Enjoying some winter wonders in Brussels… COMPLETED About This Page:

[chezp]

Sunday 7 December – part five: we’re allowed in here with this going on?

We headed back into the freezing cold, and suddenly it felt colder than before. I thought it was supposed to get warmer as the day wore on, but apparently not… I got some photos as we walked along:



We made our way over to the Metro station here, and headed down to the platform, finding this on the way, which was a bit surreal.



I liked this display on the platform, which told you where all the trains on a particular route were at any one time. Now if only all systems did this!



We got off by the royal park, and I figured we’d walk through there, but after a couple of minutes, it really didn’t look that interesting…



…so we decided to head out and go and look for the cathedral instead.

As we walked along, we figured we might have found it…



We headed inside, and were greeted with this gallery of photos, made up of Papal visits and Royal weddings.



I was a bit staggered that we’d been allowed inside, given that there was a service going on. I grabbed some subtle photos, unlike others who were merrily taking photos with flash – during a church service!



We ended up sitting down to listen to some of the service, but we couldn’t follow it. It was all a bit bizarre, and when the organ was playing, at times it really did sound like it was out of tune. As for the sermon, well it was in French, and while I could understand most of the words, the sense of it didn’t really come out for me. It was still fascinating that we were able to sit there and listen to it. I just never expected to be able to do something like this. If I was religious (and I’m not), then I’m not sure how I’d feel about people turning up to watch a service I was participating in…

We headed back outside…



… and made our way down towards the city, seeing some unusual sights on the way:



We were soon back in the centre of Brussels:



It was about now that we were saying that we could both do with sitting down somewhere, and perhaps getting a hot chocolate to warm up, so we started to look out for possible places, but saw nothing as we walked along. There were restaurants, but I think we both felt that a full meal would be excessive, as we were still full from lunch. We found ourselves back in the Grand Place:



I figured we’d walk down to see if Manneken Pis was back to his usual au natural state today, and my goodness, this wasn’t a great call, as the wind was literally coming straight at us, making us feel even more cold.

We found the little guy, and sure enough, my information was right, and the St. Nicholas outfit had gone, and he was restored to his usual look…



Next: I know what has to be open on a Sunday….

[cubfancolleen]

Hope you find some hot chocolate soon! The pictures look cold!
The cathedral is beautiful. I assume for those who attend services there regularly, they expect a certain number of tourists to wander through. It's certainly the case at say St. Patrick's in New York City. The flash photography does seem over the top, though. Common sense should tell someone not to do that.....but then again, we know there are lots of people without common sense, don't we?

[Disneybine]

Magnificent buildings all around! I have to admit, I just can't get used to that Manneken-Pis

[chezp]

Originally Posted by cubfancolleen

Hope you find some hot chocolate soon! The pictures look cold!

It was very cold, but at least it felt Christmassy. It's decidedly mild over here - temperatures have been in the mid 50s and it really doesn't feel like winter right now. Mind you, part of me is fine with that, at least I don't have to wrap up!

The cathedral is beautiful. I assume for those who attend services there regularly, they expect a certain number of tourists to wander through. It's certainly the case at say St. Patrick's in New York City. The flash photography does seem over the top, though. Common sense should tell someone not to do that.....but then again, we know there are lots of people without common sense, don't we?

Sadly true.

[chezp]

Originally Posted by Disneybine

Magnificent buildings all around! I have to admit, I just can't get used to that Manneken-Pis

He's certainly an odd little thing.

[disney_duke]

The cathedral is gorgeous. That ceiling! And massive stained glass, wow!

(I find it funny that twice now between this TR and the DLParis one, your daily updates included being on an underground train at the same time.... It's the little things that amuse me..... )

[chezp]

Originally Posted by disney_duke

The cathedral is gorgeous. That ceiling! And massive stained glass, wow!

(I find it funny that twice now between this TR and the DLParis one, your daily updates included being on an underground train at the same time.... It's the little things that amuse me..... )

It is funny how these things pan out, isn't it?

[chezp]

Sunday 7 December – part six: I know what has to be open on a Sunday….

