Visiting Brussels: 48-Hours in Belgium with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Visiting Brussels: 48-Hours in Belgium with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Laurent and I both wanted to see Brussels (Belgium), which was called the European Economic Community then and the European Union now.  The car ride there was hot and sweat ran down our faces despite our air-conditioned car.

The countryside along the way featured many triangular, red rooftops and brick houses.  Church steeples were shaped like cones.

When we arrived in town, we checked into our hotel and then set out to discover what there was to see downtown.  According to the Michelin Touring Guide, Brussels is and always was a merchant town.

I am a church touring buff, so we zeroed in on the Saint Nicholas Church.  Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of merchants, which explains the dedication of a church to him in Brussels.

We walked around the Grande Place admiring the buildings.  The building with the most gold on its façade was the beernahess hall built by the Beer Brewers’ Guild.

My favorite beers from Belgium would soon become cherry-flavored Kriek and a wheat beer named Geuze.

The architecture in Brussels surprised me.  It was much flashier than Dutch architecture.  The guilds tried to outdo each other and show how rich they were in their decoration, especially with gold decoration.

From the Grande Place, we went to the Manniken Pis Fountain called “The Little Julien” fountain.  Little Julien pees water.  I am glad even supposedly sophisticated Europeans have scatological humor (potty humor).

Laurent and I went to a restaurant across from the Ministry of the Interior that had plush, comfortable booths.  Most customers must come during the day as there were few evening customers.  We almost had the whole restaurant to ourselves.

The waiter loved us for ordering full meals of three courses.  Laurent and I had fish as our main dish and drank a Muscadet from Sèvres et Loir with it.  We returned to the hotel well fed and a little exhausted from our walk around town.

We ate lunch in a pub the next day – steamed mussels, French fries with mayonnaise, and Geuze beer.  One aroma I will always associate with Brussels is that of hot oil for frying French fries.  I like French fries dunked in mayonnaise like the Beligians eat them, too.

The next day we went to the Leonidas chocolate shop and bought 1-kilo boxes of chocolate to store and eat on the hot road trip back to Paris.

By Ruth Paget, Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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