{"id":2935,"date":"2016-06-19T01:56:33","date_gmt":"2016-06-19T07:56:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dltwt.com\/?p=2935"},"modified":"2016-06-19T01:56:33","modified_gmt":"2016-06-19T07:56:33","slug":"beer-chocolate-waffles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/?p=2935","title":{"rendered":"Beer, Chocolate & Waffles"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you think of Belgium, you think of beer, chocolate and waffles.\u00a0 This city can easily turn anyone into a roly-poly within a few days.\u00a0 Brussels felt quite underwhelming to us but it might be because it is our 21st country (out of a total of 27) that we have visited in our 7+ months journey!\u00a0 Brussels is the headquarters of the European Union (EU) and all its current challenges.\u00a0 Fortunately, there are plenty of good restaurants and loads of pubs in the city, with 260+ Belgium beers, to wash away all the EU problems of the day.\u00a0 Brussels has excellent food and the exceptional seafood is plentiful throughout the city.\u00a0 Also known for their mussels, they were the biggest and most delicious mussels we have ever had – especially when you combine them with a hefty mug of cold, dark Belgium beer!\u00a0 We were also very surprised at the very reasonable food & beverage prices throughout the city.\u00a0 (We had a tasty, casual $10 lunch today which would have been $30 in Switzerland.)
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\nAfter arriving on Thursday afternoon, we headed out on Friday to take a walking tour of the City Center\/Old Town section of the city.\u00a0 With all the cobblestone streets in this city, it is clearly a no-no for stiletto-clad ladies.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it started pouring rain like it has almost every day for the last two weeks.\u00a0 We met our tour group at the magnificent Grand Place which is the crown-jewel of Old Town and a UNESCO Heritage Site.\u00a0 The striking gothic Town Hall also sits majestically on the square.\u00a0 We think it is the most magnificent plaza we have even seen .\u00a0 .\u00a0 .\u00a0 .\u00a0 even more spectacular than St. Mark’s Square in Venice.\u00a0 This enormous square simply captures your attention with all the ornate baroque and gothic buildings & guild houses accented with gold-leafing on the facades. While the beautiful Galleries Royales Saint Hubert on the Grand Place square is one of the oldest shopping arcades in Europe, it does not rival the Strand Arcade in Sydney, Australia.
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\nThe walking tour was somewhat underwhelming, like the city.\u00a0 Perhaps, it is because we covered quite a small area in 2 1\/2 hours and didn’t really gain any insight about the city.\u00a0 One of the most hyped “landmarks” in the city is the Manneken-Pis, the “tiny” fountain of a peeing boy known around the world as the symbol of Brussels – Really?\u00a0 Yes, a real disappointment to see in person.\u00a0 Even more ridiculous is that this little statue has a wardrobe of almost 900 costumes from around the world which are put on the little guy during certain holidays and celebrations throughout the year.\u00a0 The tiny outfits are all approved by a special government commission!\u00a0 Many of the outfits were given by heads of various countries when visiting Brussels to bring a miniature version of their national costume for the boy.
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\nAfter our tour, we strolled around both the upper and lower sections Brussels.\u00a0 The upper section of Brussels hosts numerous financial and international institutions and museums.\u00a0 Belgium seems to have trouble keeping its northern and southern halves together.\u00a0 Apparently, the French-speaking and Dutch-speaking regions are in constant battle with each other.\u00a0 Brussels is bilingual; but, French is the main language and English is commonly spoken.\u00a0 The Flemish region is north of Belgium.\u00a0 As we looked around and confirmed by our tour guide, Belgium is indeed a melting pot of nationalities.\u00a0 While the lower section of Brussels contains the fabulous Grand Place and a fairly charming Old Town, we thought upper Brussels had much more impressive buildings, up-scale shops and a real sophisticated Parisienne flavor to it.<\/p>\n

\"Brussels<\/a>
Brussels City Hall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Guild<\/a>
Guild (trade unions) offices (only one is still a guild office)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Gold<\/a>
Gold is king<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Brussel's<\/a>
Brussel’s primary plaza<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"View<\/a>
View into Brussel’s Old Town – tower is City Hall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Two<\/a>
Two hot cats<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Brussel's<\/a>
Brussel’s most infamous statue<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Gorgeous<\/a>
Gorgeous Clock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Street<\/a>
Street art is great<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Everyone<\/a>
Everyone capitalizes on the city’s most famous statue<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"War<\/a>
War Memorial<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Lower<\/a>
Lower portion of war memorial<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Different<\/a>
Different building – Museum of Musical Instruments<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"More<\/a>
More art<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Ballet<\/a>
Ballet shop<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u001f<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When you think of Belgium, you think of beer, chocolate and waffles.\u00a0 This city can easily turn anyone into a roly-poly within a few days.\u00a0 Brussels felt quite underwhelming to us but it might be because it is our 21st country (out of a total of 27) that we have visited in our 7+ months … Continue reading Beer, Chocolate & Waffles<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Si9J-Ll","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2935"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2939,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2935\/revisions\/2939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dltwt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}