Another fruity beer please...

Jenn's thoughts of the day:

Brussels' Mascot: Mannaken Pis

Julia could not wait to get up this morning.  Why you ask?  Free breakfast buffet.  It was actually quite lovely and I'm glad we attended.  It closed at 9:30 so this required us to get up at a reasonable hour, which was probably wise so we would not waste the day. 

Mondays in Brussels are typically uneventful.  Most attractions are closed in addition to many restaurants and shops other than the tourist traps in Grand Place.  As a result, today was a lazy day for us.  The weather soured a bit, so it was a good day to relax and be less culture conscious.  After our "free" breakfast, we did the walking tour of Lower Brussels. 

Julia and her waffles...all over her face

I must say, Julia is a great tour guide.  As we do guided walking tours in our Rick Steves travel guide, Julia reads the text to me as I walk so I know what I'm looking at and the history/significance behind it.  Julia really adds to my European experience and I think everyone should have a Julia on their vacation.

Julia adds her historical walking tour commentary:

Before the history, a side note...  The hotel breakfast was really good.  I didn't want to leave.  All the eggs, bacon, croissants, and fruit you can eat.  It's no Stanley's brunch in Chicago, but the best I've seen so far in Europe.  I will most definitely be maxing out the options before we leave tomorrow morning.

Side note #2 (since it's a lazy rainy day, and not much going on)... Another mystery we're trying to investigate here, besides the lazy Belgian question, is the "sausage fest" mystery, which is really two-fold.  You see, every time we've gone out in both Amsterdam and Brussels, we've noticed that the crowd is like 80% dudes.  Which raises the question - where are all the women?  Jenn's theory - which is relevant in Amsterdam - is that they're working the windows in the red light district.  But in Brussels?  Mystery.  Now, you might ask, why would two traveling girls be complaining about the overwhelming dude presence?  Well, this brings us to part 2 of the mystery... In this trip so far, we have not seen any good-looking guys.  (Which would probably be welcome news to the guys in our lives).  But you have to understand, our expectations were pretty high - we were told the Dutch men were tall and handsome.  And we figured their Belgian neighbors couldn't be too far behind.  But so far... nothing.  Mystery.

Now, on to more serious matters like the historical city walk...  We started off in Grand Place.  It was much emptier on this Monday, which still doesn't prove or disprove the lazy non-working Belgians theory, since it was a rainy day and they could have been just sleeping in.  It is a gorgeous plaza - reminiscent of Piazza San Marco in Venice... without the pigeons.  We walked through indoor shopping galleries, waffle stalls, chocolatiers, and antique lace shops.  Already full from breakfast, I somehow amazingly made room for a strawberries- and chocolate-covered waffle.  The tour ended at Mannaken Pis - the statue of a little boy peeing.  It's the symbol of Brussels, which apparently represents the city's easy-going have-fun attitude to eat, drink, and... pee.

Back to Jenn:

After witnessing the glory that is the little boy peeing, we crossed the street to a very rustic looking pub and grabbed a table by the fire to warm up.  Our table was shaped like a giant blower thing for a fireplace.  Yes, that is a technical term and the real word escapes me right now.  Julia tried another one of her fruity beers, this time a raspberry one (framboise if you are french).  She really digs these fruity beers, especially Kriek (cherry flavored).  These beers lack the higher alcohol content Belgium beers are known for, hence, I prefer not to drink them. 

We returned to our hotel early in the afternoon and crashed.   Both of us quickly fell asleep for nearly 3 hours, only waking up when the maid tried to clean our room.  We opted for new towels and passed out again.

We sat at a local café for an hour or so after our nap.  Julia and I are really into the mint tea here.  It's like a mojito without the alcohol.  They jam a glass full of fresh mint leaves and pour boiling water into it...very simple.  Some cafés add a pod of tea to it.  But really, we just like the mint part.  Yes, we are easy to please. 

For dinner, I had my heart set on going to Le Paon Royal.  I'm not sure what kind of food they serve, but the guide book said that "Vasco the family dog will welcome you with or without a reservation."  Seriously, what an amazing selling point.  I would definitely pay more money and frequent a restaurant more often (ok, I'd eat there every single day) if a dog greeted me at every meal.  Unfortunately, like most of Brussels, Vasco takes Mondays off.  I was heartbroken.  Instead, we sadly walked across the street to L'Achepot.  It even started to rain as we did so...I'm not kidding.  Very symbolic.  L'Achepot was such a treat, thankfully.  It was a quaint, family run restaurant with a Mechelin rating.  We definitely lucked out.  We shared a warm goat cheese spinach salad with prosciutto and white beans.  For our main courses, I had the traditional stoemp (mashed potatoes with vegetables and sausage) and Julia had the lamb special.  We both left this lovely restaurant stuffed...Julia could not even squeeze in a waffle on the way home for once so you know we ate well.