This morning started with a basic, and cheaper breakfast at McDonalds.  We always check one out in every country we visit.  We did not see waffles on the menu, sad...

After breakfast we we continuing with the walking tour of Brussels.  This time heading toward the palace and museums.  The walk took us through some really nice neighbourhoods, with stops at historically important parks, and churches as well as a few fun stops like where the Manneken pis, which is a small statue of a baby pissing into a fountain.  The water flows continuously and never stops, though they do slow it down to support male prostate cancer day.  They also dress up the baby to support special organization, visitng delegates or events going on in the city.

Continuing the walk we viewed parts of the ancient ruins of Brussels, and gothic churches.  The church we stopped in probably had more stained glass than any other church I've ever seen.  Ever wall at every level was covered from top to bottom with beautifully designed stained glass.  

We stopped at their hall of justice, it has a high dome in similar style that you would find at the Vatican, or in Washington DC.  The difference is that this one sits higher than any other in the world.  The hugely shameful part is that the building is covered in scaffolding, because Napoleon had the building burnt when he invated Brussels, and they have been restoring the damage ever since, more than 100 years.  This is also a great look off point to get a view of the entire city.

Next stop was the art museum.  The Royal Museum of Fine Arts houses an enormous number of pieces of art both paintings as well as statues.  Most of the art comes from the Belgian masters.  We wandered for a couple of hours taking in the masters, but the high light was the Rene Magritte collection.

If you think you've never seen a Magritte you're likely wrong.  You just didn't know it.  He is most famous for surreal images of a man in a bowler cap with an apple covering the face.

After the art museum, we walked to the palace and then quickly through some of the gardens.  In the gardens we found some really great, and funny statues of fat cats, Krista took pictures they are hard to describe but one of them is the cat on its side on top of a crushed car, the caption reads, a cat crushes a car rather than a car crushing a cat.    Now these are not small statues and look to be made of concrete so quite big and heavy.

Waling back to the hotel we stopped in a garden that we didn't have access to on our inital walk by got some pictures, then stopped in a small cafe for some lunch.  We then made our way back to the hotel, it was starting to rain and we were getting tired, our feet just couldn't take much more so we took a break.

Around 5:30 we decided to go out and get a drink and some food.  We stopped in a long standing local pub, Le Cirio.  Its been here in the same place since 1886.  We couldn't stay for dinner but we could have a drink, I tried another of one of the 1500 beers made in Belgium as did Krista but she found a raspberry beer that she really likes.  While there we made reservations for dinner for 7;30.  We explored another section of the city and returned for our dinner, we kept it simple as it was pub food, I got the fish and chips (more Belgium fries) and Krista got the Lasagna.

Back to the hotel, to get some rest.