Day 1 of Summer Vacation - Brussels, Belgium

After spending 3 weeks in Houston, the kids and I arrived back in the Netherlands, were at home for 4 days, and then we headed towards Paris. We left the house Saturday morning and drove a little over 3 hours to Brussles, Belgium. Thank goodness for TomTom. I don't know how we would get anywhere in Europe without it. It was not only awesome while we were driving, since we can't read most of the signs, but it was also good while we were walking around the city.

We checked into the hotel and then it was off on a walking tour of the city. Our hotel was near the Grand Place, Brussel's main square which is the heart of the old town and Brussel's greatest sight. It is the open area between the Town Hall and the King's House (administrative building). There are definitely some interesting things going on there with some interesting (eccentric) people. Bordering the square are several lace shops and chocolate shops, including the first Godiva store. Lauren and I went into one of the lace shops to browse. There was a woman in the back of the store making some lace and she asked Lauren to help her. I was amazed at the detail work, not something I could do. That was pretty neat and Lauren enjoyed it.

After we walked through Grand Place and took pictures, then we headed down a street to the Manneken-Pis. This is the city mascot, a fountain of a little 2-foot high boy peeing. VIP's from all over the world send costumes for the statue to wear (he has over 700 of them). The city commissioned the statue to show the joie de vivre of living in Brussels - where happy people eat, drink..and drink...and then pee.

From there we walked to Upper Town which is full of palaces and museums. We didn't visit any of these, we just walked through a few gardens, visited the Notre-Dame du Sablon Church and the Place du Petit Sablon (a beautiful neighborhood garden).

At that point we were getting pretty hungry for dinner, so we walked back to Grand Place and ate outside at a restaurant on the square (one of my favorite things to do in Europe). After dinner, we found our way back to a waffle stand and ordered the deluxe Belgian waffle. It had strawberries, bananas, ice cream, caramel, chocolate and whipped cream. It was just as good as you can imagine! If that wasn't enough, we then headed to the Godiva store where Lauren picked out a few pieces of chocolate that she wanted, of course they were heart shaped, and I selected some chocolate covered strawberries. Sufficiently stuffed, we walked back to the hotel, showered, and got to bed so that we could head off to Paris the next morning.

Check back soon for day 2 details!