A Quick Tour of Brussels

After our time at the Palace of Versailles the bus took us back to the dock in Paris to meet the Viking Kari who sailed on with us.

The next morning we loaded up one final time and said Au Revoir to Paris.  We boarded a high speed train to Brussels.  It traveled at about 180 mph so you couldn't even enjoy the scenery because it was all a big blur.

Viking came through again with a five star hotel.

It was very luxurious and I highly recommend if you're ever in Brussels.  Viking has a representative at the hotel and she took us around the neighborhood to point out grocery stores, pharmacies, and several restaurants.  It was very helpful because we wouldn't have found the restaurant street on our own.

The next morning we went on our last walking tour of the trip. 

The square in old town Brussels is mesmerizing.  It's named the Grand-Place and was built between the 11th and 17th centuries.

You stand in the middle of the square and have 360 degree breathtaking views.

I think Irv was even a little awe struck.

The detail was impressive.

We also visited the Atomium which was built for the Brussels World Fair in 1958.

We didn't have time, but they do allow visits into the structure.  There's an elevator in the center and stairs take you to six of the nine spheres.  Our guide told us they have school groups come spend the night there  Wouldn't that be fun?  It originally was covered with aluminum, but during a renovation in the early 2000s it was replaced with stainless steel to make it shiny.

Once again we ditched the tour group and went off on our own.  This was a fancy shopping mall.

There were chocolatiers everywhere!  Some of them had chocolate that was hundreds of Euros per pound.  I love chocolate, but not that much!

We had to visit Manneken Pis, a naked boy peeing bronze statue.  It dates back to the 16th century and has many legends as to why it's there.  Supposedly he has many outfits that he wears throughout the year, but on this day he was just naked.

We visited a cathedral, I think it was named St. Michaels.

We found a geocache. (and by We I mean Irv found a geocache.)

For some reason we decided to ride this huge Ferris wheel.  There were only a couple other passengers and the operator just let it go around and around.  It was a little scare at the top.

Beautiful views.

Interesting sculpture on top of one of the buildings

We couldn't visit Brussels without a visit to the Royal Galleries.

One side of the gallery hosts the Magritte Museum who was from Belgium.

If you aren't familiar with Rene Magritte just let me tell you he's a little different.  He started as an impressionist but later transitioned to a surrealist.

He's a surrealist who depicts familiar objects in unexpected ways.  The painting above made me question his mental health.  Did he suffer from depression?  The mask in front of the face makes me feel for all the people who suffer from mental illness and have to put on a mask to make through every day life. (Just my POV)

I have no interpretation of this....do you?

A lot of his works feature eggs.  Why?

The one painting of Magritte's that I was really hoping to see is named "The Son of Man".  So I had to google where it is.  It's in somebody's private collection.  Darn.

Then we moved upstairs to the Old Master's Gallery.  I love the old altar tri-folds.

I don't have many pics of the old masters because they are full of gloom and doom.  They remind me of Trump's campaign of fear mongering.  The sky is falling, the immigrants are coming for you, World War III is right around the corner, the country is failing, lock up your pets, etc.  

I love Peter Bruegel and was thrilled to find some of his work there.

They had a Dutch masters section and I think this is a Rembrandt painting.  I like his technique.

I don't know who did this one, but I like the blue and brown together.  It's very soft and easy to view.

One our walk back to the hotel we passed the Palace of Justice.  It's been surrounded by scaffolding since 1984.

This is the pretty side of the building.  It's massive--bigger than St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican and is the largest courthouse in the world.  In was inaugurated in 1866.

The scaffolding has been there for so long that it now needs its own renovation because it's rusting away.  The city hopes to have the steel cage completely removed by 2030 in time for Belgium's 200th birthday.

We found an Italian restaurant for dinner and I enjoyed my last Aperol Spritz.  Irv and I were both exhausted and ready to go home.  Our trips are packed with experiences and thousands of steps per day.  I loved every minute of it!