom structure was a marvellous sight.

atomium

a-to-mi-uuumm

atomium

atomium

atomium

the belgian flag on top

atomiumIt was a super ambitious project created for the same purpose as the Eiffel tower: World Exposition. The Atomium was built for the World Expo 1958. Visitors could go to five out of nine balls (or atoms), of which the top most atom being the panoramic room.

The drawback of the Atomium (in particular compared to Eiffel tower) was that it is located outside the city centre. So the panoramic view was not that nice. (Well of course Paris has one of the best city plans anyway..

Atomium is located at the Heysel square, and football enthusiasts might have recognise the name “Heysel” from the worst football tragedy in history which killed 39 people.

from the top of atomium

heysel stadium

view from the top

We could also see the stadium from the Atomium (hey, that rhymes). We saw the Europapark from above as well, but we didn’t go there since we didn’t feel like going there anyway..

Other Atomium balls were filled with both permanent and temporary exhibitions. The permanent one was about the Expo 58, while the temporary one was about the stars (and astronomy in general).

between the balls

love the green barrister!

space invader

exhibition

Stepping out from the Atomium, we took touristy photos and had our first ice cream of the year. It was the first day of spring after all! 🙂

ice cream!

cherry blossom – the sign of spring

from winter to spring

ice cream

..And I took some photos for leafless trees (again)

it’s like

ice cream

Then, we went to the city centre of Brussels. It was quite a small city so everything was within walking distance. We went to the Grote Markt/Grand Place, the Manneken Pis, and his fake cousin Jeanneke Pis.

gargoyle

brussels

grand place

manneken pis

jeanneke pis

manneken pis en jeanneke pis

We had another Belgian beer session (I had my favourite Leffe blond) and wrote a postcard to Maarten’s parents.

writing a postcard

leffe blond

a street musician

writing a postcard

As we walked to the station, Maarten finally found a nice pack of frites (Belgian fries) after having several failed ones, hoera!

in bruges (belgium day 2)

20.03.2011

No, it is not about the movie in which Colin Farrell received Golden Globe in 2008.

Bruges (or Brugge in Dutch) was the second city we visited in Belgium. Maarten told me that there was no particular interesting spot to visit, but the beauty of the whole city itself that was worth visiting.

And he was right.

Bruges was one of those typical small European cities that were filled with old houses, churches, and cobblestone roads. However, it was also like Volendam; those who went there were tourists. And loads of them. We went there on a sunny Sunday, so the number of tourists was even magnified. It felt like going to Amsterdam in the summer. Minus the smell of the joints.

In my opinion, Bruges was really similar to a mix of Dordrecht and Maastricht. It was filled with old red bricks houses and canals through the heart of the city, with several tall Catholic churches.

All we did in Bruges was basically just a city tour, walking from one tourist site to another, like: Onze Lieve Vrouwenkerk (Church of Our Lady), Princely Beguinage Ten Wijngaarde, and walking through the famous canals of Bruges.

a train to Bruges

waffle for breakfast

typo

And of course we went to the tower of Belfry (Dutch: Belfort), the 83-meter-high tower which allowed you to see the entire city from the top. We climbed the tower’s 366 steps, and had a half panoramic view from the top. It was half panoramic because the tower was under restoration.

On the way to the top of the tower there were some stops, and one of them was a small room showing how the musical bells worked. I was always curious how they did this, having lived close to the Leiden’s stadhuis (town hall) for almost 2 years.

Belfort

Belfort

from the top of the tower

from the top of the tower

from the top of the tower

from the top of the tower

a drawing on the wall

walking down the stairs

the musical bells mechanism

the musical bells mechanism

Basically they worked like the draaiorgel (barrel organ), yet unlike draaiorgel which used one continuous fax-paper-like plates, the tower bells used one huge piece of plates transformed into the shape of a circle.

After climbing the tower, we felt like we had accomplished our mission. Yet the day was still sunny and bright so we decided to go for a little more stroll in the city. We went to the stadhuis and burg, but we didn’t go in. We merely took photos from outside like the tourist majority did.

We wanted to end our day in Brugge by having a nice Belgian dinner, however it was not possible because the restaurant that we went to (called ‘t Schrijvertje, due to its location at the Guido Gezelleplein — Guido Gezelle was a famous writer from Bruges) only started cooking their dinner at 6, while we needed to leave the city by 7.

So we had a dinner at an awful fast food restaurant at Brussel Zuid station instead. Again, we took “our” two-wagon train back to Noisepants at 22.26, the last train to that small deserted station.

Anyway, we went to some nice shops in Brugge. We ended up buying some tea (I bought the poets’ tea) and a box of chocolates for ourselves :p

In Bruges, I took photos of a whole lot of leafless trees. They were really nice, although some of them are similar to those in the Netherlands. But still, I was really happy taking photos of those trees.