The Airports
Arriving in Brussels wasn’t the easiest, if I’m honest. The city has two airports but all of the flights from airports near me arrived into Charleroi. The main airport, Brussels, has a train into the city taking approximately 17 minutes. Charleroi is much further out and there’s no public transport.
Your options are to book the shuttle bus with Flibco, £12.50 each way or take a taxi. I decided on the shuttle bus thinking it would be quicker and cheaper. There was massive queue for the bus, and a taxi shared with other people would’ve been faster. Flibco did get the buses going quickly, to and once on the bus the journey into the city took about 45 minutes. From landing to getting into Brussels, without picking up suitcases, it took us about an hour and a half. Do factor this delay in if flying into Charleroi when you’re spending a day in Brussels.
But first, lunch
We only had about 6 hours in the city after a morning spent travelling, so we had a bit of a whistle stop tour. The first thing we did was drop off our luggage at Belgium Midi Station. We then got the metro to Brussels Central Station, and set off walking into the middle of the city. We were hungry so looking for somewhere to eat and then we spotted a little Belgian Frites place. When in Belgium, right? I had Frites with a cheese sauce, Dad chose to have his with a curry ketchup and a beer. It was pretty cheap, filling and quick and I’d recommend. Popping into a Frites place if you’re hoping for a fast lunch is the best idea.
Grand Place
Once we’d eaten we walked down towards Grand Place. We passed the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert, a stunning 19th century shopping arcade full of plenty of chocolate shops and some others. We spent twenty minutes browsing these and trying to talk ourselves out of spending 30 euros on chocolate, which was delicious (lots of the shops offer samples) but pricy.
Grand Place was my main must see whilst spending a day in Brussels. The main square, apparently one of the world’s most beautiful squares, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It has the Town Hall, Brussels City Museum (in the old Bread House/Kings House) and the Baroque guildhalls of the former Guilds of Brussels. It’s a gorgeous cobbled square surrounded by stunning buildings. We didn’t have time to tour the Town Hall or the Museum, but if I’d had the time I would’ve done both for sure. Grand Place is a gorgeous photo spot, the most well known landmark of Brussels and in August it’s home to the flower carpet, which sounds absolutely amazing. I really wish we’d been there in August!
Mannekin Pis
Mannekin Pis is one of the things that comes up when you search for things you should see in Brussels. I knew it would be very underwhelming but I wanted to say I’d done it. My Dad spoke for both of us when we saw it though ‘is that it!?’ Weirdly, he was wearing clothes when we saw him, I’m not sure what that was all about. I probably wouldn’t tell you to go out of your way to see Mannekin Pis. It’s only about 5 minutes from Grand Place and near a few other things, so a very short detour, though.
Around the area where Mannekin Pis is, whilst we were walking we found a few bits of street art and a really cool rainbow crossing, so walking around this part of the city would be a good thing to do. If you’re a regular reader of Inside Laura’s Head you’ll know my love for street art but my Dad think it’s just graffiti, so we didn’t explore further. I regret that choice.
Belgian Beer tasting
Our unintentional last stop of the day was Cafe Delirium, which has 2004 different beers from around the world. We actually messed up here as we didn’t realise it was spread across different buildings in the same street. We went into the first part we saw and couldn’t work out where all these different beers were.
Dad had a tasting metre for 25 euros. It had 9 different small measures of different beers, the 9 they had on tap in the small part we went into. If we went again we would go into each separate part to properly get our bearings first. Dad enjoyed his beer though, although the effects of 9 quite strong beers, in measures we couldn’t figure out the size of, after a very early morning and not enough water meant our day ended after Cafe Delerium. I did take home a stuffed pink elephant from here, to remember the day by.
If I was spending a day in Brussels again there’s other things I’d definitely do. Hopefully in the future I can do a few days in Belgium again and see the Atomium. I’d like to go inside it for the mini museum and amazing view. I’d also like to see the zoo, they’ve got Pandas which makes it worth a trip for me. Theres also a Comic Strip trail where you can see lots of the themed street art, right up my street. If you had a few days in Brussels you could also think about spending a day in Ghent too.
Have you seen any of Belgium?
Leave a Reply