Thursday, September 18th Day I
At 4 PM,
Everyone showed up in the bar of the Novotel Tour Noir hotel in Brussels, for a meet and greet and drank a quality Belgian beer. People had flown in from all parts of the US , one person had come all the way from Brazil. Our tour guide Regnier AKA the Brute of Bruges welcomed everyone on board and after a first taste of good Belgian trappist, we set off for a guided trip to see the highlights of the Belgian capital. Traffic was pretty fluid on this Thursday evening , the weather fair and the forecasts were positive. What more could you ask for?
We stopped at the Atomium for a photo, drove along the main lanes, “avenus” they call them here (mainly built in the 19th century), saw the Royal palace and also the monument of the cinquantenaire ( a park and a giant arch built to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Independence).
Paul, our skillfull and sympathetic driver dropped us off at the Central Railway Station and we walked the rest of the way to the Grand’Place, Brussels’ central square and old market, one of the prettiest squares in Europe. We had our first beer dinner of the trip in La Rose Blanche which means: The White Rose)
After this wonderful dinner we went for a pubcrawl which brought us to nice places like “Poesjenellekelder”, a former puppet theater now beer bar with an excellent choice, also to
“ A la Mort Subite” meaning "At the Sudden Death"-- a former lambic brewery located next to an undertaker, hence the appropriate name. This is a classic in the capital and the interior is late 19th cent. And authentic. Everyone had a good night’s rest , given the fact that we had all been travelling for many hours that day and still felt a bit jetlagged.
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