This morning we woke to rain, but decided to head out to get some breakfast and then go for a bit of a walking tour.
Breakfast this morning for us was waffles, good Belgium waffles, I got mine with chocolate and bananas and Krista got the plain waffle with powdered sugar.
After breakfast we walked through the rain to the lace museum. Lace was a very large industry here in Bruges, and the lace was all made by hand. Its very hard to describe how difficult it seems to make the lace, the thread is wound around a number of bobbins and by hand they are maneuvered to make the knots that lace the thread together. There is a demonstration but only in the afternoon, we will be on our way to Brussels by then so we will be missing the demonstration.
After visiting the lace museum we continued through the rain to one of the three standing windmills. These windmills stand near the moat that surrounds the city. They were initally built by the bakeries so they could produce flour from nearby grain to make their breads and pasteries. We could have, but didn't, go inside one of these windmills - the rain was coming down and we decided to make our way back to the hotel.
We got ourselves ready to head to the train station to get the train to Brussels. We asked the hotel to call for a taxi, and we waited, and waited, for about an hour. Apparently there is a shortage of taxi's as a large number of drivers are from Libya and Morocco and many had gone home to help with the rescue efforts for both the flood and the earth quake. So we decided to take the train station shuttle. It was crowded for a while but its free. We had no issues from the train station on, its just a bit confusing because the tickets are general tickets where you pay to go so far on the rail, but it doesn't seem to be specific to any train, just as long as you head in the right direction. The other strange thing about the train is that no one checks for tickets, so on both trips so far we could have just got on the train.
Arriving in Brussels, we stopped at the Brussels-Central station, this station was clearly marked with exits based on the streets, so finding the exit closest to our hotel was easy. The hotel was only a few steps from the station.
Our room is really more like a little apartment, minus the kitchen. We are on the top floor, the room has a small living area, with couch and TV then a larger area with the bed, desk(s) and coffee maker. We are in the loft area with exposed beams and vaulted ceilings. Really quite nice. The only issue is that the elevator is not working so we have to climb up three stories to get to the room.
Once we arrived, we went for a walk to just get a feel for the neighbourhood. We also started with some of the walk outlined in the Rick Steeves guide. We found the oldest indoor mall in europe Gallaries Royales Saint-Hubert, it houses some of the oldest chocolatiers in Belgium including Neuhaus, who are the inventors of the chocolate praline as we know it and enjoy today. The stores here are lined up on both sides of a grand hall and each store is really a speciality store or a cafe. There are no big brand names in this gallery. There are a number of stores that have been here since its opening back in 1847. We needed to get something to eat so we sat down a one of the cafe's, I got a coffee, Krista a tea and we each got a croque monsieur.
After a bit of food we explored the gallery a little further then returned to Neuhause chocolatiers and picked up some really nice chocolate.
I'm not sure that I've made it clear but there are chocolate shops everywhere you look, both here in Brussels and in Bruges. They take their chocolate very seriously. You have to be careful though when buying chocolate, there are some less reputable stores out there, so best to stick to those stores that have been around for a long time to get the best quality chocolate.
After making our purchase we explored the city a little further, the city is alive. Lots of people everywhere you look, lots of restaurants and bars serving up the best in french fries and beer.
We made reservations for a nice restaurant for 7:30 so we headed back to the hotel to get ready. The restaurant is as many of them are here, really small only a limitied number of tables and right off a small square. It was raining so eating outside was out of the question. The meal was great, we got a bottle of wine, and covered all basis with an appetizer, for mains I had the lamb and Krista the beef, and to finish we both got a desert, I got their signature dish which is a mocha icecream dish with chocolate covered coffee beans very good, and Krista got the profiterols with ice cream. We took our time and walked back to the hotel, taking in the main square with all the buildings lit up.