We carried on our search for a café, but found either pubs that were packed or lots of places that were shut. Brussels seems to still suffer the problems that lots of continental Europe does in terms of shops and restaurants being closed on a Sunday. We saw one of the big shopping malls later, and that was completely closed. I still can’t get used to that, having had Sunday trading in the UK for over 20 years. It’s such a foreign concept to me to have everything closed on a Sunday.

We figured that we knew one place that wouldn’t be closed, and sure enough, we were right – McDonald’s. We made our way over there, and I grabbed a couple of seats…



…. while Mark stocked up on fries for both of us…



…. and hot chocolate, although it was a do it yourself job!



He also managed to get some of these, so I was a very happy girl!



Now despite the appearances and the description, the hot chocolate was actually very good, and I was impressed with it, a lot more than I thought I would be.

We finished up, and Mark headed off to use the toilet, discovering it was €0.30. He only had €1 on him, so proceeded to get change out of the dish, and apparently the woman had a real go at him about that. I figured I could live without going. Have I mentioned how passionately I object to paying to use a toilet whenever I’m abroad?

When Mark came back, he went to get rid of our rubbish, and a guy literally walked up and took his seat. I wasn’t aware we were leaving quite so soon, but apparently we were. As we walked out, I may have just accidentally hit him on the back as I put my handbag on… his fault, especially as I had said there was someone sitting there and he’d ignored me!

When we came out of there, I had one thing on my mind – a mulled wine with amaretto, as the kiosk we bought it from yesterday was just across the road, so off we went. Oh boy, that was good, and thankfully it didn’t go to my head as much as it had yesterday. It looked very innocent…



…. But you can tell from Mark’s reaction that it wasn’t.



Once we’d consumed that, we made our way over to the remainder of the winter wonders display. There were more chalets across the road, selling all sorts of bits and pieces.



Then there was a road that had nothing on it, although people appeared to be walking along it, and sure enough, there was more at the end of the road. It was all a bit bizarre, and I’m not too sure why the whole thing wasn’t altogether in one area. Along the non-winter wonder road though, we did find this display – at a place that sold ribs.



We made our way into the square outside St. Catherine’s church, and again there were more chalets here, selling various things.



We headed inside the church to have a look at what it was like inside, but I have to say it was very plain…



Outside was a bit more interesting…



Next: is that St. Nicholas?

[disney_duke]

Too bad you had to settle on McD's, but at least it filled the spot well.
Lots of randomness in Brussels! Expect the unexpected, I guess.

[chezp]

Originally Posted by disney_duke

Too bad you had to settle on McD's, but at least it filled the spot well.
Lots of randomness in Brussels! Expect the unexpected, I guess.

Very much so!

[Colexis Mom]

Great pictures of the cathedral! Glad you were able to find a McD's to get some hot chocolate and macarons!!

[chezp]

Ok, as there are only two instalments left to go and we head out on our next trip today, I'm going to post both and draw this trip report to a close....

Sunday 7 December – part seven: is that St. Nicholas?

We made our way into what I’d call the main area of the winter wonders exhibit, certainly in terms of the Christmas market and the number of chalets they had here. Mark found a friend!



It wasn’t much fun at times, as sometimes it got quite narrow, and it was tough to make your way through. There were also a lot of bars here, and we could both imagine it getting quite rough later on in the day when people had had a bit too much to drink. Suddenly all the police presence we’d seen over the last couple of days made a lot more sense…




This moose head moved…


I couldn’t quite work out what this area normally is, and my map was no help, but it had a hard surface put down, and some of these bits looked like maybe a fountain? Perhaps it was a park? Whatever it was, they’d obviously put a lot of work into covering it up to create this area.



We headed into the final area, which was supposed to represent Quebec City, although I found it a bit odd and a bit disappointing.



With that, we were pretty much done with our exploration of the Winter Wonders of Brussels, and being rather cold and wet by now, we made our way back to the hotel…



When we got there, we picked up our luggage, and headed off to sit in the cocktail bar, except it seemed to be closed off. I went back to reception to ask if we could go in there, and we were told that was fine. By the time we got back, no more than about two minutes after our first visit, there were two groups of people already in there – at least we were polite and enquired about whether it would be Ok to spend time in there.



