Belgium + The Netherlands: Days 1 + 2 -- Brussels

I am still fighting jet lag (or maybe it's just back-to-school malaise), but it's been a few years since we took a big family vacation of just the four of us, so I am intent on getting through our Beligum & the Netherlands photos! We spent our last bit of summer visiting three Belgium cities and Amsterdam over about ten days. It. Was. Awesome.

Don't get me wrong, there was plenty of bickering, whining, and emotional/physical insults and injuries. But, despite all of that, we had a total blast. We kicked off our trip by flying into Brussels, Belgium. We took a red eye in and went straight to our hotel. We'd booked the Hilton Brussels Grand Place because we had a ton of points and wanted to book the night before so we could take a nap as soon as we arrived. The hotel was nothing special, but we had a big-sized room with two bathrooms (hard to find in Europe!) and it was right smack in the middle of all the touristy stuff one would want to do.

We took a quick nap and set off on the Rick Steves' Belgium self-guided Grand Place walking tour (ALWAYS my first place to start when planning a vacation). I'm sure a lot of it was jet lag, but Brussels seemed more difficult to find our way around than other European cities we've visited. We headed first to Grand Place -- the town's main market square. It was super crowded, but lined with beautiful buildings.

Hunger set in quickly and we walked to the St. Catherine neighborhood (just off of super touristy area and full of good restaurants/bars) to check out either Fishbar Nordzee or Cremerie De Linkebeek for lunch -- both were recommended by multiple places I check. But frites + beer were really what everyone wanted, so we popped into nearby Frites Atelier (a chain, but tasty) to chill everyone out.

As an aside, for planning trip eating, I look at Rick Steves, but don't always love his restaurant recommendations. So I always also check Eater (all of the European cities aren't always as current as the states, but it's still a good place to start), Time Out, Lonely Planet, Frommers, and bloggers. This wasn't a vacation really planned around food (sometimes we do travel like that), but I kept a running list of options for lunch and also made reservations most evenings for dinner (although we often didn't keep them because we were feeling something else). I like plans on plans on plans, so I'll include a list at the end of the post of all the other food and activity options on my radar, even though we didn't actually do them.

 

The kids were anxious to move on to the Manneken-Pis -- a statue made in 1619 to provide drinking water and now a symbol for low-key Brussels and a serious tourist destination. It was also tiny. We'd heard it was smaller than everyone expected, but the kids just thought that was the funniest thing ever.

 

 

So we went out in search of bigger and better things: The Belgian Comic Strip Center. Comics are big in Belgium and it's the birthplace of some of the most popular comic characters, including the Smurfs and Tintin. I wasn't sure if we'd get to it the first day, so I didn't purchase tickets ahead of time, but we had no problem getting right in. It's a smallish museum and I didn't think it was anything special, but the kids loved it (including the museum which has a serious number of comics available to read in all sorts of languages).

I've mentioned in the past about how each of our vacations seems to be dominated by a few themes. This trip it was an ongoing A-Z game (animals, cities, mythical creatures, etc.), Cami's photography (I let her use an old i-Phone as a camera), and the sudden need of both kids to wear baseball caps incessantly.

 

In need of something more to help us power through jet lag, we moved on to chocolate! There are a million chocolate shops but we started out at Elisabeth, which seemed more artisanal and local than other options. DELICIOUS and pepped everyone up.

We walked a bit more, but went back to the hotel to rest a bit before dinner. Our original plan was to go to either Bonsoir Clara or Fin de Siecle, but everyone wanted moules + frites (see a theme here?!). We headed back towards the fish market area to La Mareé -- there were no outdoor seats available, but inside was bustling and just as yummy. The mussels were 100, but frites slightly disappointing (would be another theme to our trip). Post-din, the kids wanted waffles, so we hit up Loschurros & Waffles (seemed cheesy, but they were making them fresh, which we knew to look for). Kids reported that they were amazing.

Once they were happily chowing, we walked to the Guinness World Record holder of beer: Delirium Cafe. It reminded me of a frat party in Diagon Alley, so I stayed outside with the kids and sent Joel in to get beers. I wish I'd written down all the different beer we tried, but needless to say, they were almost universally awesome. Stuffed and happy, we walked back to our hotel for bed!

Our second day started with waffles (at Love Ciabatta) en route to The Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium. Actually comprised of three different museums, it hits Old Masters, turn-of-the-century art, and works by René Magritte (the Belgian surrealist). I'd purchased tickets ahead of time for all three (kids are free, but stop at the front desk to have a ticket printed for them -- you have to scan them in as you move through the three museums).

 

I was surprised at how much some of the Dutch Masters looked surrealesque to me. We spent a fair amount of time going through the Old Masters (audio tours always help with the kids), but no one was much into the other two museums. In fact, I'd probably skip those two unless you're really into them. 

 

Having spent too much time inside on a beautiful day, we got to walking and discovered nearby Mont des Arts Gardens. I took advantage of the kids' arguing over who could use my camera to actually get in a few photos. We also popped into the Comic Strip House to pick up a few new reads for them. 

 

We were all hungry, but wanted to stay outside, so we Uber'ed over to The Bois de la Cambre to have lunch at Chalet Robinson -- on a tiny island in the middle of a park lake! The food wasn't anything spectacular, but it was a unique spot. The kids had been all over us about renting bikes and we took advantage of the park trails to do so -- we rented a few Jump bikes and one electric scooter and let them have at it for a while. 

I was sort of cranky about the morning's art trip and wanted to check out something more fun and modern. MIMA had been on my radar and it was located in a funky and revitalizing part of town. After getting cleaned up, we hightailed it over there. Unfortunately, my French sucks and I'd misread the hours -- we arrived minutes after it closed. AGH. It wasn't something I'd planned on, so it wasn't that big of a deal. We walked around the neighborhood in search of a beverage and stopped into nearby Brussels Beer Project.

Hungry again, I'd planned on visiting the Friday night market of Chasseurs Ardenais -- word was that was how the locals kicked off their weekend. It was JAMMING with families -- parents hitting up the bar and then bread and charcuterie for the kids. We had a drink but wanted something more substantial for dinner (the market is definitely worth visiting though!) so we headed to NONA -- a Neapolitan pizza restaurant we'd spied walking through the St. Catherine neighborhood. The line was down the block, but we put our name in and headed to Bar Monk (which I also had on my list) for a quick drink. Apparently they'd told Joel not to leave the NONA area and called our name while we were gone, but they took pity on us and gave us a seat inside anyway. Pizza was YUM!

And, not to miss out on a waffle opportunity, the kids grabbed waffles on our walk back at Gaufres de Bruxelles -- a touristy, but totally fine waffle shop. And that rounded out our stay in Brussels! We had a great time, but I think you could definitely do Brussels in just one day -- hard if you come in on a red eye, but .... That being said, in addition to those mentioned above, here are the handful of other things I had on my list that we didn't get to!

Activities + Sights:
- Museé Modern Art 
- Brasserie Cantillion brewery
- Atomium 

Food + Bars:
- A La Mort Subite
- Mokafé for waffles
- Bia Mare