Brussels: A City of Old and New

The drive from the airport to downtown Brussels was our first experience driving in Europe. The road signs are different, the red lights are much lower and off to the side, and all of the signs are in french. Oh yeah, and it was raining. Kevin did a great job though of getting us to where we needed to go safely.

Grand Place, Brussels

My first impression of Brussels is that it has an interesting mix of old and new.  Centuries old buildings are right next to buildings that are modern and clearly built within the past few decades. It's also a multicultural melting pot, kind of like New York City. We noticed a huge variety of different cultures and foods. It is the capitol of the E.U., so I guess this shouldn't be too surprising. 

Example of really old building next to brand new building.

We did some of the stereotypical touristy stuff, like take a picture at Mannequin Pis, but we also did a lot of walking and exploring of neighborhoods that appeared to be off the main tourist path. This is how we discovered one of the tastiest chocolate shops that we found, it was one of the only places we ran across where someone did not speak English at all. Here is a link to it. Wittamer.

Mannequin Pis taking a pis on Kevin's head

Me in a pretty garden (sorry, I don't know the name of the garden)

After exploring the city center we drove to the Atomium and took a tour inside. The Atomium was built for the World's Fair, call it Belgium's answer to the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Kevin, as you may or may not know, actually spent some time in Brussels when he was about 14-years-old. He actually still has a T-shirt from his first visit to the Atomium, so we had to take a photo of him with it. 

Atomium

Kevin wearing his Atomium shirt from 1999

After the Atomium, we drove to our hotel which is about an hour away in Antwerp. Kevin's friend who lives in Belgium recommended it to us, thinking we would really enjoy staying in Antwerp. He was right. More on that tomorrow...