I have to be honest, over the next hour, it became apparent that these groups were British and young people and they didn’t exactly give a good account of themselves. We found out that they had been out drinking until 5:00am this morning and it sounded as if their time here had basically been a drinking fest and nothing more. I never understand people like that. Why on earth bother to spend money to go somewhere foreign if you’re not going to explore and enjoy the place? To my mind, if you just want to go out drinking, you can save a lot of money just by doing that at home, but maybe I’m missing something…

I needed the toilet, and I headed off that way. I didn’t take my camera with me, and as always happens when I do that, I wished I had, as I ran into St. Nicholas waiting to go down to what seemed to be a great big children’s party in one of their conference rooms. He politely moved out of the way for me to go down, and was just descending as I came back, which was all a bit surreal.

We headed out around 5:30pm to set off for the station, and in hindsight, that was a bad decision, as you’ll see. When we left the hotel, it was absolutely tipping down with rain, and I mean tipping. It was clear this had now set in for the night. Thank goodness this hit tonight and not last night…

We went down into the Metro, and quickly found our way to our line, only this one was a bit different. It’s not often you walk down to the platform and find this…



When the train came in, we got a bit of a shock, mainly because it wasn’t actually a train – it was in fact a tram.



I don’t think I’ve ever been on an underground tram in my life, so there’s a new experience. Unfortunately, it was packed with standing room only, so that was fun, especially when we did an emergency stop in between stations. Let’s just say that had our station not been the next one after that experience, I’d have got off, as I didn’t want to risk going through that again. We got flung around, and I was very thankful I was holding on with my left arm, as the RSI (carpal tunnel to you guys) is playing up chronically in my right arm right now.

When we got off at the Brussels Midi station stop, again, it was fascinating to see the platform, as essentially you can get on and off the trams from either side – something I haven’t seen before.



We made our way out and then headed into the station. We did discuss whether or not to stop off in a chocolatier that seemed to have a good range of chocolates, including Godiva and Neuhaus, but stupidly (and it’s easy for me to say that after the event) I figured that there’d be a similar shop in the Eurostar waiting area. After all, Gare du Nord in Paris has got loads, so surely this place will too…



Next: is that the line for the Eurostar terminal?

[chezp]

Sunday 7 December – part eight: is that the line for the Eurostar terminal?

We walked up the length of the station, because of course you just know that the Eurostar terminal is going to be at the other end, don’t you? The second I saw the line coming out from it, I also knew that it had to be the place – and it was! The line moved fine, apart from the really rude French guy who made some insulting remarks about foreigners in French. I didn’t remember my repertoire of French swear words quickly enough (trust me, when you learn it as a teenager, there are a fair few ) so I just made a few choice comments in English in response, which probably wound him up even more….

When we got inside, we quickly realised that the line was actually for the 6:56pm train, not ours, which was due to depart an hour later. We moved to the side, where probably about 15 or 20 people were already waiting, and I settled down on the floor, as I’d already figured out from the time they were boarding the 6:56pm train that it would be about an hour before ours would be boarding, and a few minutes later, we heard a staff member confirm that.



A few minutes later, a woman got up from her seat and headed off to the earlier train, and I was able to snag that, which was just as well, given how long we’d be waiting. The time passed quite quickly, as we people watched, enjoying in a sadistic way seeing people turned away when they got to check-in if they were on the later train.

At one point, they seemed to close off the line, and there were still a fair few people in it for the earlier train. I checked the noticeboard and it still had another 10 minutes until they cut the line, so what about those people? Well, it looked from what we could see that they just couldn’t let anymore people in because of the line at either security or UK border control, but a couple of minutes later, they were moving them back through again. The line finally closed less than 10 minutes before the train was due to depart, which did make me laugh, given that your tickets make it clear that you must be checked-in at least half an hour prior to departure…

Finally, everyone was through, and the line that had built up of those of us on the later train started to move forward, as the woman at the front gradually put one foot in front of the other, with lots of encouragement from the rest of us. We were off, and probably waited about 10 minutes before they opened up our check-in. We watched people still going through UK border control at the exact moment that the train was due to depart, so we knew that it wouldn’t be leaving on time, but it must’ve gone not long after that, as when we eventually got through, there were no stragglers left.

