What We Did, Saw, and Ate
It’s been a bit since I’ve written a travel diary, Shelby has done the last several. But I’m happy to share our first stop in Belgium with you guys today. We first decided to head to Belgium after my friend Kristen went to Brugge last year. She said it was her favorite place she’s been, and talked about it so much I was intrigued. After looking into it a little more, along with other cities in Belgium, we decided to do a whole Belgium trip, basically a new city every day, and Kristen came along! We flew direct to Brussels from JFK. Kristen took the train in from England (where she is currently living) and we met up at the train station ready to set out and explore. We only had a short time in Brussels, about 6 hours, so to make the most of it we only hit the top tourist spots.
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Our first stop was lunch! I’m not sure how she does it, but Shelby always finds the most amazing restaurants when we travel to a new place. She has a running list of places she wants to eat around the world. You can tell what our priorities are… ha ha. So for our first meal in Belgium, we headed to Peck 47 and had our first Belgian waffles! We all ordered the same thing, the cheesy waffle, which consisted of a leek waffle covered in cheese and topped with a poached egg. It was delicious!
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With full tummies, we set off to explore a bit more, popping into any cute shops that looked interesting. We explored the town, seeing The Grand Palace, Galleries St. Hubert, the Museum of Cocoa & Chocolate, and popped into Le Compotir de Mathilde to sample some Belgian chocolate.
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From there we took the metro out to the Atomium Statue. This landmark building was originally constructed for the 1958 World’s Fair, and is now a museum. You can take the lift up to the top, where you get a pretty view of the city, and then tour through several of the other levels on your way down. After spending an hour or so walking around, we hopped on the metro back to the train station downtown and headed off to Antwerp. More on that stop of our journey soon!
Have you ever been to Brussels? What was your favorite thing you did?
-Ash