Brussels, Belgium
where i had a look into the past
On the fourth day of my bikepacking trip from Amsterdam to Mons I arrived in Belgium’s capital city Brussels. The biking got a bit trickier and trickier as I approached the city center on the way to my hostel. The bike lanes ended up just being on the same road as the cars and with traffic at a standstill and narrow streets I no longer could bike so I walked the bike on the sidewalk for the last half mile or so to the hostel. After checking in, storing my bike, and cooling down from the high temperatures I went to a nearby grocery store to get dinner groceries. I came back in hopes of watching a World Cup game but the hostel didn’t have the channel. I got to talking with an American woman who had been to a couple of the games and was also wanting to watch the game. So we ended up watching a poor quality live stream of the game on the hostel computers and chatting. It was nice to connect with someone and watch the game.
I had decided to take a rest day so I could tour around the city so the next day I went off exploring. First stop was to the European Parliament’s free visitor center, the Parlementarium. They also give you a free audio guide, and I ended up spending longer there than I had anticipated cause I got caught up in reading about every picture I saw, but eventually I had to make myself leave so I could make it to the other attraction I wanted to visit. I took the subway north of the city to the Atomium. I didn’t know if I would have enough time to tour before they closed but I got a ticket anyway and took the elevator to the top. The Atomium was built for the World’s Fair that Brussels hosted in 1958. Just like Paris’ Eiffel Tour, the Atomium was the centerpiece of the fair. It represents an elementary iron crystal magnified 165 thousand million times. The name is a combination of atom and aluminum as the original structure was made out of aluminum. They didn’t expect to keep the structure up but eventually it became the symbol of Brussels and they’ve updated it since and replaced it with stainless steel. I really got into looking at the different pavilions each country built for the fair and was fascinated by the architecture and creativity of the countries at that time in the ‘50’s. I ended up being the last one there as I thought it stayed open later so I rode the escalators from sphere to sphere by myself. Some of the connecting tubes had light displays and music so it made the experience kinda trippy to be there by myself. Glad I coughed up the money for the tour. After that I headed back to the European Parliament area to check out a place I had read about that had the best Belgian frites. I ended up waiting in line for at least 30 minutes to get a cone of fries with andalouse sauce. They were good but I’m not sure if they were good enough to wait that long, but since I didn’t have any other plans it was fine for me. I headed back to the hostel to figure out what my plans would be for the next day, where I would be biking to, and to book an airbnb.
The next day I only had 16 miles to bike so I slept in, stayed till check out, and then I walked my bike to the Grand Place, the main square of town. They were building a temporary stage and stadium for an event in the square so it occupied most of the space and obstructed the views of the beautiful old buildings. At that time I also realized that Brussels was hosting the start of the famous bike race Tour de France the next weekend and I wondered if the stage was for that. I walked around the tourist shops and indulged in a Belgium waffle with speculoos cookie crumbles on top. Then as I was headed out of the city center I came across mannequin-piz, the fountain of the little boy peeing. It’s very famous in town and all the chocolate shops leading up to the fountain have chocolate mannequin-piz in their windowfronts. I didn’t know it was a thing to see so I googled it and found out they also dress the boy up in costumes throughout the year.
I’m glad I took a day off to tour around, but I was ready to get out of the city and back to my bike trip.