First, you check in using your ticket barcode, then you go through Belgian passport control, and then UK Border Control, before you join the painful long line for security. It didn’t help that when we cleared the various passport controls, they only had one of the two security lines working. Thankfully, just as we approached it, they opened the other one, and we were quickly through.

Once we were through, it’s a nice enough place, and seemed big enough to swallow up all the passengers on a train, although I guess if it’s only big enough for the passengers on one train, they regulate it by only ever having those people through at any one time. I dread to think what this is like if there are any delays….



I headed off to the toilets, and once again left my camera, when I should’ve taken it with me. It was very bizarrely decorated in here, with some very vibrant colours, and it showcased the British way of life, and all I’m going to say is that the toilet I used had the Queen’s head on the door, which was a very weird feeling…

We had a quick look at the shop, which didn’t stock much, and the extortionately priced chocolatier. I really should’ve had a look in the one in the station earlier. Oh well, live and learn – at least I now know for next time…

We had quite a wait before they allowed us down to the train, probably only about 15 minutes before it was due to depart, and when they did, we were the first on board carriage 12…



I knew from having checked it out a couple of days earlier that the whole Standard Premier class was full, as I wasn’t able to change our seats – not that I wanted to, I just wanted to see what was available, so it came as no surprise that it was completely packed out.

We were a few minutes’ late leaving, which didn’t surprise me, given the chaos in boarding. I heard one of the staff say something about “two missing passengers in carriage 21”, but I guess they found them, as a minute or two later, they were telling us that we were ready to leave and then we were off…

It was a relatively smooth journey or as smooth as it can be with trains that are 20 years old. We got talking to one of the staff members, who’s been with Eurostar for 15 years, and she commented that the rocking motion on the train has got worse in recent years, but as she said, that’s no surprise, given the age of the trains. They’re rolling out new trains starting from 2015, and I’m sure we’ll notice a difference if we’re lucky enough to get one of the new ones.

A little way into our journey, our dinners were served up, and I don’t think I was too popular with Mark after he ended up with chicken, chick peas (which he hates) and cabbage as his non-dairy meal. Well, I didn’t want him ending up with cheese as the only choice, which is what nearly happened on the way back from Disneyland Paris last month…



Of course, you know what’s coming next… when they came to serve me, they offered me the roast beef dinner, which I know is what he’d have preferred, but heck what can you do? Thankfully, there was still a cheese option for me, which was a relief:



In fairness, I did say to him that I don’t think the cheesecake on mine would’ve done him any favours, as it was very creamy.

I ended up getting two small bottles of wine, after I asked Mark to get another on my behalf, so let’s just say once dinner was finished, I was a very happy thing!

We stopped off at Lille and Calais Fretheun on the way back, and there were a few people either getting on or off at these stops, so I guess it is worth their while stopping at these stations, although I am surprised that Eurostar still stops at Calais, given all the issues we have there. For those of you reading this in the States, you’re probably thinking The issue is that essentially we have huge migrant numbers who want to make it from continental Europe to the UK, as most of them speak English and think that the benefits culture is much more advantageous. Sadly, I can tell you from a previous job I used to do that the majority of migrants who make it to the UK end up in tragically low paid jobs, and often end up owing hundreds or thousands of pounds to those who helped to get them here, so there really isn’t the pot of gold waiting at the end of the rainbow after all.

The weather today was cold and dry at first, although with rain later, and temperatures in the high 30s, although it felt colder than that.
The best thing today was seeing a service at the cathedral.
The worst thing today was the farce with waiting for the Eurostar.
Today we tried going to the Museum of the Army
And the result was it was Ok, but there was a lot of it that was closed.
The most magical moment today was enjoying some final macaroons.

[disney_duke]

The train station seemed quite busy. Sounds like they could use more seats for those waiting!
And what a shame you didn't get your chocolate!

[chezp]

Originally Posted by disney_duke

The train station seemed quite busy. Sounds like they could use more seats for those waiting!

They certainly could!